Never Less Than a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

as soon as she regained her footing.
    “The chances of them finding us are vanishingly small.” He dismounted himself. “If they do, I shall deal with them in a more emphatic fashion.”
    “Four to one odds don’t bother you?” she asked, more curious than surprised.
    “They’re amateurs. I’m not.” He unfastened the saddlebags and carried them into the hut. “Better and better. There’s a small fireplace and some stacked wood. If I give you my tinderbox, can you start a fire while I tend to Turk?”
    She followed him into the hut, glad to be inside. “Do you think a fire is safe?”
    “We’re well concealed here, and the wind will carry any smoke away from the road.” He handed her the tinderbox and moved toward the door. “There will be rain by morning, and that will wipe out any hoof marks if they look along the road then.”
    As she knelt by the hearth, a glimmer of moonlight glowed through a parchment-covered window. The single-room hut had an air of disuse, but at least it was dry and they were protected from the wind. Though her hands were clumsy with cold and exhaustion, she had a small fire burning by the time Randall joined her.
    He opened his saddlebags and pulled out a small blanket. “Take this.”
    She returned his coat, then wrapped herself in the coarse woolen fabric as she settled to one side of the fire. Randall dug into the saddlebags again. “Are you hungry?”
    She thought about it. “Starving, actually.”
    “Here’s some cider.” After giving her the jug, he used his knife to divide bread and cheese.
    She sipped the tangy cider gratefully. “You are well prepared. Military experience again, I presume.”
    “The first lesson of campaigning is to insure supply lines.” He handed her chunks of bread and cheese, setting some aside for himself and repacking the rest.
    She bit into the cheese with more enthusiasm than elegance. Her energy began to revive as she ate. There was silence as they demolished the bread and cheese. The cider was cool, tart, and welcome.
    In the light from the fire, Randall’s handsome face was remote and enigmatic. She had no reason to fear him when he’d just saved her, but he was too powerful, too male, to be comfortable company. Even with her eyes closed, his presence was as vivid as the heat of the fire.
    She wrenched her thoughts away from the major. The urgent issue was deciding what to do now that she was not heading to likely death.
    She was so absorbed that she jumped when Randall asked, “Do you know why those men kidnapped you?”
    He had a right to know, but she hated revealing the sordid story of her life. “I do.”
    “Jenny said they called you a murderess,” he said bluntly. “Is that true?”
    Her mouth tightened as she met his intent gaze. “Yes.”

Chapter 5
    Randall studied Julia’s delicately lovely face. It was very hard to imagine her as a murderess. “Whom did you kill?”
    Her gaze slid away to the fire. “My husband.”
    “Did he need killing?” he asked coolly.
    Her head shot up again. “No one has ever asked that.”
    “Anyone can react with violence if sufficiently provoked. You don’t strike me as a woman who would kill for anything less than the most drastic of reasons.” He offered the cider jug again. “Tell me about it.”
    Relaxing a little, she took a long swallow of cider. Had she expected him to toss her back onto the road for the kidnappers to find? As a soldier, he’d had more experience with killing than most, and accepted that sometimes it was necessary.
    He’d wondered what Julia Bancroft’s story was. Now he’d find out. Perhaps that would explain why he found her so damned compelling.
    She pulled the blanket tight around her as if it was a shield. “I was barely sixteen when I married. The match was arranged. Everyone agreed it was very suitable.”
    Randall put another branch on the fire. “How did you feel about the match?”
    “I’d been raised to believe that arranged marriages were