The Bride Wore Pearls Read Online Free PDF

“And now, ma’am, if you will look to your left, you can see the Tower of London.”
    “Thank you,” she said tartly. “But I have no interest whatever in tourist attractions.”
    “Hmm.”
    Then Welham simply set his hat back on his head and tipped it forward over his eyes.
    Anisha forced her gaze to the window and watched the grim gray walls go flying past. They rumbled on in silence for some time, through the seemingly endless quagmire of streets, until Welham actually began to snore quietly.
    She glanced across the carriage in exasperation. His chin had fallen to his chest, and his fingers were interlaced over his waistcoat. Really, how could he sleep? And how irritatingly large London was! Were they never to arrive at wherever it was they meant to go? Impatience bit like a horsefly at the back of her neck.
    Then she realized, suddenly, the obvious. That she had just shot the messenger and now burned to sink her claws into the arrogant ass that had sent him.
    “Sergeant Welham,” she said a little loudly.
    “ Umph —?” His head jerked up, his elegant hat tumbling onto his lap. “We there?”
    “No, I merely wish to beg your pardon,” she said. “I spoke wrongly. I’m angry with my brother. And you have been all kindness. I am sorry.”
    “Hmm,” he said again, slapping the hat back on.
    “Now this lovely old church we are passing,” she said, “what is it called?”
    “Oh, overdone, my dear,” he said darkly. “You have no interest in tourist attractions, I seem to recall.”
    She blinked her eyes twice, slowly. “I see you do not mean to let me out of this graciously,” she said. “I deserve it, I daresay.”
    “St. Clement, then.” His voice was gruff. “It is called St. Clement Danes.”
    “And would it be your church?” she asked conversationally.
    “Lord, no.” He lifted both his dark, slashing eyebrows. “Besides, London has a thousand, and I haven’t darkened a church door in . . . aye, well, I don’t know how long.” Suddenly, his shoulders fell, and he scrubbed a hand almost pensively around his jaw. “I will do, though, before long, I fear. And far too soon, at that.”
    Anisha realized at once what he was speaking of. Welham’s father, Raju had written, was dying.
    “I was sorry to hear about your father,” she murmured. “My brother’s last letter reached me in Lisbon. He said the Earl of Lazonby’s health had collapsed.”
    “Aye, broken down by his years of suffering,” said Welham grimly, “and his unrelenting efforts to get my conviction overturned.”
    “I am so very sorry,” she said again. “Raju says the title will go to you. I’m sure you take no pleasure in it.”
    “Aye, but I shall have a few more months, if God is kind,” he said, his eyes no longer smiling. “And no, I take no pleasure whatever from it. He is scarcely sixty, and now we’re both to be cheated of his last years—and someone, eventually, is going to pay for it.”
    Anisha had no answer to that. Moreover, she had no doubt he meant it. Welham looked like a man who made promises, not idle threats.
    Welham turned his gaze to the window, staring out almost blindly. With the wintery light casting a shadow beneath his cleanly chiseled cheekbone, his profile held such a stark, hard beauty she scarcely recognized the laughing man who had stepped into her cabin this morning. And that mouth—oh, that lush, lovely mouth! It was the only thing that softened him; saved him, perhaps.
    Ruthlessly, Anisha forced her gaze away, heat rushing over her. Good Lord, she was not some grass-green goose of a girl to be swayed by a man, no matter his rugged good looks—and she sensed enough of human nature to recognize torment and trouble when she saw it in the flesh.
    She turned to the opposite window and tried to think of what was to come. It was spitting an icy rain now, the promise of the pink sunrise having turned to leaden skies with a wind that thrashed the bare tree branches and whistled