The Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

up. “You’ve had the fever.”
    The fever. Oh.
    “ Wh -where are my clothes? My cloak?” The letters. Her money. She’d had letters in her cloak pocket, and enough coin to last her a bit, hadn’t she?
    He shook his head. “Your clothing was quite ruined, Madam. As for your cloak it is drying on the back of that chair over there.”
    “My letters? Money?”
    His eyes narrowed on hers. “All in good time. As with you, your belongings are safe here.”
    Where did he say here was?
    “You’ve been unconscious for an entire day.”
    “I hit something, a rock or tree.” She remembered rolling and rolling and slamming into something. Emily looked at this man perched on the edge of this bed. “I jumped from the carriage.”
    A look that could only be shock crossed his features, both brows arched, wrinkling his forehead. “Jumped?”
    She was tired. “Yes, jumped. I did not want to wait until the man got control of the horses. They’d kill me then.”
    A knock sounded at the door. The man rose and strode across the room. She could hear him whispering, but it was too dark to see to whom he was speaking. The room was in shadows, but still she knew wealth when she saw it. The bed hangings of deep blue, looked to be silk, shot with golden threads. The feather mattress was so thick it all but swallowed her. Cool sheets, soft against her bare skin, cradled her.
    In moments he was back, carrying a tray.
    “There is tea here with medicine in it. The doctor left it, and you’re going to drink it all down. I want you well.” The order sounded stern, but lacked the hardened edge she was used to in being told what to do.
    Chamomile wafted up from the teacup and mixed with another heady scent. He sat on the bed and lifted her head in the crook of his arm. Emily grasped the blanket to her naked chest and drank the brew in sips. She shook her head. “No more.”
    He glanced in the cup. “I think that’s enough in any case.” He set it aside and looked back at her. He still held her and she tried to shift away. Carefully, he eased her down and brushed her hair back. “So, you jumped out of a moving carriage?”
    Whether it was condescension or slight amusement, she couldn’t tell. “A runaway carriage. The shots spooked the horses.”
    A grin flickered at the corner of his mouth. “My pardon. A runaway carriage.”
    “Yes. Then…” The voices and the pain in her shoulder. She looked down, seeing and feeling the bandage against her skin.
    “Then?”
    “It was raining and the ground seemed to be moving. Someone said, ‘Stupid wench’ . And then the other voice asked the first man if he was out of his mind.” She yawned and shivered. “That’s all I remember.”
    “That you remember anything is a blessing.” He looked down at her hand. “Were you traveling with your husband?”
    Why did he want to know?
    “I am a widow.”
    “I thought as much.” He looked back at her and she realized his eyes were a deep dark blue framed with thick, spiky black lashes. “And where does this brave and impetuous widow hail from? I can’t quite place your accent.”
    “Maryland,” she said, closing her eyes. The pain in her arm fired in a hot pulse through her body.
    “The Colonies?” The shock in his voice made her open her eyes.
    “America,” she corrected. “And regardless of what the colonel said, you are not going to win the war. It’s already…” A shot rang out. The Colonel weaved and fell . “The Colonel…he’s…is he?”
    His eyes softened. “Dead? Yes, unfortunately.” He tilted his head, a grin at the edge of his mouth. “A Colonial.”
    “Yes, as I was saying,” she cleared her throat, “the war’s over.”
    “A Colonial,” he mumbled.
    “American.”
    “I thought you were all uncivilized tea dumpers.”
    She glared at him. The man gave a new meaning to the word arrogance. It all but oozed out of him and his perfectly clipped words, and the way he sat on the side of the bed as though he had