The Escape (Survivor's Club) Read Online Free PDF

one could say she had not given her husband all the attention she possibly could while he lived. And no one could say she had not mourned him properly since his death. No one could even say she had been glad of his death. She had never, ever wished him dead, even at those times when she had wondered if she had any reserves of energy left with which to tend him and be patient with his endless peevishness. She had been genuinely saddened by the death of the man she had married just seven years before with such high hopes for a happily-ever-after.
    No, she was not going to feel guilty. She
needed
this—this pleasure, this peace, this quiet restoration of her spirits.
    It was precisely as she was thinking these tranquil thoughts that her peace was shattered in a sudden and most alarming manner.
    Tramp had just returned with the stick she had thrown for him, and she was bending to retrieve it with one hand while she held her posy in the other, when it seemed that a thunderbolt came crashing down upon them from the heavens, only narrowly missing them. Samantha shrieked with terror, while the dog went into a frenzy of hysterical barking and leaped aimlessly in every direction, bowling Samantha right off her feet. Her buttercups went flying about in a hail of yellow, and she landed with a painful thud on her bottom.
    She gaped in mingled pain and terror and discovered that the thunderbolt was in fact a large black horse, which had just leapt over the hedge very close to where she had been standing. It might have kept on going,since it appeared to have landed safely enough, but Tramp’s barking and leaping and perhaps her own scream had sent it into a frenzy of its own. It whinnied and reared, its eyes rolling wildly and fearfully, as the rider on its back fought for his seat and brought it under control with considerable skill and a whole arsenal of curse words most foul.
    “Are you out of your
mind
? Are you quite
insane
?”
    “Bring that blasted animal under control, woman, damn it.”
    Samantha shouted her rhetorical questions and the man bellowed his imperious command simultaneously.
    Tramp was standing his ground and barking ferociously, alternately with baring his teeth and growling in a fearsome manner. The horse was still prancing nervously, though it was no longer rearing.
    Woman?
    Blasted animal?
    Damn it?
    And why was the man not leaping from the saddle to help her to her feet and assure himself that he had not done her any fatal injury, as any true gentleman would?
    “Tramp,” she said firmly, though certainly not in obedience to the rider’s command. “That is quite enough!”
    A rabbit chose that moment to pop up on the horizon, ears pointed at the heavens, and Tramp dashed off in joyful pursuit, still barking and still convinced he could win the race.
    “You might have
killed
me with your irresponsible stunt,” Samantha shouted above the din. “Are you
quite
mad?”
    The gentleman on the horse’s back glared coldly at her. “If you are unable to control that pathetic excuse for a dog,” he said, “you really ought not to bring him out where he can upset horses and livestock and endanger human life.”
    “Livestock?” She looked pointedly to left and right to indicate that there was nary a cow or bull in sight. “
He
endangered human life? Your own, I suppose you mean, since mine clearly means nothing to you. Allow me to pose a question. Was it you, sir, or was it Tramp who chose with reckless unconcern to jump a hedge without first ascertaining that it was safe to do so? And was it you or he who then hurled the blame upon the innocent person who was almost killed? And upon a dog which was happily at play until he had the life virtually scared out of him?”
    She got to her feet without taking her eyes off him—and without wincing over what felt like a bruised tail-bone. Perhaps it was a good thing he had
not
dismounted to help her up, she thought as wrath took the place of terror. She might have