The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt Read Online Free PDF Page A

be taking them to the infirmary, Colonel-sahib.”
    “Yes.” He met the man’s eyes, nodded. “Thank you.”
    Numbly, he turned. Releasing Rafe, Del led the way back to the barracks.
    As they climbed the shallow steps, Rafe, as usual, put their tortured thoughts into words.
    “For the love of God, why ?”
     
    Why?
    The question rebounded again and again between them, refashioned and rephrased in countless ways. James might have been younger than the rest of them, but he’d been neither inexperienced nor a glory-hunter—and he wasn’t the one they called “Reckless.”
    “So why in all hell did he make a stand, rather than at least try to escape? While they were moving, they had a chance—he had to have known that.” Rafe slumped in his usual chair at their table in the officers’ bar.
    After a moment, Del answered, “He had a reason—that’s why.”
    Logan sipped the arrack Del had ordered instead of theirusual beer. The bottle stood in the center of the table, already half empty. Eyes narrowed, he said, “It had to have been something about the governor’s niece.”
    “Thought of that.” Gareth set down his empty glass and reached for the bottle. “I asked the sowars—they said she rode well, like the devil. She didn’t hold them up. And she tried to veto James’s plan to stay behind, but he pulled rank and ordered her on.”
    “Humph.” Rafe drained his glass, then held out his hand for the bottle. “So what was it? James might be lying in the infirmary very dead, but damned if I’m going to accept that he stayed back on a whim—not him.”
    “No,” Del said. “You’re right—not him.”
    “Heads up,” Rafe said, his gaze going down the verandah. “Skirts on parade.”
    The others turned their heads to look. The skirts in question were on a slender young lady—a very English lady with a pale, porcelain face and sleek brown hair secured in a knot at the back of her head. She stood just inside the bar and peered through the shadows, noting the groups of officers dotted here and there. Her gaze reached them in the corner, paused, but then the barboy came forward and she turned to him.
    But at her query, the barboy pointed to them. The young lady looked their way, then straightened, thanked the boy and, head high, glided down the verandah toward them.
    An Indian girl swathed in a sari hovered like a shadow behind her.
    They all rose, slowly, as the young lady approached. She was of slightly less than average height; given their size, and that they were all looking as grim as they felt, they must have seemed intimidating, but she didn’t falter.
    Before she reached them, she halted and spoke to her maid, instructing her in soft tones to wait a little way away.
    Then she came on. As she neared, they could see her face was pale, set, features tightly, rigidly controlled. Her eyes were faintly red-rimmed, the tip of her small nose pink.
    But her rounded chin was set in determined lines.
    Her gaze scanned them as she came to the table, circling, not on their faces, but at shoulder-and-collar-level—reading their rank. When her gaze reached Del, it stopped. Halting, she lifted her eyes to his face. “Colonel Delborough?”
    Del inclined his head. “Ma’am?”
    “I’m Emily Ensworth, the governor’s niece. I…” She glanced briefly at the others. “If I could trouble you for a word in private, Colonel?”
    Del hesitated, then said, “Every man about this table is an old friend and colleague of James MacFarlane. We were all working together. If your business with me has anything to do with James, I would ask that you speak before us all.”
    She studied him for a moment, weighing his words, then she nodded. “Very well.”
    Between Logan and Gareth sat James’s empty chair. None of them had had the heart to push it away. Gareth now held it for Miss Ensworth.
    “Thank you.” She sat. Which left her looking directly at the three-quarters empty bottle of arrack.
    With the others, Del