Read Online Captain's Bride by Kat Martin - Free Book Online Page A

the basket. “Pepper. Let’s hope
this works.” He set the basket in the foot box of the calèche,
sprinkled the pepper all over the tool box, rearranged the canvas
flap, and climbed back on his horse just as twenty sweat-covered
riders burst through the woods and onto the road. A short, stout
man held five baying hounds by the end of their taut leashes, and
the cacophony of snorting horses and heaving men threatened to
overwhelm Glory’s senses.
    From the center of the group, Thomas Jervey, a
muscular man in his mid-forties who owned a neighboring plantation,
approached.
    “Miz Summerfield.” Though the air was cool, he lifted
his felt hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with an elbow.
“Sorry to bother you, but the hounds have been following that Nigra
who ran from Buckland Oaks.” The dogs strained at their leashes,
baying and barking furiously at the driver’s seat of the carriage.
“They seem to have followed him here. Mind tellin’ me what you’re
doin’ out so late?”
    “I was visiting Miriam Allstor. One of the carriage
wheels broke on my way home. Mose just got it fixed.” She pointed
to the wheel, broken and lashed haphazardly back together on the
right side of the calèche. “Since I was late getting home, Captain
Blackwell came out to escort me back.”
    “Mind if we take a look?” Jervey asked, and Glory
felt the color drain from her face.
    “Not in the least,” Nicholas put in, dismounting from
the black and coming to stand near the front of the carriage. The
stout man holding the dogs brought them around to the driver’s
seat, and Glory thought her heart would stop.
    Nicholas lifted the flap, revealing the lunch, while
the dogs, standing on their hind legs, took several deep sniffs.
Then they sneezed and howled pitifully, turned tail, and ran in the
opposite direction, pulling the stout man along behind them. Seeing
the wicker basket Nicholas had opened to reveal the chicken and a
bit of spilled pepper, the men chuckled softly among
themselves.
    “Sorry to bother you, Miz Glory,” Thomas Jervey said.
“But you can’t be too careful.” He turned toward Nicholas. “You’ll
see she gets home safely, Captain?”
    Nicholas nodded. He swung himself up on the black,
his dark cloak billowing out behind him. “Good luck with your
hunt,” he told Jervey. Then he signaled for Mose to take the
carriage on home.
    Glory leaned back against the seat, her heart still
hammering wildly. The carriage rolled along the road in silence for
several miles, until Nicholas motioned for Mose to stop. After
dismounting, he tied the stallion to the calèche, and joined Glory
inside the open rig.
    “Mind telling me what that was all about?” he asked,
settling his lanky frame against the seat.
    If the day had been trying so far, Glory now found it
exceedingly so. She could feel the captain’s powerful presence—and
his muscular thigh pressing against hers through the folds of her
skirt.
    “I wish I could tell you, Captain. But it all
happened so quickly. I just did what seemed right at the moment.”
Nicholas regarded her closely. “You risked your reputation and your
father’s standing in the community to help a runaway slave? Only
yesterday you sent a man on a four-mile walk just so you wouldn’t
soil your riding habit.”
    “Things aren’t always as they appear, Captain.
Sometimes Jonas, the overseer, is a little too eager with the whip.
I believed the boy would rather take a four-mile walk than nurse
the cuts on his back.”
    Nicholas felt a little of his cynicism slip away.
Maybe there was more to the girl than he thought. Moonlight
filtered between the clouds, and Nicholas noticed the way the soft
light glistened on her smooth cheeks and lit the blue of her eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman more full of surprises than
you, love,” he said softly. Glory’s cheeks pinkened at his use of
so intimate a word, and he felt that same pull of attraction he’d
felt before.
    “I’m