Read Online Come the Dawn by Christina Skye - Free Book Online Page A

turned sharply, tugging her cloak about her while she studied the nearby streets.
    There was nothing.
    She hurried on, her lacquered walking stick tight in her hands, ready to be used as a weapon if it became necessary.
    Again and again her thoughts were drawn back to a hard, tanned face and a silver scar that coiled about one jaw. Thorne’s voice had been so utterly cold, so lacking in affection that she could not believe he was lying. He seemed completely the stranger he said he was, a man whose memories had been wiped clean and whose heart was gutted. India shivered, remembering the endless rows of wounded, carried back in carts from the horrors of the battlefield at Waterloo. Had a man fallen there and been left to die, beneath a pile of other bodies…
    Yes, India could believe that such horror might well strip the mind clean of memory. And what was she to do now? She had moved through her life half asleep since the day Devlyn Carlisle had left her in Brussels. In the wake of his death, she had closed herself away from happiness of any sort. India saw now that she had set about creating her own version of death in the last months. Locked in a world with no hope and no joy, she had given up being alive.
    She gave a wild, ragged laugh. But her husband, come back from the dead, had taught her a painful lesson. She could finally return to life with a full heart. She had no more reason to mourn.
    Maybe it was better this way, India told herself. She was bone and blood a Delamere, and her birthright made her reckless and proud, driven by different passions from others of her acquaintance. India vowed there would be no more grieving for her!
    She would start by attending the masquerade at Vauxhall that Ian had mentioned to her several days before. If her brother balked at taking her, she would simply go by herself!
    India was smiling at the thought when she rounded the corner and found two surly individuals blocking her way.
    “What’s this we have here, Graves?” The taller of the two, his face nearly hidden beneath a battered brown hat, strutted toward India.
    “A nice bit of pigeon for the plucking, that’s what,” his companion hissed, laughing. He brushed one hand along India’s shoulder, close enough for her to smell his breath, sour with whiskey.
    India’s fingers tightened on the walking stick. “I advise you to move out of my way.”
    “Oh, ho,” the bigger man said, easing closer. “So we are to be out of the lady’s way, are we? Not just yet, I think. And not without the purse that no doubt lies hidden beneath yer skirts.”
    India raised her walking stick and leveled it at the man’s chest. “Be gone with you, or I shall have to use this.”
    “Behold me quaking in my shoes, my lady,” her attacker muttered. He was smiling when he reached out to the walking stick or at least to where the walking stick should have been. But in a twinkling the polished wood was there no more. Instead it was flashing through the air and slamming down against his shoulder. Cursing, the man toppled to the cold street.
    India turned to glare at her second assailant. “Take your friend and be off with you, or I shall do the same to you.”
    “I’d like to see yer bleeding try it.”
    India frowned as the man came closer. She had learned her skills on the sandy plains outside Delhi years before, when her father had been host to an Indian master of ancient fighting techniques. India had learned well, and soon could handle the most innocent stick with deadly accuracy. Even Ian did not slight her abilities, and they continued to enjoy sparring together. India was planning her strategy when a new figure hurtled out of the shadows behind her.
    A pistol glinted in the moonlight. “Move away from her.”
    Thorne? India turned, brow raised. What was he doing here? The man must have followed her all the way from his town house. Truly, it was the outside of enough. India had been taking care of herself quite nicely without his