A Winter's Knight: A Regency Romance by Elizabeth Cole Read Free Book Online Page B

affections while engaged to another woman. Wordlessly, she crumpled the unread letter from him in her hand, and then tossed it into the fireplace.
    * * * *
    A few days later, Tony looked through the post again. Still no letter from Phoebe. One day, he could understand. Even two. But this boded ill. Fresh off his harsh but enlightening interview with Angela, he was clearer in his own heart about what he wanted than at any time in his life, and threw himself into the tasks necessary to gaining it. If something had happened to Phoebe…
    Throwing caution to the winds, Tony got together the bare minimum of items he would need for the journey to Chipping Norton, threw everything in a small case and hired a carriage to leave that afternoon.
    “Late in the day,” the driver noted. “You’ll need to spend one night in an inn. Cost you extra. If you wait till tomorrow…”
    “Never mind the cost,” Tony growled. The driver, seeing the man’s eyes, wisely shut up. “Take your bag for you, sir?”
    Tony handed the man his bag and got into the carriage. They started off with a jerk and the driver kept as fast a pace as he dared. When it grew dark, they would be forced to slow down.
    Inside the coach, Tony alternately worried that something awful had happened to Phoebe, only to wonder if he had wildly misread her. Perhaps, in the cold light of reality, she had decided that she didn’t care for him that way. Was he presuming too much? But then he remembered her last kiss and went back to worrying.
    Shortly before noon the next day, Tony arrived in Chipping Norton. At the inn, he found a horse to ride and went straight to the Hartridge home. Mrs Brown must have heard the horse clip-clopping down the drive, because she was waiting, expression dark, when he dismounted.
    “Is Phoebe here?” he asked, cutting through the formalities.
    Mrs Brown looked at him for a long moment before she answered. “When did you leave London?”
    “Last evening,” Tony said, distracted. “I must see Phoebe. Is she…is she alright?” Frowning, he noticed that Mrs Brown looked perfectly calm, which she surely would not be if anything were wrong with her chick.
    “She’s gone for a ride, I believe,” Mrs Brown said, very coolly. “Came in a hurry, you did.”
    “I hadn’t gotten any letters for the past three days. I was concerned…”
    “She didn’t write any letters in the last three days.”
    “No?” Tony frowned again.
    All this time Nan had been thinking. A man doesn’t ride from one corner of the country to another in one day and night for no reason. And Captain Sterling had never struck her as a rake. Nan decided to trust him. “She was rather upset by some news she’d gotten from a friend in London. Something about an engagement to a Captain Sterling.”
    Tony groaned, cursing his terrible luck.
    “But perhaps she didn’t get the full story?” Nan continued, with a faint tone of encouragement.
    “I can guarantee that,” Tony muttered.
    “Perhaps you’d like to explain it to her yourself.”
    “Where is she?”
    “She’ll be back by sundown, I’m sure.”
    “I can’t wait that long.”
    “Then you’ll simply have to find her.” Nan seemed to think that foolish.
    Tony mounted up in a second.
    The housekeeper tried to stop him. “Hold on. She could be anywhere within three hours’ ride by now. Do you even know where to start looking, Captain?”
    “Yes,” he said with absolute certainty. “I do.” And then he turned and rode off.
    Tony slowed only upon reaching the clearing where he’d first seen Phoebe, alone and in danger. In a moment, he’d caught sight of the same dark green riding habit she’d been wearing that fateful day. With a brief word of command to the horse, he followed after it.
    It only took a moment, really. Phoebe, shocked when she’d seen him coming, had completely forgotten that she even had the means to get away. Instead, she sat on her horse, still as a statue.
    “Phoebe,” Tony