By Fire and by Sword by Elaine Coffman Read Free Book Online Page A

entered little more than two hours ago.
    The driver nodded at her as she passed, then buttoned his heavy caped coat and gathered the reins inhis rough hands. The door of the coach was closed with a bang. Captain Fischer handed her inside, and without anything further to be said, he closed the door with a loud snap, while the horses stamped restlessly as the postilions scrambled onto their backs. At that moment, the sudden clang of church bells began to ring throughout the city. She waited until they stopped, then leaned forward so her face was framed in the window and said, “Goodbye, Captain Fischer.”
    Before he could reply, she heard the driver crack his whip, and they were off with a sudden lurch that had Kenna grabbing for a handhold. She looked out the window and saw Captain Fischer was smiling, and then he gave her a salute.
    The sun was beginning to warm things a bit by the time she was completely settled in the coach. She had placed her traveling bags on the opposite seat, after she verified that her money and jewelry were still there.
    She was now ready to face the second part of her journey. With a sigh, she leaned against the well-padded cushions and considered herself off to a new beginning, and a new life. She thought of the purpose that had taken her away from her family, and brought her to France, but such thoughts were painful, and she forced her attention, instead, to what she would be doing once she arrived in Paris.
    She relaxed, serenaded by the rattle and clank of chains, the crunching of wheels skimming over rocks, the snorts of straining horses as they worked to gain momentum and settle into their collars.
    In spite of her anticipation of the future she was racingto meet, her thoughts fell back to the most recent past. A whispering of a name flitting through her consciousness…
    Colin Montgomery.
    She imagined him lingering in the shadows, sphinx-like. Colin Montgomery, an enigma sifting through her mind like dust through a locked window—an ingenious assembly of handsome features that both attracted and frightened her. And then it vanished like the flash of a falling star, gone before she could gauge its brightness.
    He stood alone now, enclosed in the purple shadows of her attraction, his appeal strong and magnetic, drawing her deeper into her fascination with him. She knew it was the unknown quality that was seductive, for what woman would not be drawn toward a man surrounded by mystery as thick as a Highland mist?
    She recalled the way he looked, his body long-shanked, hard and aggressively male, the image sending a shivering quiver of awe and fear spiraling down her spine. Her body coiled tightly at the memory of his dark, glossy hair, tied back, the lean hardness of muscle, the perfect symmetry of elongated bone, the startling contrast between broadness of blade and slimness of flank.
    She gave pause to the direction of her thoughts. Just why was she still conscious of him; why, after their brief meeting, was her mind still held captive? Was it because he was part rake, part rogue and all masculinity? The coiling thread of desire wrapped itself around her when she considered the truth: it was because hewas a man who indulged without restraint in all the physical pleasures of life.
    Even in his inebriated state, he stood out among the men she knew, and he had come out of nowhere, like lightning that strikes from very far away. Insistent, powerful and easily read, it was the soft seduction in his eyes that captured her.
    “That is why a woman in possession of a face and body such as yours should never travel alone. Some men find the combination irresistible.”
    Even now, the sonorous sound of his voice enticed her. Puzzling, inexplicable, he was a challenging riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
    And she was simply enraptured.
    She was smart enough to realize being besotted with a man she would never see again was a futile undertaking, so she forced her thoughts away from him to focus