Call of the Wild Wind (Waterloo Heroes Book 2) by Sabrina York Read Free Book Online

she would remind him. She would soothe him. She would nurse him back to the fullness of the man he had once been.
    They would marry—Scotland was a lovely place to be married, she’d heard—and then she would return to London, victorious and redeemed. Everyone who had ever doubted her or pitied her would finally realize…her and Peter’s love was a timeless thing. Nothing could tear them apart. Not even war.
    It was, perhaps, a bad omen that a shot rang out on the tail end of that very thought. Everyone in the coach jerked awake, eyes wide and mouths agape.
    “What was that?” Mr. Cole-Winston burbled.
    A deep, ominous voice responded. 
    “Stand and deliver!”
    Britannia froze. She’d read about highwaymen in the papers and once or twice in a novel, but she’d never met one before.
    In all honesty, she’d never had any kind of adventure before, so she was torn between fear…and a strange elation. It was probably unwise to find such a predicament exciting, but somehow it was.
    A highwayman. Imagine that.
    Thank heaven she’d hidden all her money in her shoes. No one would think to look there.
    The coach rolled to a stop and after a moment, the door whipped open and their assailant poked his head in.
    Britannia’s exhilaration deflated as though it had been pricked with a pin. The highwayman was not at all what she had expected. Somehow she’d imagined he would be tall and dark and mysterious, but he was not. He was rather short and stout, with troll-like limbs and a scarred, scruffy face half-covered by a beard that probably held remnants of a weeks’ worth of meals. Oh. And his breath… It was noxious.
    How disappointing.
    He closed one eye and peered at the occupants of the coach, then grunted and said, “All right. Out. All of you.” He waggled a pistol to underscore his command.
    Because Britannia was closest to the door, she slipped out first, which was a good thing, because as the others filed out, she was able to position herself behind them. It seemed sensible, for if this brigand decided to shoot, a bullet would have to pass through the considerable bulk of Mr. Cole-Winston to reach her. She tugged the brim of her hat down as well. Though she knew it did not make her invisible, it made her feel less conspicuous.
    “Empty your pockets,” the highwayman said with no preamble. He moved from one man to the next, collecting their purses, and the occasional pocket watch. When he came to Britannia, who had nothing but pennies to offer, he snorted and looked her up and down.
    She had a moment of terror that he might see her for what she was, but he did not. When he turned away, she nearly collapsed in relief.
    Until, of course, he issued his next command.
    “All of you,” he barked. “Strip.”
    Oh dear.
    Oh mercy.
    Britannia cast around wildly searching for some escape. She could not strip. That would expose her disguise. Expose her utterly. And lord knew what this beastly highwayman would do to her then.
    Terror, real terror, prickled on her skin. She went hot then cold. Her muscles seized.
    As though all that weren’t bad enough, the other occupants of the coach—to a man—sighed and began removing their clothing.
    This was something of a mercy, because the sight of Mr. Cole-Winston in the altogether distracted her from the raging fear.
    She’d never seen a man naked before.
    It was a perturbing sight.
    He had stork-like legs, which somehow held up his rotund body. His chest was a vast landscape of pasty skin flecked with anemic hair and his large belly hung down over parts south. Which was also a mercy.
    The other men, in their altogether, were no less unappealing.
    A sudden and incongruous thought filled her mind.
    Naked men are not attractive in the least.
    “You there!”
    Britannia jumped as the highwayman shouted and waggled his pistol at her.
    “Um, yes?”
    “Take off your clothes, boy. Let’s see what you’ve hidden under them.”
    Egads.
    Egads!
    This was, indeed, a disaster she