Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online

standing where he had left it. The horse was well trained, she thought. With slow, measured steps, she approached it, holding her hand out. When he didn’t back away, she stroked the fine, silken muzzle.
    “Oh, you’re a handsome one, you are.” Taking his reins, she led the stallion to the back of the coach and tied him to it. She had no intention of leaving the animal out here. In all likelihood, the horse was probably the only thing Duncan owned.
    Sylvia shadowed Beth’s steps, taking three for each of Beth’s. To a distant observer it would have appeared to be a nervous little dance.
    “In there?” She pointed behind her. “You want me to ride with a dead man and a scoundrel?”
    Beth tested the reins to assure herself that they were securely fastened. Satisfied, she rounded the coach and looked inside. Duncan was still unconscious. It was better that way; less pain for him. Sylvia tugged on her arm for her attention.
    “That scoundrel,” Beth reminded Sylvia, “saved our lives.”
    Sylvia remained unconvinced. She had lived twenty more years than Beth and had seen much of man’s las civiousness. It had never, of course, been directed at her, but she was aware of its existence nonetheless. She pursed her lips. “For himself, no doubt.”
    Beth gathered up the horses’ reins. “He’s badly wounded, Sylvia. He can do you no harm.”
    That was the trouble with this child, Sylvia thought mournfully. Elizabeth knew nothing of the wicked world. A man could always find a way to have his way with a woman. Sylvia raised her chin.
    “Any man can do you harm.”
    There was no time to stand and argue. Beth shrugged. “Fine, then you can ride with me.” She placed a hand on the coach wheel to steady herself as she judged the distance to the top.
    Sylvia watched her young charge wide-eyed. “You’re driving the coach?”
    She said the words in the same tone she would have employed questioning Beth’s sanity if Beth had announced that she was going to throw herself from the Liberty Bell tower in Philadelphia and fly.
    Poor Sylvia, such a mouse. “The coach cannot drive itself, and the horses don’t know the way.”
    Wrapping the reins around her hand, Beth hiked up her skirts and placed a foot on the first step. The horse closest to her snorted, moving slightly. The coach shuddered as Sylvia squealed, prepared for the worst. Beth held fast and gained the top.
    Sylvia released the breath she’d been holding, amazed that Beth hadn’t fallen and injured herself. Agility of this sort, like a common cat’s, wasn’t seemly. Didn’t the girl see that? As for her suggestion, that, of course, was pre posterous!
    She attempted to reason with her, knowing it was hopeless. The girl was as headstrong as a wayward mule. “But it isn’t seemly for a young woman to be driving a coach like some common peasant.”
    Images and illusions had never been important to Beth. “Neither is remaining here, shivering in the rain helplessly while he bleeds to death,” she nodded toward the interior of the coach, “and we catch our death of cold.” Bracing her foot against the brake, she balanced the reins in her hand and then looked down at Sylvia. The woman remained stolidly stationary. “Well?”
    There was no response. Neither choice was good. Sylvia looked from one unsatisfactory place to the other as she wrung her hands.
    Though she had vowed to be patient with the woman, Beth felt that Sylvia had well exceeded her allowance for the situation.
    “Sylvia, we haven’t all day, and the rain is beginning to fall heavily again.”
    Still the heavyset woman remained where she stood, her face a mask of indecision. “I—“
    Beth had had enough of this foolishness. “Get in the coach.”
    Distress at the notion of being in a confined area with a dead man seized her. Religious to a fault, Sylvia still believed in the existence of ghosts.
    “But—“
    Beth gripped the reins. “Now! Or I swear I shall leave you here.”
    Horror