Royal Renegade by Alicia Rasley Read Free Book Online

except maps and battles and hungry soldiers." But he remembered how Ellingham, the only married man among his friends, proudly showed off the drawings his little daughter made for him, and talked all too often about his capable and charming wife back in Wiltshire. Of course, Ellingham returned from each leave blue-deviled, and fell ill with anguish when his wife suffered a postpartum fever last year, with him hundreds of miles away and utterly helpless. It was a mixed blessing, surely, a soldier's marriage.
    But Sarah had a point. Perhaps marriage would center him more, make home seem more homelike, make him less of a stranger in his own land.
    He reached out to rub her cheek with a thumb calloused from working with shovels and pickaxes and hammers—his squadrons had built one hundred and fifty bivouacs in the month before he'd left Portugal. When he sold his commission, he thought wryly, he could always become a carpenter. Flinching a bit, Sarah suffered his unintentionally rough touch and regarded him intently. He said, "You are the only woman I have ever imagined saddling myself with, and you are not available. I shouldn't like to have to break in a new mount."
    Sarah grimaced at his typically cavalier metaphor—but what could she expect from a cavalry officer? "You are impossible, you know. When you speak like that, I wonder why any woman would have you." She regarded his chiseled features with resignation. "But I suppose there are those who will look no further than that handsome face of yours. And you are a dream in a uniform, I must admit. No one would ever guess to look at you how unromantic you really are."
    "And here I brought you these French chocolates, which I captured at great risk from the patisserie in Bond Street. I suppose you wanted flowers, too."
    Sarah, busy planning her lover's future, ignored his raillery. "A nice, quiet girl, that would be best. Someone biddable and sweet, who will bend herself to your will. For you do have an iron will, even if you are so quiet about it. And she would have to be satisfied with being your wife and nothing else. You won't let her into your heart, poor girl. You haven't even opened it for me, and we have been together nearly all our lives."
    He narrowed his eyes, for he didn't like that her ironic tone had turned serious. "Perhaps I'm heartlessou'vYe accused me of that often enough. Anyway, I think you are right. I may as well give in to cruel fate and settle myself," he said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. "I shall have to consider this at greater length later, however, for I've other plans for the coming months." He drew up his tricky left knee and massaged it, thinking of leg-shackling. "You reckon one of your nice, biddable girls will not make a fuss if we go on as we have."
    Sarah smiled suddenly, as if she had indeed been worried about that. "These modern girls are very good about that sort of thing, I hear. Their mothers train them well. Except—" She stopped and took his hands imploringly. "Except—" Her brown eyes were sad and a bit amused. "Oh, Michael, I know you might roam now, as most men do. But once you say those vows ... I fear you are irredeemably honorable, aren't you? You don't mind so much if I have broken my marriage vows, but having sworn to forsake all others, you truly would, wouldn't you? And then where will I be?"
    "You will be with your husband, I suspect. Or someone else." After this insult, which she accepted with bowed head, Devlyn regarded her levelly, caught between anger and understanding. No one knew him better than Sarah, and she knew that their affair would end with his marriage, as it had begun with hers. But she'd had her chance years ago, and chose security over whatever he might have given her—not much more than friendship, perhaps, for she was right. Even in youth he had not been one to fall head over heels in love. But friendship was more than she had gotten with Harburton. He pulled away from her and began to