Unlacing the Innocent Miss by Margaret McPhee Read Free Book Online Page A

clammy. She wetted her dry lips and tried to swallow but her throat was so dry that its sides seemed to be in danger of sticking together.
    Campbell and Kempster came abreast with her and she saw Wolf glance round, reining his mount in as he realized that her horse had stopped. He reeled around and drew up before her, his horse frisky with impatience.
    ‘You are trying my patience, Miss Meadowfield. We’ve Gretna to reach by nightfall, so start riding.’ Wolf’s face was hard and uncompromising.
    Rosalind made no move. Just the thought of galloping brought waves of nausea rolling up from her stomach. She swallowed them down, forced herself to breathe deeply, slowly. I can do this, she willed herself, fighting down the panic. The urge to slide down off the horse’s back and run away was overwhelming. She glanced longingly down at the solidity of the road’s rutted surface.
    Wolf frowned and brought his horse in close by her side, scrutinizing her.
    Rosalind averted her face, fright ened of what he might see.
    But Wolf leaned across, touched his fingers to her chin, forcing her face round to his.
    His eyes were no longer silver but the same pale grey as the daylight. ‘Any more delays and I’ll lead the damn horse for you.’ He released her and moved away.
    She saw the cold dislike in his gaze and the bitter mocking tilt of his mouth and heard the promise in his voice. Hewould take her reins without a further thought and then the small mare’s speed would be completely out of her control. Rosalind knew that she could not let that happen and she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing of her fear. Deep within, she felt her temper ignite and flare. The anger welled up strong and fast, so that her breathing turned short and ragged. She glared at him with ferocity. Damn Wolf, she thought, Damn his arrogant, abrasive soul. And she did not care that she was cursing; she did not care about anything at all, except her fury at the man before her and her need to escape him.
    ‘There would be no delay had my saddle been fitted properly,’ she heard herself say in an imperious voice she barely recognized. ‘It is slipping. And Lord Evedon wishes me to break my neck upon a scaffold, not for your incompetence to lead to me snapping it in a fall upon this road.’ Courage, Rosalind, she thought, for once in your life, have courage.
    Wolf scowled at her tone.
    She forced herself to sit very still as Wolf and the others jumped down from horses. It was Wolf himself that came towards her.
    Wait, she cautioned herself, wait, and her heart was thudding wildly with the audacity of what she was about to do. And she did wait, waited until he had almost reached her, until he was extending his hand towards her to lift her down.
    Her fingers pulled gently at the leather of the reins, and the mare stepped round until she was facing the opposite direction of travel to the other three horses, as if she were nervous and eager to be moving once more.
    ‘Keep her still,’ Wolf snapped.
    Rosalind felt a stab of satisfaction as her fingers tightened on the reins and she suddenly kicked the mare to a canter and careered off down the road.
    ‘Hell!’ she heard his grunted curse, and the men’s shocked voices, but she was already leaving him behind as she sped off into the distance. Her heart was racing now in earnest and her mouth dry as a bone, but she knew that he was coming after her and that she would have to ride faster to outrun him.
    Too soon she heard the rhythmic gallop of a single horse behind her. She glanced back to see Wolf on his great grey stallion storming after her.
    ‘Faster!’ she urged the little mare, her fear of the man pursuing her greater than her fear of the horse. She was galloping, clinging on for dear life, feeling precarious in the saddle as the road rushed by beneath her. She focused her mind and tried not to think about how fast she was going, tried not to think about the horse at all. A