Valor Under Siege (The Honorables) by Elizabeth Boyce Read Free Book Online

think.” Elsa pounded the roof. The carriage lurched to a stop, and she hopped out, her foot skating on a slick of mud. She caught herself on the coach door, then pushed away, and began a determined march.
    “My lady!” Foster called after her. “Come back! You’ll take a chill.”
    “Drive on,” Elsa instructed her puzzled coachman. “Wait for me at the next posting inn.”
    “But that’s not for three miles!” he protested.
    “Drive. On,” she ground out through clenched teeth.
    “Go on,” said a deep voice accompanied by the steady plod of hooves. “I’ll accompany Lady Fay.”
    Pulling his behemoth of a horse to a halt with a quiet “Whoa there,” Norman dismounted. Because of his considerable size, he’d claimed sitting in a carriage for any length of time was uncomfortable, and so he’d ridden the entire trip thus far.
    The coach rumbled away, leaving them in the middle of a road bordered on both sides by desolate fields impaled by the stiff, dead remains of the previous season’s wheat, cut down and left to mummify in the autumn sun before moldering and melting into nothing before next spring.
    She felt his gaze, but could not bear to meet his eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice careful.
    Suddenly, her throat was tight and her eyes were full and it hurt to breathe.
Everything
hurt. No longer pleasantly muffled with drink, her senses were overwhelmed by the world—the earthen stink of rot and shit rising from the fields, the wheezing bray of an unseen donkey, even the way the cotton of her shift grated against her sensitized skin—and cried out for her to
do something
to make the agitation end.
    There was one solution only, and it was no solution at all. How was this all-consuming need her life? How was this
her
?
    A keening cry-moan rose in her throat. Norman turned her around, softly shushing her. “There now,” he said, tucking her against his side, his arm heavy across her shoulders like Christ’s own cross. “Brandon said you need exercise, yes? And you’ve been cooped up in that coach for more than a day. A good walk is just the thing. I should have thought of it myself.”
    She dashed a hand across her eye and laughed bitterly. “More than anything, I need—”
    “A walk,” Norman insisted. “Fresh air.”
    His vehemence caused her to look up at him. His eyes—how had she never noticed what a pleasing color they were? more gray-green than hazel, she decided—held a note of pleading, a soft counterpoint to the resolute set of his chin.
    His horse peered over his shoulder at her as if in agreement with his master. Slowly, the great chestnut head eased forward, velvet lips quivering, and began to delicately nibble at the brim of her straw bonnet.
    “Apple, no!” Norman shouted, aghast. “Leave Lady Fay alone, you bounder.”
    Elsa laughed, all at once feeling lighter than she had in days. “That monster’s name is Apple?”
    Norman gave her a rueful smile, boyish and endearing. “He came with it.” He wrapped the reins around one hand and patted the horse’s neck with the other. “He used to be a draught horse at a brewery, and that’s what the stable master called him. He was already low from the death of his teammate, Dumpling. Didn’t wish to worsen matters by changing his name.”
    “Apple and Dumpling.” She tossed Norman a wicked grin. “I don’t suppose the stable master meant to pay tribute to his favorite pastry.” She took one step forward and then another. If she was going to walk three miles, she had best begin.
    “By no means,” Norman agreed amiably, falling in beside her, shortening his stride to keep her pace. “All the horses at the brewery were named for parts of the female anatomy.”
    “Really?” Elsa asked, reaching across to pat Apple’s shoulder. “How charming.”
    He laughed at her wry tone. “Indeed. Besides Apple and his friend, there were Bubby and Diddey, and Bumbo and Water-mill.”
    “The creative spirit will