Chancellor’s Bride ~excerpt (unedited)
In the half hour it took to bid his farewells, the heavens had opened up. Standing under the overhang on Maboron’s front steps, he waited for his rig to be brought around and then dashed the small distance in a futile attempt to stay dry.
Sodden and cursing, he vaulted into the warm confines of the carriage and settled a blanket over his legs. The driver, ensconced in a shroud of oiled canvas, clucked to the horses and they were off. Less than twenty minutes, and Collin would be climbing the stairs to the bed he shared with the man of his dreams. Salgrim’s balls, his cock filled with blood once more just thinking about it. And, if he was honest, recollections of the shock and dismay in Lady Hestia’s eyes did nothing at all to diminish his arousal. Her mother, on the other hand, could wilt an iron rod. How those small, sunken gray eyes had glared at him from her post by the punch bowl when he returned to the hall! Of her daughter there had been no sign…
The carriage slowed to a stop. Collin let his forehead rest on the foggy pane of glass, unable to see more than a blurry smudge of dim light outside.
Two taps on the roof, then the small panel slid open. The heavy patter of rain on the stretched leather of the roof was overlaid by a sibilant hiss of it hitting the cobbles. “Sir?” the driver said, pitching his voice to carry over the noise.
“What is it?”
“There’s something in the lane. Blocking the way.”
Collin cursed inwardly, but kept the impatience from his voice. “Well, if you can’t go round, take a different route.”
“Looks like a person, your honor,” the driver said. “A woman, it looks.”
Collin scowled, his thoughts of Harral scattering. “What are you talking about?”
“Lying in the street. Might be dead. Might be not. Ought we alert the constables?”
Collin’s stomach tightened with unease and he shoved the blanket from his knees. “One moment.” Feeling in the dark for the latch, he wrenched the door open. The rain formed a semi-solid wall in front of him, nearly quenching the sputtering, hissing street torch not far away. Cringing, Collin hopped out onto the cobbles, not waiting for the driver to come deploy the steps. The weather hit him like god’s judgment, beating him down. He squinted through torrents of water streaming down his face. In the middle of the street not far beyond the noses of the miserable horses lay what looked like a bundle of rags. Heedless of the rain now—he was already drenched to the skin—Collin crept toward the figure.
There was something so peculiar and incongruous about a woman lying prone in a place she did not belong, on street or floor or riverbank. It drew something hideous and cold from deep in Collin’s gut, memories of finding another woman lying just so on the floor of his house not long enough ago to blunt the image of it. As he approached, heart thudding painfully, he saw she was cloaked in black, her hair loose and plastered to the pale skin of her face. In the uncertain light of the torch, he could discern little else. Crouching, he reached toward her with one shaking hand, encountering freezing skin. A pulse beat in her throat, batting weakly at his fingertips.
“She’s alive!” he hollered over his shoulder at the driver, who had alit from his plank and now stood to one side. “Can you lift her?”
“Aye, I believe.” The driver stooped, grabbing a handful of the woman’s cloak to position her better. He was neither graceful nor chivalrous. He hauled her top half up and flung it over his shoulder so her bottom was in the air, then hoisted her aloft. Collin could find no fault with his method, though. Whoever the woman was, she was safe now from the elements, both natural and criminal. The driver carried her to the open door of the carriage and, playing footman, Collin unfolded the steps so the man could stagger up and deposit her on one of the benches inside.
The rain had finally begun to slacken to something not quite apocalyptic. Collin shivered, feeling the cold that fear and urgency had previously held at bay.
“Shall we take her to the Kurgan hospital?” the driver asked.
Collin considered. “That’s more than half an hour, even with no traffic. She’s half frozen as it is. We’ll take her home with us, then send for a physician.”
“Those Kurgan devils don’t like to make house calls,” the driver said. “’specially in the middle of the night.”
“They will for me,” Collin replied, climbing back up into the rig.
The driver pushed the door shut behind him. In the near-blackness of the interior, Collin studied the woman. Her lips were dark—they would be purple or even blue in the light, he thought—her skin whiter than paper. Before the driver could get going again, Collin took the opportunity to strip her sodden cloak from her and replace it with the blanket he’d been using. Feeling around in the space beneath the seats, he found another and spread that over her as well. And then, shaking his head at himself, he crossed to her bench, lifting her head so he could scoot under it. With her cheek resting on his thigh, he settled his hand on the wet mass of her hair and tried to will what was left of his body heat into her.