The Wayward Bride

by Anna Bradley

  One day, in a lifetime of days without her.

  A day didn’t seem too much for fate to ask, but to Hugh, it felt like a lifetime.

  Chapter Three

  He didn’t have a chance to make a sound. Not a shout, a shriek of warning, or a single word left his lips.

  That was Lord Sydney’s last thought before he was thrown from his carriage.

  He’d never been in a carriage accident before, and it was nothing at all like he’d imagined it would be. Not that he’d spent much time thinking about it, or anticipating the moment of his demise. He wasn’t the sort of man who dwelled on unpleasant things. But a gentleman did like to think he’d behave heroically when his time came, should the occasion require it.

  A shout of warning to Burke, his coachman, or a muttered prayer for their souls…

  Something.

  But Sydney managed only a faint exclamation of surprise when a sudden, violent wrench hurled him headfirst across the seat. His temple struck the opposite window with a hard crack, and pain exploded behind his left eye. The glass shattered, then the carriage lurched again, and he was thrown with such bruising force against the door, the hinge gave way under the impact. He didn’t have a chance to make sense of what was happening before he was in the air, then slammed to the ground with a jolt that made his teeth rattle in his head.

  The fall didn’t kill him. It didn’t even render him unconscious, so he was fully aware of it when the carriage careened over the side of the ditch and came down on top of him. Oddly, he didn’t feel any pain when it hit him, not even when one of the carriage wheels crushed his left hand, but the horses’ terrified screams, the screech of grinding metal, the exploding glass—Christ, it was awful. He wanted to cover his ears to shut out the sound of so much destruction, but he couldn’t move. He could only lie there, helpless, as the carriage came to a crashing halt at the bottom of the ditch with a final, echoing shriek of splintering wood. He heard a scramble of pounding hooves then and felt the ground vibrate under his cheek.

  The horses had fled.

  Then…nothing. Everything stopped, and a sudden, profound silence fell.

  He didn’t know how long he lay there, struggling for breath, but when he managed to open his eyes at last, he saw only darkness. Was he still alive? It seemed unlikely, given that he didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t feel any sensation at all, aside from the bitter taste of iron coating his tongue—

  Blood. His stomach heaved at the sickening taste, and he gagged as vomit crawled into his throat and gushed from his mouth.

  Dead men don’t cast up their accounts.

  He wasn’t dead, then. That was surprising enough, but now he’d reached that conclusion, Sydney became aware of something else. A rushing sound, like…flowing water?

  Yes, that was it. Water, rushing over stones. He’d landed in a stream, or the shallow part of a river. He wasn’t facedown, but close enough to it. His right cheek had gone numb with cold, and he could feel an icy trickle against his lips. He struggled to roll onto his back, to get his mouth away from the water, but all he could manage was a slight turn of his head.

  For the first time since he hit the ground, real fear gripped him. By some miracle, the carriage accident hadn’t killed him, but if he should lose consciousness now, he could drown.

  He couldn’t die. Not like this, and not now, six weeks before he was to be married. Isla was depending on him to…well, to live. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation, and yet here he was, his neck already aching with the effort it took to keep his face out of the water.

  He drew in a ragged breath and made another attempt to roll over onto his back, but the shock had caught up to him now, and his battered body refused to move. His left eye and temple were throbbing with pain, his left hand and his shoulder were screaming in agony, and to his horror his vision blurred, then began to fade into black at the edges.

  No. No, no, no. Not like this, not now.

  He fought against it, struggled to cry out, to move, to do anything, but it was no use. He could feel his head lolling to the side, could feel the water seeping into his nose, flooding his mouth…

  But before the encroaching darkness could suck him under, something nudged him back into consciousness. A noise. Heavy panting, and…a low-pitched whine? He felt a soft, damp tickle against his cheek, then a blast of hot, fetid breath in his face. He tried to jerk his head away, but before he could manage it, something warm and wet dragged across his chin.

  It felt like a tongue. An unusually long tongue.

  “Wha…?” A tongue on his face was startling enough to make Sydney crack open one eye. The tongue was attached to a blunt, furry black head, and the head to an enormous, furry black body.

  A bear?

  He heard another low whine near his ear, and the long tongue made another pass over his face.

  A very friendly bear?

  A sharp barking exploded above Sydney’s head, and pain sliced through his skull. He let out a low moan of distress and tried to shrink away from the noise, but when he turned his head, water filled his nose and mouth once again.

  “Quiet, Brute.”

  The painful noise ceased, and then rough, calloused fingertips grasped his chin and turned his head away from the water. “No. Can’t have that.”

  Sydney clawed his way back to consciousness with a great effort. “Burke? It that you?”

  No answer, but the arm sliding under his back wasn’t Burke’s. His coachman was a strong fellow, but he was thin and wiry, and the arm easing him upright was long and solid—more like a cricket bat than an arm. Sydney’s breath seized in his lungs at the burning pain in his shoulder, but he managed to fend off another bout of unconsciousness by concentrating on the man’s face.

  But the face wouldn’t cooperate. It swam in and out of focus above him, the features blurry, aside from the eyes, which were enough of a study in contrasts to hold Sydney’s drifting attention.

  They pinned him down, and he stared into them, fascinated. They were a cool, light gray color—one might even call them cold, but they were framed by the darkest, thickest lashes Sydney had ever seen. The long, silky fringe took a good bit of the ice out of that gaze.

  He had a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh. How odd that such stern eyes should have such frivolous eyelashes.

  The hard gray eyes narrowed on him. “Who’s Burke? You were expecting your servant?”

  Sydney was roaring back to consciousness with a vengeance now, and the pain was excruciating. Vomit rushed into his throat again, but he forced himself to swallow it back. “I wasn’t expecting anyone ever again, if you want the truth.”

  A pair of dark brows drew together over the gray eyes. “You’re not going to die today.”

  Sydney wasn’t convinced, but he managed a weak smile. “Damned glad to hear it.”

  “Your man, Burke. Any idea where he landed?” The man’s voice was low and calm, as if he stumbled across violent carriage accidents every day.

  “No. I was thrown from the carriage before I had a chance to call out to him.” Sydney squeezed his eyes closed and prayed Burke had had time to jump clear before the carriage rolled down the embankment. Burke had been his father’s coachman, and Sydney had vague memories of the man lifting him into the coach when he was too small to climb the step.

  Damn it, if something had happened to Burke, it would be his fault. He’d been anxious to see Isla after her last letter, so they’d set out for Buckinghamshire earlier this afternoon, despite the encroaching storm. The clouds had been threatening a tempest even before they left London, but he’d reasoned it was a short enough trip to Huntington Lodge—just ten or so miles north of Aylesbury—and there were a few decent inns on the way, in case they were obliged to stop.

  He’d decided to risk the journey, in spite of the weather.

  He’d expected a cold rain, but instead t
he temperature had dropped, and it had kept dropping until it was well below freezing. They were fewer than twenty miles outside London when the wind had gone from a gust to a howl, and even now they were being pummeled by balls of ice bigger than his thumb. All of Southeast London was likely coated in a thick sheet of it by now.

  And Burke was missing.

  It was only a matter of time before he was covered in a thick sheet of ice, as well. “We have to find him.” Sydney dragged himself into a wobbly half-crouch. From there he tried to struggle to his feet, but he couldn’t even make it to his knees.

  The man with the cricket bat arms shook his head. “I’ll come with my wagon and look for him after I get you back to my farm.”

  Come back? What, and leave Burke alone out here? No, that wouldn’t do. “I have another idea. Why don’t I work on crawling to my knees while you go and look for Burke?”

  The gray eyes flickered, and Sydney saw at once this wasn’t the sort of man accustomed to taking orders. “We can do this my way, or I can leave you both here. Your choice.”

  “Well, that’s not much of a bloody choice at all, is it?”

  His surly rescuer only shrugged, then reached down to help Sydney to his feet.

  “My right side, if you would,” Sydney grunted. “I think my left shoulder and hand are broken.”

  Broken, or shattered. His left hand looked like an angry blacksmith had mistaken it for a horseshoe, and his arm was dangling uselessly at his side, as if it were no longer attached to his body.

  The man leaned over him and wrapped an arm around his back, and Sydney’s breath hissed through his teeth as he was hauled to his feet. By the time he was upright he felt as if he’d been run over by a dozen carriages, and his entire body was bathed in cold sweat.

  The man ducked under his good arm and took Sydney’s weight on his shoulders. “All right?”

  “Divine,” Sydney said on another hiss of pain. “How far is it to your farm?”

  “Mile or so.” The man jerked his chin in the direction from which Sydney and Burke had just come. “Mile and a half, at most.”

  Sydney gritted his teeth. A mile and a half? It might as well be on the other side of the earth. He’d never make it that far. Just rising to his feet had left him dizzy with pain, and once again he was hanging on to consciousness by the merest thread.

  “Where are we?” Wherever it was, it was remote. There wasn’t a single light to be seen in any direction.

  “Beaconsfield.”

  “My horses?” Sydney shuddered as he recalled their panicked screams.

  “Gone.”

  “And the carriage is—”

  “Wrecked.”

  Well. His rescuer was a man of few words, it seemed.

  But then to Sydney’s surprise the man gave a low whistle and called out, “Come, Brute.”

  The hairy black creature with the monstrous tongue bounded to his side. Sydney frowned at it, confused. It had a great quantity of fur, an even greater quantity of drool dribbling from its mouth, and paws the size of carriage wheels. “Is that your bear?”

  The man scowled. “He’s a dog.”

  “Is he, indeed? Looks more like a bear.”

  “He looks like what he is,” the man muttered. “A Newfoundland dog.”

  They didn’t speak at all after that, but plodded along in silence. His companion was focused on the icy road, and it took all of Sydney’s concentration to remain conscious.

  The walk was interminable, endless. It went on and on, each minute longer and more agonizing than the last, until Sydney began to wonder if he’d died after all and was being punished for his sins.

  He could no longer see out of his left eye, and he was growing weaker with every step. The pain grew so bad he was panting with it, but he kept his head down and watched his feet move, one in front of the other. He counted his steps for as long as he could, but one by one his senses seemed to shut down, until at last he slipped into a strange, numb fog. He lost awareness of his surroundings, of the man’s bulk supporting him, of the dog trotting at his side—even of his own thoughts. All he knew was the pain.

  Until even that faded, and the hazy fog surrounding him pressed closer, then began to go dark…

  A sharp voice jerked him back to awareness. “No, we’re not stopping yet.”

  “Stopping?” Sydney looked up in confusion, and only then did he realize he was on his knees. “Oh. Did I fall?”

  “Yes, and we need to get you back up.” The deep voice was faint, as if the man had moved a great distance away. “We’re nearly there. See the light up ahead?”

  Sydney squinted into the darkness. He didn’t see a damn thing, but then he doubted he would, even if it was there. He could hardly make out the man’s face at this point. “No.”

  The man caught Sydney under his arm and hauled him to his feet, as if Sydney weighed no more than a child. Sydney groaned as his shoulder jolted, but he did his best to keep shuffling forward, to focus once again on putting one foot in front of the other. Before long, though, he noticed the toes of his boots were dragging across the ground, and he knew he was no longer walking.

  The man was carrying him.

  “You can’t carry me.” Sydney’s voice was slurred. “Leave me here and go ahead without—”

  He fell silent, blinking in confusion when a door appeared in front of him. “Are we here?” An odd question, really, considering he no longer remembered where here was.

  The man didn’t answer, but raised a booted foot and kicked the door open. They entered a kitchen, simple but tidy, with a lamp burning on a scrubbed wooden table and a fire leaping in the grate.

  “Brute, lie down.” The man turned to point at a horse blanket laid neatly in front of the fireplace. The dog trotted over and settled himself down with his head resting on his paws, his big, soulful eyes darting back and forth between Sydney and his master.

  When the man turned back around, the light fell across his face, and Sydney’s eyes widened.

  This was his rescuer?

  He was young—much younger than Sydney had imagined him to be from his brusque manner—and he was…

  Beautiful.

  He had a strong, square jaw, and thick, dark red hair that fell over his forehead and into those startling gray eyes. Sydney had an overwhelming urge to brush it off his face so he could look into the man’s eyes again. Perhaps it was his head injury, or perhaps it was simply the man himself, but Sydney couldn’t recall ever feeling a stronger urge to touch someone.

  He staggered toward the young man, words rushing to his lips. He wanted to introduce himself, like a proper gentleman.

  Henry Northrup, the sixth Earl of Sydney…

  The man jerked his gaze to Sydney’s face, and for the first time Sydney saw a flicker of concern in the gray eyes. “You’re confused. You’re muttering nonsense to yourself.”

  Sydney frowned. Nonsense? He was introducing himself, wasn’t he?

  The man’s voice was suddenly tense. “Your head. Did you hit it in the accident?”

  “Window.” Sydney tried to say more, to explain he’d hit his head on the window hard enough to shatter the glass, but his lips felt odd, as if they no longer remembered how to shape words, and something was wrong with his legs. They’d gone weak, as if they could no longer tolerate his weight, and were about to collapse beneath him.

  In the next moment, they did.

  His rescuer leapt forward to catch him, and the mesmerizing gray eyes were the last thing Sydney saw before his knees hit the floor and he slipped into darkness.

  * * * *

  Hours passed, but Henry Northrup, the sixth Earl of Sydney, didn’t regain consciousness. It turned out he had a nasty head wound that was far more severe than his broken hand or his dislocated shoulder. Lucas had dressed it, but a steady trickle of blood still seeped fr
om the earl’s temple.

  Maybe he’d keep his left eye, and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way he’d have a long, jagged scar down the side of his face to show for this evening’s adventure.

  Pity. The earl’s face was a handsome one. He had strong, masculine features, but it was the crinkles at the corners of his eyes that drew Lucas’s attention—that and the touch of humor in his firm lower lip. He had the sort of mouth that looked as if it wanted to curve into a smile. As if Henry Northrup, the sixth Earl of Sydney, was always on the verge of laughter.

  He looked kind.

  Lucas snorted softly. A kind aristocrat? If such a creature existed, he’d never seen it, but he supposed it was possible Henry Northrup, the sixth Earl of Sydney, was the last living example of that rare phenomenon.

  How long he’d remain among the living, well…that was anyone’s guess.

  Heavy footsteps echoed across the wooden floor, and Lucas looked up to find Burke, Lord Sydney’s coachman, standing at his shoulder.

  Burke was a stout, grizzled bear of a man, still strong as an ox, despite the gray stubble sprouting on his chin. Resourceful, too. Burke, who’d managed to jump free of the carriage before it crashed into the ditch, had turned up at the door tonight before Lucas had a chance to go back out and search for him. Burke had been knocked briefly unconscious in the fall, and when he’d come to and found Lord Sydney gone, he’d realized someone had found him. He’d suspected there was a farm nearby, and after some wandering, he’d spotted the lamp Lucas had left in the window and followed it to Lucas’s door.

  “He opened ’is eyes yet?” Burke’s voice was gruff, but there was no mistaking the edge of worry in it.

  He seemed fond of the earl. A servant, fond of his master. Another rarity, in Lucas’s experience. “No, but his lips move every now and then, like he’s trying to say something.”

  Burke grunted. “Good a sign as any, I guess. Neat job on his shoulder, leastways.”

  Burke seemed to be more comfortable handling horses than gentlemen, but after some fussing, he’d agreed to help Lucas set Lord Sydney’s dislocated shoulder. Lucas had fashioned a sling of sorts from a ripped sheet, and it seemed to be doing an admirable job of keeping all of Lord Sydney’s bones in their proper places.