A Perfect Hero Read Free Page B

linger. The driver shouted, and they were off. The wheels cracked and rumbled as they began to gain speed.
    It wasn’t long before the walls of darkness be gan to close in. She found herself peering out the window, anxiously searching the side of the road, trying to see behind every tree and bush until she began to grow dizzy. Oh, but this was silly, she chided herself, to be spooked by the Chadwicks’ talk of highwaymen!
    She forced herself to relax. Eventually, the roll and lurch of the coach lulled her into drowsiness. As she swayed with the rhythm of the coach, her eyes drifted shut.
    The next thing, she felt herself tumbling to the floor. Jarred into wakefulness, she opened her eyes, rubbing her shoulder where she’d landed. What the deuce ...? Panic enveloped her; it was pitch-black inside the coach.
    And outside as well.
    She was just about to heave herself back onto the cushions when the sound of male voices punctuated the air outside. The coachman... and someone else.
    “Put it down, I s-say!” the coachman stuttered. “There’s nothing of value aboard, I swear! Mercy,” the man blubbered. “I beg of you, have mercy!”
    Even as a decidedly prickly unease slid down her spine, the door was wrenched open. She found herself staring at the gleaming barrels of twin pistols. In terror she lifted her gaze to the man who possessed them.
    His eyes were all that was visible of his fea tures. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking their color. They glimmered like clear, golden fire, pale and unearthly.
    The devil’s eyes.
    “Nothing of value aboard, eh?”
    A gust of chill night air funneled in. Yet it was like nothing compared to the chill she felt in hearing that voice . . . So softly querulous, like steel tearing through tightly stretched silk, she decided dazedly.
    She had always despised silly, weak, helpless females. Yet when his gaze raked over her— through her, bold and ever so irreverent!—she felt stripped to the bone.
    Goose bumps rose on her flesh. She couldn’t move. She most certainly couldn’t speak. She could not even swallow past the knot lodged deep in her throat. Fear numbed her mind. Her mouth was dry with a sickly dread such as she had never experienced. All she could think was that if Mrs. Chadwick were there, she might take great delight in knowing she’d been right to be so fearful. For somehow Julianna knew with a mind-chilling certainty that it was he...
    The Magpie.
    Two
    ane Quincy Granville did not count on the coachman’s reaction—nor his rashness. There was a crack of the whip, a frenzied shout. The horses bolted. Instinctively, Dane leaped back, very nearly knocked to the ground. The ve hicle jolted forward, speeding toward a bend in the road.
    The stupid fool! Christ, the coachman would never make the turn. The bend was too sharp. He was going too fast—
    The night exploded. There was an excruciating crash, the sound of wood splintering and crack-ing...the high-pitched scream of the horses.
    Then nothing.
    Galvanized into action, Dane sprang for Perci val. He raced ahead. Leaping from the stallion’s back, he hurtled himself down the steep embankment where the coach had disappeared. Scrambling over the brush, he spied it. It was overturned, resting against the trunk of an ancient tree.
    One wheel was still spinning as he reached it.
    The horses were already gone. So was the driver. Their necks were broken, the driver’s twisted at an odd angle from his body. Dane felt for a pulse, but he had seen enough of death to know it was too late.
    Miraculously, the door to the main compart ment had remained on its hinges. In fury and fear, Dane tore it off and lunged into the compartment.
    The girl was still inside, coiled in a heap on the roof. His heart in his throat, he reached for her, easing her into his arms and outside.
    His heart pounding, he knelt in the damp earth and stared down at her. “Wake up!” he com manded. As if because he willed it, it would be so ...He