The Dream Read Free Page B

and put the poor horse out of its misery. The shot echoed in the silent, shrouded morning. Fury shifted as Jason swung back up into the saddle.
    There was one of the missing wheels, wet and gleaming, splattered with mud, crushing a stand of blue flowers.
    A few more yards down the road and a bundle caught his attention. A black bundle lying against the hedges and an old oak tree.
    Jason maneuvered Fury off the roadway and onto the wet grass, hopping down. It was a cloak covering a body. He knelt beside the person, a young girl.
    His muttered curse was lost in the fog. “ Lockley !”
    Carefully, he eased her over. A gash along her head left a ribbon of blood running across her forehead and down the left side of her face. He pulled his hand away to check her pulse and noticed his hand was smeared with blood.
    On another oath, he jerked the cloak back. A gunshot wound ripped open the front of her left shoulder, the black gown shiny and crusted with blood. Easing her up against him, he saw the entry wound had been in the back. He could not believe what he was seeing. A gunshot wound? A woman shot in the back?
    He eased her down and laid his hand on her chest. She was breathing, though faintly, and the beat of her heart was weak. Her clothing was soaked through. How long had she been out here? He glanced around, frowning. All night?
    “My lord?”
    Damn last eve’s storm.
    It was a risk moving her. He’d been in battles and situations to know what happened with blood loss and wounds. More than likely, she’d get an infection. If she didn’t die, it would be an absolute miracle.
    He pulled at his cravat until he’d loosened it. With quick practiced moves, he tied the material around her shoulder, the bandage awkward in its location. The bleeding was sluggish, but still glared through his pristine white silk.
    “Give me your cravat, Lockley .”
    It was already dangling from his valet’s hand.
    Jason looked up. “Thank you.”
    As he was tying it off, he glanced at the ground, saw the bloodstained grass and froze.
    Could just be the light.
    Reaching over her, he put his finger in the hole in the ground. It wasn’t deep. With a little digging he found what he was looking for.
    He pulled the lead ball up out of the ground.
    “Surely that’s not…” Lockley started.
    Jason narrowed his gaze at his man. “What does it look like?”
    “The ball.”
    “Precisely.”
    “But that would mean…”
    Jason looked back down at the woman, all dressed in black.
    “That would mean that whoever attacked her, stood above her as she lay here and shot her in the damn back.”
    The thought chilled his jaded heart.
    “I shall fetch the doctor at once.”
    Jason nodded as he jerked his Garrick off and wrapped her in it, the heavy layers of coat all but swallowing her small form. Standing, he gently lifted the woman in his arms. He handed her off to Lockley as he mounted Fury, and then took her back. He looked down into a pale, oval face. The woman was light and small. Jason still wasn’t certain if she were a woman or a young chit—not that either mattered at the present.
    “Find out what you can,” he said to his valet. “Surely she wasn’t traveling alone. I want to know what happened.”
    They took off, not speaking, their horses neck and neck until the road split. Lockley took the right road into the town of Himpley Downs and Jason the left, to Ravenscrest Abbey.
    Fury’s hooves flew over the ground with little urging and Jason let him have his head.
    He held the woman tight against him and hoped—he knew against the odds—she would not die.

Chapter Two
     
    Jason reined Fury to a stop on the gravel drive outside his home, Ravenscrest Abbey. He yelled for Grims , his butler, as he carefully dismounted and a stable lad ran to grab the reins of Fury.
    The woman’s head lolled on his arm as he ran up the steps. The door was thrown open.
    “My lord?” Grims asked, his eyes wide.
    At any other time, Jason would have taken