The Wild One Read online

Chapter 3

  As the passengers argued with Lord Gareth's friends about where to bring him, Juliet got to her feet and walked a short distance away, trying to regain her composure and hide the shock that must've been written all over her face.

  She ran her palms down her cheeks. Dear God. This man is Charles's brother. He looks so much like him … how could I not have known?

  Her back to the commotion behind her, she drew several deep breaths, stared blankly into the darkness for a moment, then shut her eyes in a silent prayer for strength. Finally she rejoined the others, where she reclaimed Charlotte and retrieved her miniature from the highwayman's leather bag. Perry took her arm; at his insistence, she climbed into the coach to ride along with Lord Gareth.

  Wrapping Charlotte in a blanket, she wedged herself into one corner of the small back seat, set the baby beneath her elbow, and reached for the injured man as his friends brought him in after her. Nobody noticed how her hands shook. Nobody noticed how her entire body shook. They settled him on her seat, positioning him so that his head and shoulders lay cradled in her lap, his eyes, glazed with pain, gazing up at her. And then the door was shut, Perry climbed up on the box, and the coach shot past the worried faces beyond the window as Perry sent the team off with a shout and a crack of the whip.

  Charles's brother.

  His weight was warm and heavy and solid. She averted her gaze from his and found she could not speak.

  Not yet.

  And as the vehicle raced through the lonely English night, Juliet leaned her cheek against the cold window and let her thoughts drift back in time ... back to that cold winter day in Boston when she'd first seen Captain Lord Charles de Montforte.

  He had been the stuff of a young woman's dreams.

  The memory was as near as if it had all happened yesterday….