The Last Mermaid by Shana Abé

Author:Shana Abé
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 2011-03-16T13:30:15.014000+00:00

Che had gravely underestimated the roads, the climate, and the people. He had thought they could follow the Earl of Kell back to his little empire, slip them in unnoticed as gypsies or anonymous servants, and out again before anyone took serious notice. Johnson had made another partial payment—half neatly gone to Leila's secret account—and Che's hopes were high to finish the job and be done with it.

Leila had calculated she needed only one more payment. Less that, even; she could tell Johnson it was for expenses. And then she could vanish into the velvet hills of England—or Scotland, or Wales—without a trace.

But La Mano had not anticipated the storm, nor the fact that they were so close on the heels of their prey. Nor that the earl himself would ride out to their rescue—just imagining the expression on Che's face when he first saw Lord Kell made her want to laugh, but it wasn't really funny—when disaster struck and the carriage had snapped to pieces.

They were truly stuck now as the don and doña, ensconced in this tiny little tavern with the wind howling outside and the snow building and building, and the earl and his men talking in low voices over by the bar. She wished she knew if he was speaking of her.

Probably not. Certainly not. Why would he?

There were people swaddled throughout the tavern. The widow and the injured Glynis had both retreated to the landlord's quarters with the local physician, but the rest of them were not so pampered; there was food and shelter to be had, but little else.

Leila sat with Che and three others in a half-circle of chairs before the fire, trying discreetly to warm her toes. Her ruined skirts were steaming from the heat and her hair was still dripping down her back. Her wig and favorite hat had been left behind, hopelessly crushed from the accident.

Che kept throwing her curt, irritated glances; he wanted desperately to talk to her, she knew, but the confines of the chamber made privacy impossible. They had no good excuse to escape the room at the same time to the blizzard outside—not that she was eager to dawdle in the snow again, in any case. It irked him that they had to wait, and so perversely pleased her.

He had already taken up her hasty lie from the coffee-house and woven it into a crafty mix of fiction and half-truths, telling the others of a string of misfortunes: how their private carriage had become mired in mud past Dumfries—true—and of a sick maid left behind in Carlisle—untrue—and the don's own valet, her husband, remaining there with her for courtesy—untrue, untrue—and of how the little doña had so wished to keep traveling—personal reasons, the don had said, with a shake of his head—and so he had humored her, because you knew how the ladies could be, so impulsive, and now look where his patience had landed them. . . .

That was in the wagon on the way here, grousing to a cartful of sympathetic male ears.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.