How to Lose a Bride in One Night (Forgotten Princesses #3)(16)

His dismissal was clear.

Inhaling thinly through her nose, she vowed that she would find a way to alleviate the stretch of monotonous, mind-numbing hours stuck in this bed. Without his help.





Chapter Seven





You there, Englishman. Come. Help us carry these.” Nadia nodded to one of the chests laden with colorful shawls, scarves, and blankets, all wares to be sold at the fair.

He glanced back at the wagon, feeling that inexorable pull—no matter how he tried to deny it. Fortunately for him, Anna had been asleep when he left just before dawn.

He was being unreasonable, he supposed, refusing her request for a bit of fresh air. There was just something about her. She made him uncomfortable. Those velvet eyes . . . they seemed to drink him up. The notion of being in close proximity to her, carrying her against his chest—he couldn’t bring himself to agree to such a thing.

The village was already abuzz with activity. Nadia and three other women led him through the growing press of people to their area of the fair. The men were already there, practicing their dagger throwing skills with enthusiasm. Everyone was garbed flamboyantly in vibrant colors. If their dark coloring didn’t alert the world of their Romani roots, then their wardrobe did.

“You can set that down there,” one of the women said, directing him beneath the striped tent they had erected.

A crowd of children had gathered around the tent, watching in loud approval. He smiled as one of the young Gypsy boys tossed daggers back in forth with his younger brother, a lad of no more than nine years. It was a wonder he didn’t slice off a finger.

Shaking his head, his gaze scanned the rest of the fair. Somewhere nearby a hawker loudly offered roasted chestnuts. The aroma of hot sticky buns filled the air, making his stomach growl. A faint smile brushed his lips as he recalled he and his brothers stuffing themselves sick with sticky buns at their own village fair. Well, it was mostly Brand and himself. Jamie had been too dignified for that.

Paget had been there, too. Eating more than her share. Too much for a girl of her slight frame. He had no idea where she put it, but she matched him bite for bite. She’d always been there. A permanent fixture of his boyhood. Now she belonged to Jamie.

A wave of longing swept through him. Not because he wanted Paget for himself. God, no. He’d released the thought of them, together, from his mind long ago. His first year in India ruined him for any respectable woman. He was glad she and Jamie had found each other. He simply wished for carefree days again.

Days like the ones he spent at his mother’s home in London, quiet evenings reading alongside her in the library or helping her in the garden. His grandfather had spent his final years there. Owen could still recall his large, callused hand rumpling the hair on his head as he played with his toy soldiers before the fireplace. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the old Scot’s brogue. That’s my fine lad.

Shaking off the nostalgic thoughts, he continued to scan the merrymaking, feeling more isolated than ever. He didn’t belong here any more than he had in India. His mouth flattened in a grim line. Perhaps he was more at home among battle cries, wielding a pistol or a rifle or plunging his blade into an enemy than here. A sad testament to the man he had become.

Although he knew he could never recapture the innocence from his youth again, he longed to return to his mother’s town house in London and find the peace and contentment he had once known there.

Suddenly, something caught his eye. A brown-haired head bobbing amid the fairgoers. The afternoon sunlight cast the hair into burnished mahogany. His gut twisted in annoyance. He knew that hair. A contrast to the other occasions he’d viewed it—a sopping wet mess or cloaked in the dim confines of a wagon. But he knew it. Anna.

What was she doing out of bed? Bewildered, he tracked her in the crowd. Even dressed in a deep red gown with a single blue ribbon pulling back the top half of her hair from her face, she looked fresh and clean. And in Luca’s arms.

He scowled. Before he could consider his actions, he was moving across the fair, elbowing past hawkers dangling their wares before him.

He trained his gaze on her, eyeing with disapproval the way she laughed at something Luca said as he pointed into a pen full of pigs waiting to be auctioned.

He stopped beside the ramshackle pen. “Anna,” he greeted tersely.

She turned her head at the sound of his voice.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Crawford. Fine day for a fair, is it not?”

He ground his teeth, certain he heard snideness in her comment. “What are you doing up and about from bed?”

“Mirela said it was perfectly safe as long as I was carried. Luca here graciously offered to let me see some of the fair and get a bit of fresh air.”

Owen eyed the brute’s hands on her. One of his large paws cupped her beneath the legs, holding her carefully at her splinted leg. The other was wrapped around her back.

“If you insist on leaving your bed—”

“Mirela said it would be fine.” Her bright brown eyes sparked defiantly.

He ignored her interruption. “You should be in a cart and not carried about. You could still jostle your leg.”

“I’m in good hands with Luca.” She smiled at Owen as if he were a child and she the tolerant parent. The little minx. She knew he was annoyed, and she was enjoying it.

Luca adjusted her in his arms, and his hands moved a little too much against her back for Owen’s liking. His own hands opened and closed at his sides.