Elisabeth Fairchild
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Authors: Captian Cupid
Captain Cupid, A Regency Romance
By
Elisabeth Fairchild
Table Of Contents
Other Books By Elisabeth Fairchild
Copyright Page
Captain Cupid.
by Elisabeth Fairchild
Cover Design by Jim D’Arc Designs
Copyright Info:
Captain Cupid Calls the Shots
first published in paperback by Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA, December 2000 and revised for release in electronic book format by
Ink Lion Books
, June 2012
copyright
2000
Donna Gimarc
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced to any information storage and retrieval system, in any form, whether electronic or mechanical without the author’s written permission. Scanning, uploading or distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission is prohibited.
Please purchase only authorized electronic versions, and do not participate in, or encourage pirated electronic versions
Visit the authors website at:
www.elisabethfairchild.com
Also by
Elisabeth Fairchild
The Silent Suitor
The Counterfeit Coachman
Miss Dornton’s Hero
Lord Endicott’s Appetite
A Fresh Perspective
Marriage a la Mode
Breach of Promise
A Game of Patience
Love Will Find the Way (Novella)
The Ramsay Family Saga
The Loveknot
The Rakehell’s Reform
Provocateur
NEW! Coming Soon
The Valentine Duo
Captain Cupid Calls the Shots
Valentine’s Change of Heart
Christmas Revelry
The Holly and the Ivy
Sugarplum Surprises
The Christmas Spirit
NEW! Coming Soon
Felicity’s Forfeit (Novella)
A Christmas Canvas (Novella)
The Mistletoe Kiss (Novella)
Dedication
To
All those whose lives have been clouded by mistaken assumptions
Chapter One
Silvered mist shrouded the vale ahead--Eden--the hills beyond ghostlike and uncertain. The just risen sun struggled to penetrate a gray wool sky. It washed white the distant mists.
Beneath him the trees struck counterpoint in dark gray, leafless silhouette, hunchbacked by the wind, ranks of them, standing guard at the edges of every mist cloaked field. Many a morning he had stood guard, just so--morning’s best forgotten.
He rode a length or two ahead of the others, into the cold, wet, unfamiliar landscape. Fogged, like his thoughts. It had become his habit to ride a little apart, lost in looking rather than thought, leaving his companions to what seemed unending conversation, their voices a low murmur at his back, reminding him of all he wanted to forget.
He saw it first, emerging from the mists ahead, the swaying rump of a pony, first gray, the fog’s deception, then brown, a liverish color with a grey-brown mane and tail, its gait uneven, a woman leading the animal, nothing gray about her.
The purple cloak clutched about slender form, hem held high, sparkled like a jewel on muted velvet. Amethyst-darkest amethyst. The bobbing bonnet glowed golden, braided straw diamonded with water.
His horse, a towering gray beast that had charged unfaltering into the frey at Waterloo, carrying one of Scott’s Grays to his death, the same horse that had then stood waiting for the body to rise again from a field of blood soaked rye, this faithful, sure-footed creature who had carried him to safety when he had taken a shot in the fat of his calf, slipped now in the mud, hooves thumping.
The brown pony snorted, breath pluming, hind legs jacking out to kick assumed danger.
The woman started, bonnet swiveling, fear large in dark eyes reflecting the color of her cloak. Amethyst eyes. He saw nothing else for a long, searching moment, in which bejeweled eyes questioned the very quality of his being.
Pale lashes veiled her regard. The moment passed. She looked away--left him longing for another glimpse of a troubled soul.