Read The Wife Test for Free Online Page A

snapped to attention and tightened his grip on the reins, giving the mules a crack on the rumps to get them moving. “Drivin’, sarr.”
    “The devil you are.” Hugh reddened, chagrined to realize that the old soldier wasn’t too old to appreciate that bevy of fetching smiles and sparkling eyes. He groaned silently. There probably wasn’t a man in all of Christendom old enough for that. “Stop the cart and get down.”
    “But, sarr—”
    “Down!” He shifted in his saddle and called to the driver of the first baggage wagon: “You there—Withers! Come and replace him.” Then he turned to Chloe and the others. “And you”—he lowered his voice—“I told you to keep your heads down and not to talk to any of my men.”
    The one called Chloe surged to the front of the group and stood up to equal his height as he sat glowering from horseback.
    “We’ve done nothing wrong, sir.” She moved to the edge of the cart. “Mattias”—she nodded toward the old soldier’s retreating back—“was graciously answering a few questions for us about London and the king’s palace.”
    “Which has nothing to do with his orders to drive the cart and keep his eyes and ears to himself.” He glowered at the soldier approaching the cart. “You understand this duty, Withers? You drive and keep strictly to yourself.” The fellow glanced briefly at the “nuns,” nodded, then climbed onto the seat board and took up the reins.
    “We are not a contagion, Sir Hugh,” the appointed one declared.
    He wheeled his mount and headed for the front of the column, muttering.
    “I wouldn’t bet on that.”
    But he had bet on it, he realized as he looked over his shoulder at least fifty times during the next hour. And once again he had lost. Their second driver had quickly been infected with the same plague of garrulousness and affability, and now the cart was veering off the road, heading for the edge of a broad forest.
    “What the devil?” He charged back to order the driver to keep to the road and again found himself facing a hot-eyed Chloe of Guibray.
    “We
asked
him to pull the cart over.” She stood braced at the front of the cart. “We must stop long enough to see to our personal needs.”
    “Absolutely not.” He spotted the wagons and mounted riders following them and furiously waved the wayward wagons back onto the road. “We’ll stop only when we reach a village where we can get feed and water for the horses.”
    “But we
must
stop.”
    “We will stop when I say we stop, and not before!” he roared. Then she folded her arms and lowered her voice so that he had to concentrate to hear her.
    “Unless you have some way of convincing our nether parts to cease their natural function, Sir Hugh, I suggest you allow Withers to continue with us toward the trees.” There came a whimper of distress from the group behind her. “And quickly.”
    She had him, Hugh realized. There was a chuckle off to his left, and when he looked over, Graham was a few feet away leaning on the pommel of his saddle, trying not to grin.
    “All right, dammit!” He flung a finger at the nearby woods. “Take the cart over there!” As the heavy wooden wheels groaned and labored toward the trees, he glowered at Chloe. “You’d better be quick about it. We have a long way to go to reach the coast, and the ship is
waiting.”
    Chloe and the others jumped down from the cart without assistance and scurried into the trees. Hugh jerked his gaze away and spotted several of his men dismounting.
    “Back on your mounts!” he bellowed.
“We’re
not stopping here!” Their dark looks and grudging compliance caused him to climb down from his horse and plant himself squarely between his men and the maiden-infested forest.
    Saints Abundant, he hated this duty … protecting a clutch of headstrong maidens from both themselves and his own comfort-starved men. What could the abbess be thinking, sending them off without an older, wiser head to act as