The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt by Stephanie Laurens

Deliah down. She continued to grumble, which
     in her case was more like acerbic verbal sniping, which Del found amusing,
     although he was careful not to let his appreciation show.
    But after the innkeeper bowed them into a pretty parlor with lace
     curtains and comfortable chairs, and then proceeded to serve an excellent meal,
     her griping ceased. By the time he escorted her back into the main tap and
     paused by the bar to settle the account, she was entirely appeased, and in a
     relatively mellow mood—not that she would admit it.
    Lips curving, Del chatted to the barman while he waited for the
     innkeeper to tot up the damage.
    The tap was half full. Rather than stand beside Del and be covertly
     studied by the occupants, Deliah wandered to an archway where a pair of glassed
     doors gave onto a small courtyard. Gently rolling lawns lay beyond; in summer,
     the area would, she suspected, be dotted with the trestles and benches she could
     see stacked to one side under a row ofleafless trees.
    Nearer at hand, a narrow bed ran along the wall of the inn, full of
     hellebores in bloom. It had been so long since she’d seen the so-called
     Christmas roses on impulse she opened the door and went out to admire them.
    The plants were old, large, and carried many spikes of large,
     nodding white blooms. Some were even spotty. She bent down the better to
     see.
    And heard a soft rush of footsteps coming up the lawn.
    Straightening, she started to turn—just as a large man seized
     her from behind.
    She screamed, struggled.
    A second man tried to help the first, tried to hold her still as the
     first attempted to clap a hand over her mouth.
    She ducked her head, jabbed an elbow back hard—into a flabby
     stomach. The first man gasped, then wheezed.
    The second man swore and tried to haul her away from the inn as the
     first man’s grip faltered.
    She dug in her heels, dragged in a breath, and screamed again.
     Wrenching one arm free, she struck wildly at the second man.
    Del erupted from the inn. Kumulay and Mustaf were on his heels.
    The second man swore, and fled for his life.
    The first man wasn’t as fast; he was still clutching her,
     still wheezing. Del grabbed her free arm with one hand. His other fist flashed
     past her shoulder.
    She heard a sickening crunch, then the large man’s grip on her
     eased and fell away.
    Del pulled her to him, to his other side. Peering back, around him,
     she saw the man who’d seized her laid out unconscious on the flagstone
     path.
    Then every man and woman who’d been in the tap came pouring
     out—to see, exclaim, ask questions, demand answers.
    Del suddenly found himself and Deliah surrounded by a well-meaning
     throng. Many seemed to think Deliah wouldbe in imminent
     danger of collapse, presumably from overwrought sensibilities, an assumption she
     seemed to find as mystifying as, and rather more irritating than, he did.
    Questions, solicitude and sympathetic outrage came from all sides;
     it took vital minutes to calm everyone down.
    Finally Del looked up and saw Mustaf and Kumulay striding back up
     the lawn. Mustaf shook his head, gestured with his fingers—the man had had
     a horse waiting.
    They’d intended to grab Deliah and take her somewhere.
     Del’s mind supplied the where—wherever the Black Cobra or his
     lieutenant was waiting.
    He swallowed a curse, looked for the man he’d laid
     out—then clamped his lips shut on an even more virulent oath.
    The man had vanished.
    Teeth gritted behind an entirely false smile, he tightened his hold
     on Deliah’s arm and started steering her through the crowd, toward the
     front of the inn.
    Having noted the disappearance of the man, and Del’s
     direction, Mustaf and Kumulay went to summon the others and ready the
     carriages.
    It was another twenty minutes before they were once again underway,
     and rolling out of the no-longer-so-sleepy village.
    Del slumped back against the seat, finally registered the throbbing
     in