The Abandoned Bride Read Free

could not wed due to cruel circumstance. I told her that it was not fair for me to wed her with half a heart. I told her the truth, did I not, Edwin?”
    “Yes, Robin,” the older man sighed. “I will take her home now. You stay on here and I shall come for you tomorrow evening, as soon as I may. And then we will leave. Do you understand?”
    The young man raised one hand and then let it fall to the table. Edwin walked a few paces to the door and then wheeled around again. “Her family, Robin. Shall there be serious trouble?”
    “I am not that sort of coward,” the young gentleman said wearily. “No. What sort of trouble could there be? Papa and Mama are decidedly commoners. No, no trouble from that quarter.”
    “And as to what will become of the girl?” Edwin persisted.
    “ What do you think?” came the reply, with a curious note of bitter laughter. “She’s no debutante. Do you think she’ll be ruined? Refused admission to Almacks? Come, come, Edwin my dear, she’ll be married before the year is out. They are not so top-lofty in the provinces, you know. This affair may even lend her a certain cachet.”
    “And your family?” Edwin asked quietly.
    “Ah, my family,” came the reply in a muffled voice. “I shall tell them only what they wish to hear.” As I have told you, the young gentleman thought before he lay his head upon his arms again, and this time found the oblivion he had sought all evening.
    His last customer lay still, slumped across his table, as the landlord heard the coach clatter away into the night. But long moments passed before he crossed the room to help his young patron to his feet and to his bed. For he stood and looked out toward the door for a very long while as though still seeing that white and dazed face as he had last seen it. He remembered the alabaster features, the bright, light tendrils of hair escaping from her hood, no lighter in hue than the carven cheeks, the wide eyes blind with shock as she had walked to the door. So he would remember her always, whenever sorrow touched his own life, and her face would come to him unbidden, as his personal symbol of living grief.

 
    May 1815
    2
    The sun had burned off the early morning mists and now the spring day had grown so slumberous and warm that the young woman had to interrupt her walk to take off her light shawl. But as she put her package d own to do so and paused to lean against a wooden rail fence, she admitted that she was glad of an excuse to linger. It was true that she had been given a half day off to complete her errands. It was further true that her employer was so lenient, especially these days, that she could have delayed her return for hours and not heard a word of censure upon her return. But her conscience had always been her ste rn master and so she had not dawdled for a moment this morning.
    She had posted her letters promptly once she had arrived in town. She had purchased her odds and ends without lingering, she had not even loitered to gossip with Mrs. Ames at the sundries store, and that good woman’s expression had clearly shown that she would have been delighted for a chance for a good chat-up. No, she had been swift and sure in all her transactions, for she had known that she needn’t have wasted time walking to town, she could have easily requested and gotten the use of the rig. But she had wanted a chance to stroll alone through the bright morning, she had needed the opportunity to say her own silent farewell to this countryside, and if she had taken extra time from her employer’s purse for one extravagance, she could not, in all conscience, have taken more moments for others.
    Now she leaned against the wo rn fence rail and looked out upon a sea of yellow fields and breathed deep the fragrance of the blossoms and thought: this, this she would miss as much as any other thing about the home she was about to leave forever. Her employer thought it a foolishness, and the local people hid their smiles