The Shoemaker's Daughter Read Free Page B

father, I’m going to marry Craig, it was all arranged years ago.’
    ‘Hush, my dear, you don’t want your aunt to hear us talk ill about her son. Now listen to me, all you feel for your cousin is only a childhood fancy.’ His lip tightened. ‘In any case, things are different now, you must see that. The man is a rogue, he stole from his own firm and now that he is serving time in Swansea Prison, I could never allow him near you, let alone marry you.’
    Emily was suddenly cold. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of your objection, father!’ She could hardly believe her own ears. ‘You know that Craig is innocent.’
    Emily paused, angrily searching for the right words. ‘I don’t care what anyone says, Craig wouldn’t stoop to thieving, I just know he wouldn’t. How could you believe it of him?’
    ‘The man is in prison, what further evidence do you need? Now be quiet, see the carriage is moving again.’
    Emily remained silent, it was pointless arguing with her father. She’d better make the most of the occasion and put her views on marriage more forcibly once she returned home.
    The coach drew to a jerky halt near the curbside. Aunt Sophie woke suddenly, eyes clear, as though she had never been asleep. She touched a hand to her hair and smiled at Emily, indicating she alight from the coach first.
    Emily was being handed down to stand before the light-filled doorway of the Assembly Rooms and she took a deep breath of anticipation, this was her night, the night she was to be accepted as an adult and she would make the most of it.
    In the main ballroom, the lights blazed from all sides and the many mirrors reflected the light a thousand-fold. Emily gasped as she looked around her.
    It seemed as if she was facing a sea of glittering gowns. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires as well as a mixture of semi-precious stones glinted and sparkled at her from all directions. One woman seemed to drift in a sea of amethyst and diamonds, they were all about her, in her hair, on her gown, even her shoes were decorated with flowers made of amethyst with a huge diamond as a centre piece. She must have shoes just like that, Emily decided.
    ‘Good thing I’m wearing mother’s emeralds,’ Emily whispered to her aunt, ‘you won’t see finer gems than mine anywhere in this room.’
    She glanced at the backdrop of gentlemen, most of them in uniform, standing uncomfortably near the wall as though to divorce themselves from the proceedings and her heart sank as she thought of Craig, he should be here today, sharing in her adventure.
    She had written to him while he was in prison but had received no reply, but then she had excused him in her own mind, telling herself he would be free soon, then he would come home to her and make her his bride.
    Craig was a fine catch, a handsome man and one of action rather than words. She could not picture him behind the grim walls of Swansea Prison, instead she remembered him riding with her in the park, smiling down at her with his dark eyes, making her feel so small and helpless.
    She glanced around the room, there wasn’t a man here to come near to Craig for looks and presence.
    Tomorrow she would ride in the park again but Craig would not be with her. But she would write and tell him how fine the flower-beds were and how across the road the sea rushed into the golden shore and she would tell him how much she missed him.
    But no, she could not ride tomorrow, her boots had not come back from the shoemaker’s. Emily felt a flash of irritation, she had insisted that the shoemaker’s daughter take the boots away to be soled and heeled and at the same time she’d had a fitting for some new slippers. The girl was a gifted shoemaker, but there was something insolent about her, perhaps it was the way she held her head high with her glorious abundant hair flowing free that somehow irritated Emily.
    She had requested new riding boots but her father with unaccustomed frugality had told her