The Star-Crossed Bride Read Free Page B

months. She shuddered at the thought.
    Children. Even if one wasn't likely to arrive scandalously early, she would no doubt have them. Lord Granbury's heirs. She had not even been able to make herself use his Christian name, Francis, and she was now to have his children? It was unthinkable.
    Emily tossed the cake back upon its plate and began to pace. She would have to escape. But to where? Her parents had chosen Scotland for her exile with good purpose. Her friends were far away. Miranda would have come to her aid, but she and the duke were blithely enjoying a trip through Paris and Germany at this very moment. Who else had the courage to defy both her mother and Lord Granbury?
    Valentine.
    She wondered at her own daring for a moment, even as she savored the name. He would help her, though she could not, she warned herself sternly, expect him to have the same feelings for her that she still held for him. Not after his marriage last year. For a moment she nursed the ache in her heart that remained as painful as it had a year ago, when her mother had told her of the marriage. If not for that news, she would never have been so weak as to have accepted Lord Granbury's suit.
    But no, no excuses. She had thought she would not mind a sensible marriage since she could not have Valentine. That did not excuse her failure to recognize that Lord Granbury was not the man for her, despite her father's appreciation for his title and wealth. She was no brainless chit; she should have been more careful, no matter her grief. Once agreed to, an engagement was not lightly broken, even if the groom's smile made the bride wish she had fleas and several missing teeth so that he'd turn his attentions elsewhere.
    She wondered briefly if Valentine's marriage had been as poor a match as her upcoming one. She still did not know the name of his wife, even though she had scoured the London papers without her mother's knowledge, looking for any news of Valentine and his bride. No, she had missed the announcement, since it had happened right after her father's death, when her mother had forbidden the paper to enter the house for three months. And she would not wish him a poor bride. He deserved a good wife. He was a good man, no matter what her parents thought.
    Valentine would help her, she was sure. With new decision, she stripped the coverings from her bed and set about making a rope from her bedsheets. Something that was much harder than it had ever sounded when she read it in a novel. After a few false starts, she had created something sturdy and-hopefully-long enough to reach from her window to the ground below.
    Quickly she packed a bundle of belongings and tossed them to the ground. So that her mother's maid, Letty or her own maid, Nancy would not sound the alarm should they check on her in the night, she replaced the covers on her bed, arranging the pillows to serve as her own sleeping shape. Carefully she settled her collection of porcelain dolls back on the left half of the bed.
    The dolls, with their pretty painted faces, had kept her company since she was a child. If she could have fit them into her bag, she would have taken them with her for companionship as she traveled.
    "Goodbye girls," she said softly patting the head of the nearest doll, Clarissa. Once at the window, she leaned out and looked down. It was quite a distance and the pit of her stomach twisted at the thought of falling. She looked at her locked door. There was no one in the house who would unlock it without her mother's permission. And she did not dare find herself forced to the altar, now that her mother knew she did not want to marry Lord Granbury. She did not know if she would have the courage to refuse.
    She let out the rope, and squinted down to see where it reached. It didn't reach all the way to the ground, but was it ten feet too short? Five? Courage, she told herself, you have jumped farther than that climbing field gates.
    Even with the locked door to remind her how