Free Love and Freindship and Other Delusions by Beth Andrews Page A

notice—and which should have been placed at her disposal, in any case, as your honoured guest.’
    MacDonald folded his arms across his chest and raised a brow at this.
    â€˜In that case,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘I will not throw you out of my house. I shall merely assist you in departing my residence with all possible speed: something which I should have done some weeks ago!’
    I could see that Sophia was wounded to the heart by his perfidious behaviour.
    â€˜And when I think,’ she said, lips trembling, ‘of the singular service which we have lately rendered to your lovely daughter, I do not know how you have the heart to accuse either of us.’
    â€˜Singular service?’ His brows drew together, and his voice rumbled like distant thunder.
    Then the story of our Herculean labours on Janetta’s behalf came out, mingled with many a tear and sigh as we lingered on the difficulties we had encountered with his headstrong daughter.
    Naturally, we did not expect him to approve his daughter’s match, but I still consider his response to have been somewhat excessive.
    â€˜You have thrown my daughter into the arms of anunprincipled fortune-hunter,’ he exclaimed at the conclusion of our touching narrative. ‘Thanks to you, she will be ruined forever.’
    â€˜We merely performed the duty of true friendship,’ Sophia corrected him.
    â€˜I am sure,’ his lip curled as he spoke, ‘that Elizabeth Tudor never did more for Mary Queen of Scots!’
    â€˜Thank you, sir,’ I said, speaking for us both.
    â€˜Get out,’ was all his answer.
    This was followed by a deplorable contravention of traditional Scottish hospitality, in which he dragged us, kicking and screaming, out of the house by our hair. We were cast down the front steps like so much rubbish, and a servant subsequently threw our belongings out of an upstairs window onto the lawn, for us to collect at our leisure.
    Even as we tumbled down the stone stairway, I could hear MacDonald’s voice threatening to set Darcy upon us. Recalling that this was the name of the ferocious hound which had so frightened Sophia on our first night at MacDonald Hall, we wasted no time on grace and decorum, but ran as fast as we could down the drive.
    Our one bit of good fortune was that Sophia very soon discovered in the lining of her coat, where it lay on the freshly cut grass, one of the purloined banknotes which she had squirrelled away the week before and quite forgotten.
    Clutching our satchels, containing what remained of our belongings, we trudged past the gates for the last time, whiling away the minutes by berating MacDonald for his contemptible treatment, his pernicious ingratitude, and his crudity which had so distressed our exalted minds. Indeed, that is the one defect of possessing an exalted mind: it is too easily distressed to be long comfortable.
    We had walked just over a mile from MacDonald Hall before we sat down to refresh our tired limbs. It was a sweet spot, sheltered by a grove of elms from the east and a bed of nettles from the west. Before us ran a babbling brook, and behind us the turnpike road which was to prove so significant in the perils which would continue to distress us.
    Chapter Fourteen
    I must now warn those who peruse these pages to prepare themselves, for the most pathetic, the most alarming, the most heart-wrenching part of my tale is almost upon you. Read on, therefore, at your peril!
    We untied our bonnets and reclined in the shade, supported by our baggage.
    â€˜What a lovely scene!’ I said at last. ‘If only Edward and Augustus were here to share it with us.’
    â€˜Oh, Laura!’ Sophia cried soulfully. ‘What would I not give to learn the fate of my Augustus: to know if he is still in Newgate or if he has already been hanged.’
    I placed my arm about her shoulders, attempting to comfort her.
    â€˜Shall we return to London, then,