Free Nicola Cornick, Margaret McPhee, et al by Christmas Wedding Belles Page A

making her
shake like this. She had escaped from Woodbridge Gaol with Daniel—no, she had
engineered their escape—and she was ruined, a fugitive and a criminal. No doubt
her face would be appearing on the ‘wanted’ posters soon. And the shocking,
inexcusable and truly extraordinary thing about the whole experience was that
she felt stirred up, alive, free for once from the stifling restrictions and
endless petty rules that had governed her existence as a governess and
chaperon. Oh, she was half appalled at her own behaviour, but she was excited
as well.
    She must be mad.
    She must be in love.
    She closed her eyes in denial of the thought. It could not be
true. But she knew it was. She thought back to that terrible moment in the
ballroom when she had known with blinding certainty that she could not have
borne them carrying Daniel off to gaol and seeing his lifeless body swinging on
the end of a rope. She knew he was all of the things she had said he was. He
was unreliable and reckless and dangerous. But it made not one whit of
difference because she had loved him when she was seventeen and she loved him
still, after all these years.
    Which still did not mean, of course, that she would agree to
marry him. Daniel had said that they must be married to save her reputation—as
though marrying an outlawed pirate would not be the most monstrous scandal in itself.
She imagined her parents, the good vicar and his wife, positively spinning in
their graves. And it simply would not serve. Daniel did not want a wife. His
way of life was completely opposed to it. Besides, were not women supposed to
be bad luck at sea? Lucinda had the conviction that if she went to sea it would
be very bad luck for all concerned. If she felt sick sitting in a rowing boat,
then once a ship began to move she would probably be horribly unwell the entire
time.
    So there was no possibility of her becoming Daniel’s wife. And it
was not simply a practical matter of seasickness. She could, as Daniel had
suggested, go to live at Allandale. But she had no wish to sit at home
wondering where Daniel was and what he was doing. That was not her idea of
marriage.
    The truth was that she knew if she were to marry Daniel she would
be an encumbrance to him rather than the person he had chosen to share the rest
of his life. It would be a marriage borne of necessity rather than desire. For
how could he want a wife when his way of life was so unsuited to marriage? And
she was old enough and proud enough not to want to be second-best to a ship.
Time and again Daniel had proved that the lure of the sea and the wild life he
lived outside the law were more important to him than all else. She loved him,
but she could not trust him not to hurt her again.
    The smooth running of the sledge over the snow slowed a little,
and then they came to an abrupt halt. Lucinda heard Daniel jump down, and then
his voice, speaking low. There was a chink of harness and then the creak of the
sleigh as he lifted the hood and slid in beside her, shaking the snow off him
like a dog.
    ‘The snow is too deep to continue,’ he said. ‘Holroyd has set off
back to the ship on foot.’
    Lucinda scrambled up. ‘We should do the same—’
    Daniel put a hand on her shoulder, pressing her back into the
furs. ‘Lucinda, the snow is already two foot deep and drifting, and you are
clad in nothing but your petticoats and evening slippers. We stay here until
the snow stops.’
    Lucinda hastily slipped her stockinged legs back under the
covers. ‘But we cannot simply sit here! They will be looking for us.’
    ‘What is bad for us is also bad for our pursuers,’ Daniel said.
He shrugged out of his jacket, then started to pull off his boots. ‘No one will
be out whilst the snow falls like this. I have found an empty byre where the
horse will be safe, and we shall be snug in here until we can make the last few
miles down to the creek. We are near Midwinter Mallow, so there is not far to
go.’
    He raised