Free The Prince Kidnaps a Bride by Christina Dodd Page A

night before, had been well loved.
    Sorcha turned to Davis, the blacksmith. “Thank you for recommending this place. It was wonderful getting to know you. I hope someday we can meet again.”
    Davis rumbled, “Aye, little lad, if ye ever come through Hameldone again, ye must come find me and we’ll lift another pint and we’ll sing another song.”
    She punched his meaty shoulder, located at least a foot above her own, and turned to the spry old apothecary. “Mike.” Opening her arms, she hugged him as hard as she could. “You dear man, I promise I’ll write you when I get home and you must promise to write back and tell me if Miss Chiswick has favorably responded to your suit.”
    “I still say if she hasna forgiven me after forty years, she’s na likely t’.” He sniffed as if in disdain.
    But Sorcha understood he was actually brokenhearted. “And I still say if you don’t try, you’ll die regretting it. Besides, I think all she’s been waiting for is a simple ‘I’m sorry,’ and she’ll fall into your arms.”
    “She’s a bonny thing.” Mike’s smile stretched his wrinkled mouth. “She’d look beautiful in orange blossoms.”
    “That’s the spirit.” Sorcha turned to Haverford.
    Lord Haverford, actually—tall, handsome, a man of wealth, and an Englishman in exile. A knowing smile played across his lips and his blue eyes looked into the depths of hers as if he were trying to tell her something.
    He’d been doing that all last evening, too, but last night she’d been tipsy enough not to understand, and today, sober as she was, she still couldn’t comprehend what it was he thought he knew. “Haverford, my friend.” She extended her hand to him, for Haverford winced whenever she embraced him. “I’ll miss you most of all.”
    Taking her hand between both of his, he cherished it. “I think you should wait to travel on until next week when I can escort you.”
    “There isn’t time for that.” Now that she’d left the convent and shed the company of Sandie, she felt the pressure to go forward, to get to Beaumontagne before something dreadful could happen. “I’m in a hurry.”
    “So you’ve said. But sometimes it’s better to be safe than arrive on time.”
    All around her, the others nodded.
    “’Tis a road fraught with danger that ye ride,” Mike said. “And at the end o’ it, ye have Edinburgh, the most sinful city in the world.”
    “I won’t be in Edinburgh long,” she said. “Just long enough to catch a ship to my destination.”
    Haverford groaned. “A ship? Like that?” He ran his gaze over her from head to toe. “I should keep you here by force.”
    “But you won’t.” She grinned at him. “That would make me unhappy.”
    Haverford sighed. “No. I won’t.”
    It wasn’t that she didn’t take his concern seriously, but she easily read his character. Haverford was bone-lazy and without resolution of any kind, and although she had hopes for his future, at the moment she could command him with a crooked finger.
    The serving maids waited outside to bid her good-bye, so Sorcha gave her new friends a last wave and escaped through the door to more affectionate farewells.
    Then, with a spring in her step, she headed for the stable, where she settled her account. St. Donkey greeted her enthusiastically, shoving her head under Sorcha’s arm in search of treats. Sandie’s pony was nowhere in sight, and she asked the hostler, “Is Sandie already gone?”
    “Yesterday,” came the answer.
    That surprised her. What had sent Sandie off in such a hurry? Was he so pleased to be rid of her he couldn’t wait to leave her behind? It pained her to sit in judgment of her fellow man, but what an odd, nasty sort of person he was!
    Yet she had an adventure lying before her, and she cheerfully saddled her pony and rode toward the outskirts of town.
    As the last building disappeared on the horizon, she found Haverford mounted on a beautiful horse, his broad shoulders stiff, his