Free Stolen Away: A Regency Novella by Shannon Donnelly Page B

danger afoot in this world. Half-pay English soldiers back from the war wandered the land with little to do other than make mischief, and they’d not be so kind to such a beauty.
    Muttering curses he wondered why he had ever thought Chloe’s lack of male relatives an advantage. Now he knew it for the disaster it was—she had never learned to mind anyone. Least of all a man. Well, time she learned.
    Striding to the gelding, he threw on the beast’s bridle and led the horse from the barn. With his luck, the nag would probably not be broken to saddle and would throw him, but the hunt for his heiress would be faster on horseback.
    He led the horse from the barn and stopped at the sight before him.
    She sat cross-legged in a patch of wild daisies, her skirt billowing around her, her shoes—pretty, dainty things fashioned with low heels after those of last century—next to her. Even in her rumpled brocade overskirt, her curls tumbled lose, she looked fresh as the dawn itself.
    His irritation sharpened. What was she doing giving him such a start? Frowning, he dropped the reins, leaving the gelding to graze and strode to her. “And what do you think you might be doing here all on your own?”
    She glanced up, her expression calm. His heart seemed to stop for an instant. Mother Mary, but she was a beauty, with that spun-gold hair and that heart-shaped face and those wide, wide blue eyes. She looked like the dawn, right enough, all pink and golden and soft blues.
    “I am resigning myself,” she said.
    “Resigning now, is it?”
    “To marriage with you. We have spent the night together—however chaste.”
    His frown deepened. “It’s not rape I’m after.”
    “No, you made it quite clear you want my fortune, not my person. Therefore, I shall marry you, for my reputation is in ruins if I do not. You may have my money and I shall go to a nunnery.”
    He couldn’t stop the grin. “A nunnery? You’d be trying to take the veil as Christ’s bride, would you? You’d not be an hour in any cloister before you caused so much trouble they’d want you packed and gone from their hallowed halls.”
    Her chin came up. For a moment, the blue eyes sparkled. She turned to pick a daisy. “I do not expect to become a nun, merely to seek refuge from an unkind world.”
    He almost laughed at such melodrama, but the tremor in her voice checked his mockery and he stopped grinning. Throwing himself in the grass beside her, he plucked the daisy from her fingers. “Just how has this world ever been unkind to you? You’re an heiress—the most courted lady in London. That’s not sounding too unkind to my ears.”
    She glanced at him, hot scorn in her eyes. “What would you know of it?”
    Shrugging, he twirled the daisy. “What would I not know—I’m an Irishman in England.”
    Tilting her head, she studied him, and blurted out, “The other girls hated me in school—they always said such horrid things about me. And then my parents died...” She looked away, and added, her voice soft, “They called me an orphan, as if that was something awful. And when I went to live with my aunt and cousin—well, I tried to make them like me. I did. But I could tell they did so only from duty.”
    “And don’t you know why?”
    She shook her head.
    “Dear one, have you never looked in a mirror before? Any other woman would have to be a saint to look at you and not be jealous—and then it’s themselves they don’t like, first for not being so blindingly beautiful, and then you for making them feel catty about it. Men lust for you, and women hate you for it, and it won’t ever leave you much company, save for those who’ll stay by you long enough to see there’s a person under that face of yours.”
    “And how do you know so much about women?”
    He grinned. “I’ve sisters, my sweet. I know them. As well, do I know jealousy. I’m Irish, dear one. And its jealous English hands that have been trying to take our land from us for well over