Free The Wedding Runaway by Katy Madison

into his glass. " Whatever it is. "
    " You would send him home? " asked Victor.
    " Most like. Unless he offered up evidence of abuse or mistreatment. "
    " He resents my interference. "
    " Do you want his friendship or his best interests? "
    " Both , but too many times the two are mutually exclusive. " Victor felt a wave of sadness wash through him. When had he ever been good for anyone? " I shall see if I can convince him it is in his best interests to return home. "
    ~*~
    " Oh, thank the Lord , a fire. " Trevor Hamilton stuck his hands out toward the flames roaring in the common room of the inn. He had been chilled to the bone so deeply the last three months that he ' d never be warm again. " Remind me never to sail from Boston to England during the winter ever again. "
    Oscar Sullivan gave him a despairing look.
    " Never fear, we ' ll find her. At least we know she made it here. " But they ' d known she booked passage to Plymouth before they left. Finding out how she ' d left Boston had been fairly easy. All ports kept detailed logs of passengers and cargo in case a ship went down.
    They caught the next passenger ship to England , but winter storms delayed their arrival. They had put into port at Dover and had to travel the breadth of England to get to Plymouth where Lydia ' s ship had docked.
    But then the trail went cold.
    " We need supper ," said Oscar.
    " James is talking to the innkeeper about lodgings. We might have found which way Lydia went and been on her trail tonight. "
    Trevor decided he ' d warm his hands first , before moving to see if there was food to be had. He knew Oscar was impatient with the whole process of finding his runaway bride , but he didn ' t need to despair yet.
    They ' d searched high and low , visiting all the inns in Plymouth , and then all the coaching houses , anywhere a girl might hire transportation. At first they thought they ' d found her. One innkeeper remembered leasing a room to an American woman and her maid , but no one remembered seeing the tall blond American girl leave town. Yet , she wasn ' t here.
    Trevor had spent the better part of the day checking ship manifests to see if she had booked passage on another ship. A storm had been blowing in from the sea , making his trek from one shipping office to the next fraught with the sting of sea spray and a biting wind.
    " Where could she be? " moaned Oscar.
    " I ' d bet money she headed for London. "
    Oscar ' s near desperation had kept them searching long after they should have quit for the day. Trevor was fairly sure that no stone in Plymouth remained unturned. The question was if they should turn the same stones again tomorrow , or should they just move on to where they all suspected and Trevor hoped Lydia had gone.
    Oscar sank down on a bench and covered his chiseled features with his hands.
    Damn , the man was melodramatic. Then again, so was Lydia at times. Perhaps it really was love. " She had Jenny with her. If anything was terribly wrong , Jenny would have sent word. She ' s got a sensible head on her shoulders, even if Lydia doesn ' t. "
    Trevor probably shouldn ' t have said anything so disparaging about his sister to the man who wanted to marry her. That the man was willing to travel across the ocean in a freezing and damp cabin spoke of his earnestness. For the love of Peter , what did Oscar see in Lydia? Trevor didn ' t know that he ' d go to such bother for a woman if she weren ' t his sister.
    A certain English beauty he ' d met five years ago during his Grand Tour sprang to mind as a woman who should have prompted a strong emotional pull , yet when the time came to go home , he ' d gone.
    Although the memory of Lady Helena haunted his dreams , he never would have made the journey back to England if Lydia didn ' t need retrieving. He just didn ' t believe in grand passions. When it came to a wife , an American girl was likely to be much less bother.
    When he met Helena , she was eighteen , beautiful and perfectly