The Lost Love of a Soldier Read Online Free Page B

small foot pressed on his, as her gloved fingers gripped his. She was light, but the grip of her hand and the pressure of her foot made that something clasp tight in his chest, and the emotion stayed clenched as her fingers embraced his waist over his greatcoat.
    He shifted in the saddle, his groin tightening too. A few more days. Just days. He had been waiting months. As he turned the horse, Ellen’s cheek pressed against his shoulder.
    “Did you tell anyone you were leaving? Your sister? Or your maid?”
    “No, I did not want them to have to face Papa knowing the truth. He would be able to see they’d lied, and then who knows what he might do.” Paul urged the mare into a trot as Ellen continued. “He made me spend the day on my knees reading the Commandments because I refused to marry the Duke of Argyle.”
    “Today?” He wished to look back at her but he could not.
    Her father had been diabolical to Paul, sneering as though he was nothing when he’d done the decent thing and offered for her. He could not imagine the way Pembroke treated the girls.
    He had to get Ellen to Gretna before her father caught them, so she never had to come back and face his retribution.
    He stirred the mare into a canter. Ellen gripped his waist more firmly.
    “Yes today,” she said, leaning to his ear. “He came to my room this morning, to ask if I was repentant.”
    If she was repentant? She’d done nothing wrong, as far as her father was aware. He’d not told her father they’d been communicating since the summer. He’d expected to be refused, and he’d not wished their pathway of communication closed. All she had been guilty of, as far as her father knew, was that her presence and her company in the summer had attracted a man her father deemed unworthy. She bore no guilt for being beautiful and charming.
    God, how had Pembroke brought up this untouched, unscarred girl? “Did you tell him you repented?”
    She laughed; a low soft sound he hadn’t heard before. “No.”
    He smiled. It had taken him so long to make his offer because he’d wanted to feel sure she could cope as his wife, that she had the strength to follow the drum. She had it. She had a core of iron. She would survive. He would make sure she did; though he didn’t doubt his way of life was going to come as a shock to her. He’d tried to warn her in letters, preparing her, but he could tell from her responses it was all whimsical rather than real. It would become real.
    He stopped the horse suddenly, and strained to look over his shoulder, as it restlessly side stepped. “You’re sure of this, Ellen? I mean, if you are not, I can take you back.”
    In answer, her fingers slid further about his midriff and gripped him harder. There was a pain in his chest and his groin again. “I am sure.”
    I am sure too .
    “Then let us hurry.” He kicked his heels and set the horse off at a canter, his mind on the treacherous tracks they were likely to encounter on their journey north. This was a race now.
    The ground was hardened by frost, and slippery. The horse’s breath and theirs rose as steam in the air.
    They had a few hours lead, but–
    “Papa, said I was to have nothing to eat either, at least he played into our hands. I told Pippa not to bring me any food.”
    Then perhaps their head start would be twelve hours to a day, but even so it was the wrong time of year for haste. He hoped the cold weather and frost would hold, better that than rain and mud bound routes when carts, horses and men became bogged down. His head had already begun ordering the flight like a bloody military campaign.
    “The coach is waiting for us at the inn. It will be ready. I’ve hired a yellow bounder.”
    “A coach and four?”
    He smiled at the tone of excitement in her voice. “Yes. You sound as if you fancy driving them?”
    She laughed again, that low heart-wrenching beautiful sound. “No, I wouldn’t have a clue, but I have never ridden in a fast carriage. It sounds