by Kate Pearce
“You have.” His slow smile was filled with wonder. He kissed her again. “The feeling is quite mutual. I’ve been trying to deny it, I’ve been fighting it for months, but I love you too Miranda…” The smile slipped from his face. “And your brother is still going to murder me.”
He gently lowered her to stand and raked an agitated hand through his thick, dark hair, looking more ridiculously handsome than she had ever seen him. “I suppose I could blame the snow and this brothel- not that I should have been out alone with you in the first place, of course. Or I could cite the mistletoe. I daresay it’s been responsible for the ruination of more women than you over the years.”
“If you are going to blame anything, blame my brother. He gave me the mistletoe in the first place. He thought it might help you to clearly see what was right under your nose and always has been… me.”
“He did?” So many things suddenly began to fall into place. Nathaniel’s teasing comments. Miranda’s constant presence. His insistence on a sworn promise to always look after her… “Well I wish he’d have said something sooner. I’ve been in utter turmoil.”
He dragged her back into his arms and kissed her until they were both breathless. When his coat slipped off her shoulders and fell to the floor, and his hands greedily explored the silk-covered skin on her back, she gazed up at him grinning, her hands splayed across his chest possessively. “Andrew Phillips! What about propriety?”
“Propriety be damned, my darling Miranda. I’m done with it… and you can blame it on the mistletoe…”
The Christmas Runaway
Nadine Millard
Prologue
Sir Amos Harris looked on in despair as his daughter’s hazel eyes filled with tears.
He knew, even from this distance, that his little girl would do all she could not to cry in front of her mama.
His poor Emily. She was being brave, but she was hurting.
“I should be with her,” he said to the angel by his side. “This shouldn’t be happening to her.”
The woman in white placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“The time isn’t right for you to help,” she said, her voice serene. “You must follow the rules. Not everyone gets this chance.”
Sir Amos sighed heavily, his heart filled with regret, heavy with sadness.
It was odd to be filled with such overwhelming peace, yet have some small part of him still desperate to return, to protect his child from the life he knew she wouldn’t want.
“Our lives are about to change, Emily. For the better.”
His wife’s voice sounded clear as a bell even though he was so very far away.
Emily tried very hard to muster a smile for her mama, but it was decidedly difficult. Sir Amos knew because he was attuned to his daughter’s every emotion now, in a way that he never had been before.
He felt her astonishment, her grief, even her pain from up here. Yet all he could do was look helplessly on.
Emily bit her lip to keep from crying as her mother chattered excitedly about the upheaval that was coming their way.
The last thing she wanted to do was leave her home. Leave her friends. Leave Henry.
But Mama had always been a social climber of the worst sort and when her husband, Emily’s father, had died only fourteen months ago, rather than grieve the loss, she viewed it as an opportunity to marry up.
What good was it to be the widow of a baron of little standing when she could be the wife of a viscount?
At fifteen, Emily could offer very little in the way of objection. Not anything that Mama was prepared to listen to in any case.
No, she’d had no choice but to stand helplessly by whilst Mama set her sights firmly on Viscount Blechly, an odious, overbearing snake whose horrid demeanour was matched only by the horrid odour he emanated.
“But what about our life here?” Emily asked stubbornly as her mother sat on the end of her bed and broke the news that they were to leave Warwickshire and make their home in York. Miles and miles away from everyone. From Henry.
Emily’s father and Henry’s had been lifelong friends, having met and secured their friendship at Eton. Their friendship had survived Eton, Oxford, marriages, and children.
It had survived Henry’s father, Sir Leopold’s, many financial crises. Only Sir Amos’s death had ended the relationship.
That, in turn, meant Emily had known Henry her whole life.
It had only been in the last year that she’d begun to care for him in a way that she didn’t quite understand, but which felt exciting and really rather wonderful.
Of course, it was completely one-sided. Henry was already a young man, full grown. And though she was on the cusp of womanhood herself, he still saw Emily as the little girl who’d followed him around for years.
But Henry had been so good to her since her father’s untimely death. He’d come from London and been a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen, and with her mother being so preoccupied trying to secure a husband before her last was cold in his grave, he’d been the only person who’d noticed or cared if Emily was coping with the sudden death of a beloved parent.
After the funeral, Henry had left again and headed back to London.
His father’s baronetcy was almost bankrupted, and Henry had been investing the last of the family’s money in ventures that didn’t particularly interest Emily.
She hadn’t paid attention to what Henry had said when he’d spoken of such things. But she had paid attention to the way his chocolate-brown hair had fallen over his brow and the way his light green eyes sparkled when he became animated over some new business or another.
Her mother had been horrified when she’d found out that Henry was going to try to make his fortune in trade.
Emily wouldn’t be surprised if her mother was moving them all the way to York just so they’d stop socialising with the Roaches.
“You’ll have a new life, just as I will,” her mother interrupted her musings, the brisk tone in her voice brooking no argument. “Lord Belchly has been very good to take us both on, Emily. Your father’s cousin never offered. You would do well to remember that.”
Lady Hester stood up, shook out her burgundy skirts, and glided from her daughter’s bedchamber.
Emily sighed as she took in the familiar surroundings. Half of her possessions were already packed away, ready to be gone by week’s end.
It was true that father’s cousin had been rather vocal in his desires to remove them from the manor house.
His offer to Emily that she could return when she was older had made her uncomfortable enough not to even entertain the idea.
Mama might be convinced that marrying a viscount would improve their lives beyond all hope. But Emily couldn’t shake the feeling that her own life was about to get much, much worse.
Chapter 1
Emily squeezed herself further into the corner of the carriage, wishing she were anywhere but here.
In the years since Mama had become Viscountess Blechly, the relationship between her and the viscount had worsened considerably.
Right now, they were arguing about travelling in the middle of what was becoming a rather intense snowstorm.
Emily had grown tired of their constant bickering years ago. Within the first few weeks of the viscount becoming her stepfather, he had shown his true nature as a crude, lascivious, lazy brute.
Emily had seen it as a young girl. Why hadn’t Mama been able to? Perhaps she just hadn’t cared.
In the five years since the viscount and viscountess had married, Emily had grown into a lovely young woman, who was sure to secure a good match for the Blechly peerage. So said the viscount, in any case.
Emily had never been particularly vocal in her objections to being a pawn in the viscount’s desire to be upwardly mobile. Mourning a father, mourning the loss of the life she’d known, her infatuation with Henry, and the shock of suddenly having a new stepfather had all served to distract her from the viscount’s machinations.
As it turned out, that had been to her detriment. Becoming quiet and biddable in an effort to hide away from the couple’s arguments, locking herself in her own world filled with memories of the past, had meant that she’d almost allowed life to pass her by.
The viscount was forcing them all to go and spend Christmastide with his lecherous cousin, the Earl of Barnshire. The earl was a man of ill-repute. A drinking, gambling, whoring monster who scared the wits out of Emily every time she was unfortunate enough to be in his company.
He was also single and childless, and Emily knew her stepfather had high hopes of the older earl shuffling off the mortal coil so he could upgrade his title.
It was a ghastly business, and she hated when Blechly and her mother chattered gleefully about what they would do with the earl’s crumbling pile of bricks once they’d buried him.
They also had plans for Emily, she knew. They intended for her to become engaged to the earl over the Christmas season.
And if Emily managed to bag him, they said, they could begin work right away right under the old codger’s nose.
Of course, they didn’t expect any sort of objection from Emily because she was a biddable, soft little mouse who allowed herself to be chivvied and pushed into everything in her life and never once piped up to offer even a token objection.
A panic unlike she’d ever experienced suddenly swelled up inside Emily. A feeling that she needed to escape. Escape this carriage, this life she didn’t want, and certainly the plans being made on her behalf that she couldn’t stand to even think of.
She had a plan of her own. Hatched since last month when she’d reached her majority and had legal access to her funds.
She was leaving. Leaving her mother and leaving the odious viscount.
Somehow, she was going to get herself to London, get to her father’s solicitor, secure her funds and – and…
Well, she hadn’t gotten much further than that in her mind.
But it was far enough.
Marriage didn’t appeal to her. Certainly not marriage for anything other than the very deepest of loves, something she’d never witnessed in real life but had read about in books.
Her father had loved his wife, Emily was sure. Sir Amos had doted on both his spouse and his daughter.
Yet he hadn’t been cold in his grave before the baroness was off to catch a bigger fish.
And her stepfather certainly didn’t care a jot for his wife. Emily had often wondered why he’d married her at all. Presumably it had been because Sir Amos had been generous to his widow.
And presumably because he assumed he’d be able to manipulate Emily and her dowry.
Well, he could think that all he wanted. But as soon as the opportunity arose, Emily was running.
She would buy herself a small cottage somewhere. Perhaps in Warwickshire, somewhere near her beloved childhood home. But far enough away from her lecherous cousin.
She would have a small garden, a vegetable plot and some animals, and she would be perfectly content with her lot in life.
Emily wasn’t the type who wanted grand, exciting adventures. She never had been. She wasn’t brave or courageous or thrill-seeking.
Yet, if she really wanted her money and her freedom, she would have to be adventurous.
As soon as it became possible, she would need to escape her stepfather’s clutches and make her way to London.
And she wasn’t sure if she could do it.
But the alternative was to be stuck in a life decided for her without even a voice of her own.
The bickering inside the carriage grew louder, as did the storm outside.
Emily’s heart began to race with panic. She hated when they fought, but the raging storm was even more frightening.
Pulling back the small curtain drawn over the carriage window, she saw with some alarm that the snow had reached blizzard levels.
The wind howled and screeched, ripping through the carriage, causing her nose to freeze.
Surely the roads were becoming impassable?
Just as Emily thought it, the carriage came to a stop, and there was a sudden pounding on the door.
It was enough to halt the argument between husband and wife, and Emily was grateful for the reprieve.
“Forgive me, m’lord. But I don’t think we’re going to get much further. The horses are tiring battling the storm, and we can barely see in front of us.”
The driver was shouting to be heard and though he had only opened the door a crack, the carriage was filling with snow.
Emily could see by her stepfather’s expression that he wasn’t best pleased with having a servant, whom he treated abysmally as it was, agree with his wife.
“We will continue,” he said through gritted teeth.
“There was an inn a ways back,” the driver argued. “If we could turn around and give the horses some rest, wait out the worst of the weather — we might—“
“I said, continue,” the viscount bellowed, his voice ricocheting around the inside of the carriage.
Emily’s heart twisted in pity for the servants stuck outside in such adverse weather.
However uncomfortable and cold it was in here, it must be unbearable out in the storm.
Yet a part of her envied them. At least they didn’t have to listen to Viscount and Viscountess Blechly.
Before the driver could argue again, before he could even speak, Blechly leaned forward and grabbed hold of the handle, pulling the carriage door shut with a decisive slam.
They were continuing then. It was madness. But the man would rather endanger all their lives than back down.
The carriage filled with a deafening silence as they all listened to the driver urging the poor horses on.
Sir Amos watched in alarm as his daughter’s carriage pushed on through a storm that nobody should be travelling through.
“This is madness. How can you allow things like this to happen?”
“Free will,” said the angel in white beside him. “Come, Amos. You have been here long enough to know how it works.”
Sir Amos gazed beseechingly at the angel who had guided him through his new life here.
He needed to move on, she had said. Yet he had been unable to. Not when he was so worried about his daughter.
A silent something passed through the two beings. She didn’t speak, yet it felt as though her words echoed around Amos’s mind.
“Now?” he asked, hope colouring his voice.
She smiled, her serene expression never changing.
“Now,” she confirmed.
Sir Amos sighed with relief then turned back toward the scene below him.
Using all his determination, all of his strength, just as he’d been taught, he focused harder than ever before.
As he watched the commotion unfold, he looked doubtfully at the angel by his side.
“Will that be enough?” he asked, worry evident in his tone.
“Free will, Amos,” she reminded him. “We cannot manipulate what they say, what they do, how they feel. We can only present opportunities. The rest is up to Emily.”
All he could do then was wait and hope that his daughter took the opportunity he had presented.
Chapter 2
The sudden lurch of the carriage to the side elicited screams and shouts of surprise from the occupants of the carriage.
The screech of metal on metal rent the air, and Emily was thrown heavily against the side of the vehicle.
The pain that shot from her shoulder down her arm on impact made her gasp aloud, but the sound was drowned out by the cacophony of other sounds around her.
“What the devil is happening?” Viscount Blechly was shouting whilst his wife screamed incoherently by his side.
Emily struggled to right herself, but the carriage was tipped alarmingly to the side and every time she attempted to move along the bench, she slid right back to the window.
“Mama, my lord, are you well?” she tried to be heard about the chaos.
Her mother was hysterical but didn’t appear to be injured in any way. Nor did the viscount.
The door burst open and the concerned face of the driver appeared.
“My lord,” he shouted. “My lady. Lady Emily. Are you hurt?”
Emily thought it rather telling that the driver was the only one who had actually asked if she was alright, but now wasn’t the time to worry about such things.
“What the hell did you do?” the viscount hissed.
“A wheel has come off, my lord,” the driver explained through chattering teeth.
The wind was howling and icy, the flakes of snow swirling faster than Emily had ever seen.
“There’s no way we can get the carriage to move. We must get help.”
“We’re going to die,” the viscountess screeched dramatically, and most unhelpfully.
“Hush, you silly woman.” The viscount spared his wife a contemptuous look before turning back to the driver. “Send for help and then close this bloody door. I won’t freeze to death whilst we await assistance.”
The driver shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, my lord. We don’t know how long it will take. Freddie’s gone back to the inn to raise the alarm but ‘twould be better to try and walk back to the inn ourselves than—“
“Walk in this? Are you mad? Shut the damned door and call me when help has arrived.”
Emily stared in amazement at her overbearing stepfather. Was he really so idiotic as to sit here in the midst of a blizzard instead of at least trying to get away?
Get away…
Get away!
Emily’s heart began to pound.
This could be her chance.
She had money in her reticule. Not a lot, but enough to pay for lodgings somewhere to wait out the storm and then travel to London.
It was madness, wasn’t it? To even consider such an action in the midst of a blizzard.
And yet…