Read Online Stealing the Bride by Elizabeth Boyle - Free Book Online

forget to breathe .
    She looked at him, almost expectantly, as if she wanted him to decry her actions, demand an explanation. Claim her for himself.
    Words he wouldn’t utter. Words she, of all people, knew he’d never say.
    The spell broke as Cordell called from inside. “Got anything to drink in here, Templeton? It’s nigh on past noon and I’m parched.”
    “Sorry, sir,” Temple said. “I never partake before evening.”
    “Some help this,” Cordell grumbled.
    “My hand, my lord?” she said, plucking her fingers free from Temple’s grasp and getting into the carriage without his help.
    He let her go and, ignoring Cordell’s complaints, went to assist the final passenger, Mrs. Foston, Diana’s ever-patient hired companion, who was pointing her cane at which bags she wanted Elton to tie onto the Setchfield berline.
    “Madame,” he said. “A moment of your time.”
    “Yes?” Mrs. Foston was a tall, angular woman whose sharp gaze missed nothing. The perfect hired companion for a willful young lady. Perfect, that is, until she’d let such a travesty befall her charge.
    “Why didn’t you prevent this?” Temple asked. “How could you let Diana run away with the likes of that sot?”
    She shook her head. “What would you have me do, my lord? Let her run off alone? She was quite determined. No, I thought it best that at least she have me along.”
    Temple ran a hand through his hair. This was hardly the answer he’d been seeking. “I would have thought you, madame, would have had more sense than to allow this.”
    Mrs. Foston drew herself up to her full height. “And what about you, my lord?” she asked. “Some might say the same about you.” With that, the lady stomped over to the carriage and got in beside Diana, wielding her cane like a veritable staff.
    Temple stood there openmouthed. Why did the entire world think Diana was his obligation?
    “Not for very much longer,” he muttered under his breath.
    And somewhere in the back of his mind a quirky little voice chanted back at him.
    You doth protest too much .
     
    After an hour or so on the road, Temple glanced up from the book he was reading. “Is something wrong, sir?” he asked, holding up his lorgnette to send a speculative glance in Cordell’s direction.
    The other man sat slumped heavily against the wall of the carriage, his face a ghastly shade of gray.
    “Why, you look positively ill,” Temple said.
    “I am fine,” Cordell responded through clenched teeth.
    “No, I think not. You have all the appearances of a man about to cast up his accounts.”
    “Traveling doesn’t agree with him,” Diana said irritably. “Just leave him be.” She snapped her book shut and glared at Temple.
    “Perhaps it’s the company he’s been keeping,” Temple noted, returning his gaze to his studies and ignoring the way Diana’s eyes blazed with a murderous intent.
    He could just see her mind awhirl as she considered and rejected one perfectly blistering rebuttal after another. He was saved from her tongue lashing by her companion.
    “What is that you are reading, my lord?” Mrs. Foston asked, trying to return the party to some semblance of well-bred order.
    He held the book up. “I am studying Persian.”
    “Is that Sir John’s work?” Diana asked.
    Temple nodded. “Yes, Sir John Sutton.”
    “Sutton?” Cordell asked. “Sutton, you say? Isn’t he the fellow who turned traitor and hanged himself?”
    Mrs. Foston gasped.
    “Yes, ’tis the same man. But despite his dishonorable end his work remains highly regarded.”
    “Harrumph,” Cordell snorted. “Seems to me you like the company of traitors, Templeton. This here Sutton fellow and that turncoat cousin of yours, Danvers. Cowardly ilk, I say.”
    Diana coughed at the mention of her former fiancé.
    Cordell snorted. “Oh, right. You were betrothed to Danvers, weren’t you? Sorry business, that. Well rid of him, I’d say.”
    Temple thought she’d be better rid of her latest