Julia London Read Online Free PDF Page B

carelessly. “I
knew
he would have come for me had it not been for the snow!” In a sudden whirl of plum, she flew across the room to her satchel. Sam had been about to say that the weather prevented him from escorting her last evening, but seeing the gloriously happy look on her lovely face, he did not dare contradict her. Abbey stuffed her pistol into the satchel,donned her cloak, grabbed her muff, reticule, and satchel, and started for the door, then stopped abruptly.
    “I can’t go until I know what has befallen Mrs. Petty. She did not return from supper last evening.”
    “Mrs. Petty is well enough, I can assure you, but she has been discharged from her duties. I will ask the innkeeper to see that her things are returned,” Sam said, and motioned toward the corridor.
    Abbey glanced skeptically at the woman’s articles of clothing.
    “On my honor, Mrs. Petty is quite all right,” Sam said again.
    Abbey lifted her gaze, studying him, then cautiously preceded him down the stairs. In the common room, she declined Sam’s suggestion that she eat something and headed straight for the coach. She could not get away from Pemberheath fast enough to suit her. Clearly, her doubts about Michael, colored by the malicious accusations of Mrs. Petty, had been wrong. With a fat smile, she settled back against the high cushion and tucked the lap rug about her. The fears that had plagued her since she had disembarked in Portsmouth seemed laughable now. She had been nervous and unfamiliar with the ways of the English, nothing more. It was the snow, that was all. He could not come because of the snow.
    Everything was going to be fine, just fine.
    Sam appeared after settling with the innkeeper and climbed in, taking a seat across from her. He smiled as he signaled for the driver to proceed, then settled back against the squabs, stretching his long legs across the coach.
    Abbey smiled brightly as they lurched forward. “Is it very far to Blessing Park?”
    “Five miles or so. May take some time because of the snow.”
    “Is Lord Darfield there?”
    “Of course.”
    Abbey sighed with obvious relief. “He must be very impatient,” she remarked with a smile, then shifted her gaze to thewindow. “He has been waiting such a very long time to marry.”
    Sam was startled by her apparent assumption that Michael somehow
wanted
this preposterous marriage. “Do you remember him?” he asked uncertainly, to which Abbey looked surprised.
    “Of course!”
    “Lord Darfield told me it was quite some years ago when last he saw you. You could not have been more than a child,” Sam explained.
    Abbey’s laugh was gentle, lilting. “You are quite right, of course … Lord Hunt, isn’t it? I was only a child when I last saw him in the flesh, but my father had sketches made of him over the years—”
    “Sketches?” Sam interjected incredulously.
    “Oh yes, several sketches! You see, Lord Darfield could not come to visit me—we were forever in different ports—so when Papa had occasion to see him over the years, he had sketches made of him. He had one crewman who was particularly talented with a piece of charcoal and would send the sketches to me so I would not forget what he looked like. And, of course, he would send sketches of me to Lord Darfield, as he was always badgering Papa for a glimpse of me.”
    Sam seriously doubted that Michael had seen any of those sketches, or else he would not have described her so falsely to him. He also seriously doubted that Michael had ever badgered Captain Carrington for
anything
, with the possible exception of being released from the absurd agreement. “Your papa sounds like a kind man.”
    Abbey smiled, her full lips stretching across a row of straight, white teeth. “He was
very
kind, and very good to me,” she said, a distant look clouding her eyes for a moment. “But, I think, not as good as Lord Darfield has been to me,” she added softly.
    Sam managed to hide his great surprise behind a