Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I am about to start on my way again, wondering who could have possibly stolen it, when I hear a familiar voice. I pull my horse to a stop and frown at thin air, listening.
‘Blast it all to hell!’
I look over my shoulder and baulk. ‘Clara?’
She whirls round fast and looks up at me on Figaro. ‘Oh, this is perfect,’ she grumbles and deflates before my eyes. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Me?’ I blurt, dumbfounded.
‘Yes, you.’
‘I’m flaming well looking for you!’
‘Well, you need not bother. I have run away.’ She turns back towards the broken curricle, her hands planting on her hips as she inspects the knackered wheel.
Furious, I get down from my horse and march over. To think it was Clara who stole the horse and curricle? She will be the death of me, I swear it. ‘I don’t know why you are standing there looking at it like you might be able to fix it.’ I can see it is beyond repair. ‘And where is the flaming horse?’
‘It bolted,’ she snaps, throwing a hand out at the wheel. ‘I hit a ditch and it startled the horse.’
‘Great,’ I mutter, rubbing at my wrinkled forehead. ‘How the hell am I going to explain this?’
‘Explain what?’ she asks.
‘This curricle belongs to the Earl of Pembrokeshire, who also happens to be the owner of The Chronicle. Not only have you stolen it, you’ve buggered the bloody thing up and lost his horse.’
‘You stole it first.’ Her nose lifts in an act of pride she has no right to parade. ‘And I did not crash it. It is obviously of poor workmanship if it cannot stand the test of a few bumps in the road. You …’ she shakes her head, as if disappointed, ‘… pretending you were a footman? Shame on you, Frank Melrose.’
She was there? Heard me? ‘You stowed away from the palace?’ I ask, finally finding my voice.
‘Where did you need to be in such a hurry that you would risk your life by stealing a horse and curricle?’
I freeze, my brain not working nearly fast enough to spill my reasons, and she smiles. It is wide and smug and everything I despise about both of my sisters, for it means they have me in a fix. I have nothing. Absolutely nothing. ‘Shut up.’ I look around me, searching for any means of transport to get us home. ‘Your little adventure is over.’
‘I beg to differ,’ she snorts, stomping away. ‘I will walk if I must.’
‘Oh no,’ I catch up with her and snake an arm around her stomach, lifting her from her feet and carrying her back as she kicks and screams like a petulant child. ‘Enough!’ I yell, getting a few hits in my shins from the heels of her boots. ‘We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.’
‘The hard way!’ she yells, her arms and legs flailing. ‘I hate you!’
‘You might be disappointed to hear, sister, but your hatred of me is the least of my worries at the moment.’ I plant her down and wave a finger in her face. ‘You will do as you are damn well told. I am yet to decide whether I will tell Mama and Papa of your bid for freedom, so you will do well to remember that.’
‘I care not who you tell.’ She slaps my hands away, and I wonder, not for the first time, how I came to be so unfortunate as to have not one, but two insolent, defiant sisters.
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that there is a certain way in which the Melrose females must be handled, and making demands of them is not the way. Reasoning with them, however, is. I need to get home and write an article, for the love of God, I have a business to run! Readers to please. A woman to tame.
I frown to myself.
‘Clara,’ I breathe. ‘You realise you will drop dead on the spot if you so much as kiss a man before you are wed, don’t you?’
Her eye roll is impressive. ‘Oh, please, brother. You tried that nonsense with Eliza, and I know it to be true that she did a lot more than kiss the Duke before they were wed, and she was still breathing last time I checked, was she not?’
‘Eliza’s antics prior to the Duke making an offer are not certain.’
‘God, you’re an idiot.’
Damn my smart siblings. ‘OK, you may not die,’ I relent, ‘but you will become seriously ill. Don’t you remember that rather nasty bout of influenza that Eliza suffered only a month or two ago.’
She frowns. ‘Yes. She was taken to her bed for a week.’
‘That is correct. I know it to be true that she kissed the Duke only the day before.’ I do not know it to be true at all, but I must do what I can to resolve this problem that, this time, is not of my making.