An Early Engagement by Bárbara Metzger Read Free Book Online

affecting anyone else. She realized that she’d been unconsciously headed for Stockton Manor this whole time, and heaven knew there was not much ill he could do there, not in the deplorable condition the last earl had left it.
    The only Stocktons in residence, however, were skitter-witted Nadine, at fifteen the biggest flirt in the county, and her equally flighty aunt, no protection at all. Those two were barely holding household and needed another penniless mouth to feed as much as they needed another leak in the roof. There was no other house in the neighborhood where Emilyann could just drop in and announce: “I do not like the husband my evil guardian has selected for me, may I stay here for eight years?” They would lock her in chains, right before sending a message back to Arcott.
    “But I can’t go back, I just can’t,” Emilyann wailed, dropping to the ground and beating her fists on her knees. The mare nudged her before ambling off to find a patch of new grass. “Fine help you are,” the girl complained, getting up to fetch the reins before Coco remembered she was missing her supper. “You would most likely go home without me.”
    Home. No money, no friends, no loving family. Home, where Bobo would torment her and her uncle would batter her with words, meanness, and greed. She could stand up to his harassment—she was her father’s daughter, after all— but how long could she endure this new physical abuse?
    She could make one of the maids sleep in her room, and keep one of the dogs by her side and a pistol in her pocket, but she knew from that gleam in Morgan’s eye that he would never give up. She would never be safe again. How long, dear Lord, could she live like that? How long before she took Bobo to wed ... or took a life, Morgan’s or her own?
    She buried her face in the horse’s mane and wept.
    * * * *
    “Hell’s bells, Emmy, don’t tell me you and the mare have parted company. I wouldn’t have believed it.”
    She’d never even heard the horse and rider approaching, but she looked up quickly, wiped a dirty hand across her face, and smiled at her old chum Geoffrey, the youngest of the Stockton boys, now grown to a gangly sixteen-year-old, dark like all the Stocktons.
    “Don’t believe it, you clunch. Coco would never be so rude. But whatever are you doing home, Geoff? Not that I’m not delighted to see you, of course.”
    He waved one hand in the air with studied nonchalance as he dismounted, saying, “Oh, the usual.” His wide grin ruined the effect.
    “Sent down again! Oh, you great looby!” It may have been true, but it was spoken with a deal of warmth as the two shared a quick hug of affection.
    “I say, though, Em, if you haven’t taken a toss, why is it you look like you’ve been dragged through the hedge backward?”
    “Now, that’s a pretty thing to tell a lady,” she said, stalling, bringing a blush to her friend’s cheeks.
    “You know I ain’t in the petticoat line, Em. ‘Sides, if you were hanging out for compliments, you’d be reclining on a sofa dressed to the nines, like m’sister Nadine.”
    Emilyann shook out her skirts in a cloud of dust, avoiding his eyes. “Uncle Morgan’s home.”
    “Uh, right.” Nothing more needed to be said, so they walked on, leading their horses. After a bit Geoff murmured, mostly to himself, “Damned lucky I didn’t take the shortcut and miss you at the Hall.”
    “Dashed lucky,” she corrected him automatically. “Aunt Ingrid is visiting in Cheltenham, so you wouldn’t have had to make your bows there, and I doubt dear Uncle was receiving. Only he and Bobo came for the visit,” she added bitterly.
    Geoffrey wrinkled his brow in an effort to figure out what wasn’t being said, then he gave it up. “We’ve got company over at the manor, too. M’brother Thornton and his wife, Cynthia, stopped by on their way from London.”
    “Oh?” She couldn’t drum up much interest. Reverend Thornton and his wife were as dull