Undoing of a Lady by Nicola Cornick Read Free Book Online Page A

broken?
    “Lizzie!” Nat bellowed.
    Lizzie took her life in her hands and dived between two carriages, hearing the coachman swear and feeling the heat of the horses’ breath against her face. Over the parapet, under the bridge, along the water’s edge, up into the village on the other side of the river, into the cabinetmakers where her unkempt reflection stared back at her from an endless line of mirrors for sale, the scent of beeswax in her nostrils, the gleam of the wood dazzling her…Someone caught her as she was about to trip on the pavement outside,but even as the panic grabbed her she realized it was not Nat but another gentleman, raising his hat, an appreciative gleam in his eyes. She could see Nat pushing through the crowd. Would he never give up?
    She grabbed a hansom cab. “Fortune Hall, quickly!”
    The coachman whipped up the horse and they were away before Nat could haul himself up into the cab beside her. Lizzie saw his furious expression as they pulled away. It was twice as expensive to take a hansom these days because Sir Montague taxed half of the drivers’ charges. Well, her brother could pay his own taxes this time, Lizzie thought. Her purse was empty anyway and she had dropped the bolt of blue spotted muslin somewhere in the street. She would not go back for it. She was not really sure why she had bought it in the first place.
    The important thing was that she had outrun Nat again. She did not look back.

CHAPTER FOUR
    D AMN THE WOMAN ! He had chased her through every back street and alley of Fortune’s Folly. He had had to pay the china merchant and soothe the outraged coachman and calm some skittish horses, and he was sick and tired of acting as Lizzie’s conscience and wallet. She was spoiled and headstrong and she never faced up to her responsibilities. She had been running away for as long as he had known her.
    She was running away from him now.
    Nat smoothed his hair, calmed his breath and watched the hansom cab disappear over the cobbles with a clatter of wheels and a cloud of summer dust. Lizzie did not look back. The tilt of her head, even the back of her spring straw bonnet, looked defiant. But he had seen her eyes and they had looked terrified.
    He bent to retrieve the parcel of blue muslin that was resting in the gutter. Goodness only knew why Lizzie had bought it. She was the least accomplished woman in the world with a needle and had always scorned embroidery and dressmaking.
    Nat felt a pang somewhere deep in his chest. Heknew Lizzie so well. They had been friends for years. He cared for her. It hurt that she used to run to him for help when she was in trouble and now she was running from him. He did not even understand why she was running though he imagined that it must be because she was so shocked and scared and mortified by what had happened that she simply could not face him. But he could put all to rights if only she would let him. The first step was taken. He was free of the engagement to Flora, free to marry Lizzie instead. He could give her the protection of his name and he could claim her fortune in place of the one he had lost.
    If only he could make her stay still long enough to hear his proposal.
    If only she accepted it.
    With Lizzie one never knew.
    He twisted the brown paper parcel in his hands and heard the covering rip. He could deliver it to Fortune Hall in person and demand that Lizzie see him. Except that she would probably climb over the roof and run away into the woods again sooner than speak with him.
    For a moment he toyed with the idea of going to one of Lizzie’s friends, to Laura Anstruther or Alice Vickery, and asking for their help. He rejected the idea reluctantly, for that would involve some sort of explanation and his friends were already curious about the canceled wedding. He had received notes from both Dexter and Miles, his groomsmen, demanding to know what the hell was going on. If he asked their wives to intercede with Lizzie on his behalf the