Debutantes by Charlotte Bingham

Author:Charlotte Bingham [Charlotte Bingham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2010-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

THE ABDUCTION

‘Why so?’ he asked. ‘You are not a chattel. You are not goods to be passed to the place where they may fetch the highest price.’

‘When you think of it that’s about exactly what I am,’ she replied, glancing down the hillside to where the dogcart stood waiting, with old Mikey blowing his breath into his hands to keep warm, and Fanny the maid huddled half hidden under a thick grey blanket.

‘You belong here, Lady Emily,’ he insisted. ‘This is where you were born. This is the place which concerns you.’

‘You don’t understand, Mr O’Connor. I have no say in the matter. No, that’s not true—’

‘I’m relieved to hear you say it, Lady Emily.’

‘No, I meant my saying you didn’t understand. For you understand too well what I mean. You are a man and may do as you please—’

‘I may only do what I please up to a point, Lady Emily,’ he interrupted, also now looking to the dogcart, not for reassurance but as if it were a tumbril waiting to take his love off to her execution. ‘As far as you are concerned—’

‘Mr O’Connor—’ For the first time in as long as she could remember, Emily stood close to tears. But with one defiant shake of her head she warded them off and recovered her composure. Were she to give in to her emotions now there was no saying what she might do.

‘Run off with me then,’ he suddenly whispered, bending forward to her, the wind catching up his black cloak behind him in a swirl. ‘Run off with me and they shall never find us.’

‘Of course they should find us, Mr O’Connor,’ Emily replied, still managing defiance. ‘Believe me, I should not be out here meeting with you now. No-one knows I am here, except the two of them down there. If anyone finds me gone at this very moment they’ll send out a party to scour the county.’

‘I mean it. Come away with me,’ Rory O’Connor insisted. ‘We’ll away down to Cork and then to America.’

Emily looked at him wide-eyed. Such a notion was so far beyond her wildest imaginings that she could scarcely embrace it. ‘To America?’

‘We’d hardly be the first!’ He laughed, taking her hand for the first time since they had met. The moment he touched her, innocent as the gesture was, Emily felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her body.

‘No, don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t – you mustn’t do that. You mustn’t – you mustn’t.’

She tried to withdraw her hand but he had her held fast.

‘But I must, Lady Emily,’ he insisted, the smile now gone from his dark and handsome face, replaced by a look of utter sincerity. ‘For if I do not tell you how I feel, if I do not show you—’

‘Please,’ she implored him. ‘Please you must let me go.’

‘It is because I will not let you go that I must keep hold of you. Because you have my heart. No no – do not

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