Lady Emily's Exotic Journey by Lillian Marek

Author:Lillian Marek [Marek, Lillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2015-05-19T23:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Perhaps it was the clarity of the desert air that did it. Or perhaps it was the sheer discomfort of trying to sleep on stony ground, wrapped only in a blanket in the cold desert night.

Whatever it was, it had cleared his head. Lucien rode through the early morning toward the city of Mosul feeling far happier than he had felt in…in years, it seemed. To tell the truth, he could not remember ever feeling this happy. He threw back his head and laughed out loud.

Everything had been backwards in his mind. He saw it now. The only mystery was how it had taken him so long to come to his senses. How could he have been so blind for so long?

It was not the chains of La Boulaye that had turned his grandfather into a bitter and miserable man. It was the memories of a lost world, a world he was powerless to resurrect. The more he had struggled to return to that lost past, the more angry he became at his failure, and the more he took out his anger and frustration on those around him.

It was not the chains of marriage that had made his parents miserable. It was marriage to the wrong person. They had been trapped together in a house—never a home—as strangers to each other, strangers who had no desire to become better acquainted.

Marriage to Emily would be nothing like that. She was not a burden or obligation, not at all. Instead, she was liberation. She had set him free of the chains of the past and shown him the infinite possibilities for happiness—happiness with her.

It was love that made the difference, he had finally realized. Love did not chain you. It set you free. It opened the cage that set you apart from all others. Love opened the door to happiness.

And he loved Emily.

He pulled up his horse so he could concentrate on that thought. He turned the word over in his mind and smiled again. Love. Why had he never thought of that? It was so simple. Such a little word and it explained so much.

He nudged the horse into a brisk walk and continued toward Mosul.

As for La Boulaye, it was simply a place. Those who lived there might be happy or miserable. It was not the place itself that determined their feelings. Nor did he have to live at La Boulaye, under his grandfather’s thumb. What had even made him think that was his only choice? His father had returned there for whatever reason, but that did not mean that Lucien had to.

The estate of Varennes was his own, his inheritance from his mother, the gift she had given him. It was a modest estate, nothing like La Boulaye, but it could support a family in more than decent comfort. It was probably nothing like the estates of the wealthy Marquess of Penworth either, but he did not think that would weigh too heavily with Emily. Varennes was a good estate.

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