Extract from Gretna Legacy
CHAPTER ONE
- Abby held up her skimpy skirts with an exaggerated twist of her hands, skipped two steps to the right, then two to the left, keeping her nose raised and her gaze on the grey clouds above Pulteney Bridge. When she collided with a solid male body and found strong arms supporting her she emitted an 'ooff' of surprise and lowered her gaze.
'Oh, it's you, Hartley. Why can't you keep out of my way?'
- The young man she spoke to removed the arms he had flung round her and gave her an exaggerated bow. He was tall and broad, blond and handsome, dressed in pale biscuit pantaloons and an excellently tailored blue superfine coat.
- 'What the devil were you doing, brat, prancing about like that?'
- She curtsied. 'La, kind sir, that wasn't prancing. I've just been to my dancing lesson, I was practising.'
- 'Dancing? Don't you know all the steps?'
- She sighed, abandoning her pose. 'Yes, but Aunt Emily insists. Dancing on Monday, singing on Tuesday, the pianoforte on Wednesday, drawing and water colours on Thursday, and until I flatly refused to go any more, the harp on Friday. It's all part of her campaign to make me an accomplished young lady.'
- 'She's wasting her time,' he said, chuckling.
- 'Thank you, Hartley dear! I assume you mean I'm already marvellously accomplished?'
- 'I wouldn't dare suggest otherwise.'
'She's trying to think of something else to keep me occupied, but when I suggested fencing she threw up her hands in horror. Really, you'd think I was ten years old instead of eighteen.'
- 'Don't you want to have all the accomplishments of a young lady when you go to London?'
- 'No, Hartley, I don't want to go to London! I don't know this woman my trustees have inveigled into presenting me. Just because her husband was an old friend of Mr Wood's doesn't mean I'll like her, or her precious Caroline. Why can't Aunt Emily take me to London?'
- Hartley Lennox grinned at her. 'How often has Lady Jordan been to London in the past twenty years? How many of the ton does she know?'
- Abby sighed. 'Yes, but that's not important. I don't want to be presented, and meet all those wretched ton people. If they are anything like the ones who come here to Bath to take the waters I'll be horrendously bored all the time.'
- 'You'll meet lots of eligible young men, and you know that's what the Season's about, finding a husband.'
- 'Humph! I don't want to be paraded at Almack's so that all the men on the catch for a wife can inspect me, as if I were a horse. I'm not interested in getting married. What I'd really like is a small cottage in the country and being able to breed dogs.'
- 'Not more misbegotten curs like the one you already have, please. You should have little ones old ladies like for company, like pugs or spaniels.'
- 'Rusty is not misbegotten! Just because you don't know what breed he is there's no need to sneer at him.'
- 'Breed? He could lay claim to at least six, I think, and even you provide him with a different ancestry every time you're asked.'
- She giggled. 'Well, it depends who asks. I can imagine a Scottish terrier for a Scotsman, or a Welsh corgi, or a poodle for a Frenchman. Isn't that the sort of tact Aunt Emily is always taking about? I wish I could meet a Russian, I love those hunting dogs they have. Those are the sort I'd like to breed.'
- 'Whatever breed you fancy you can't do that.'
- 'Why not? Someone has to.'
- 'Not you, brat. In the first place, you couldn't live alone. In the second, the idea of an unmarried female having anything to do with breeding, dogs or anything else, is quite unacceptable to genteel people. And in the third they're all afraid we'll fall in love and want to get married.'
- Abby hooted with laughter. 'Marry you? When we've been like brother and sister, and know one another's most disreputable secrets? It would never work. In any event, what has it to do with my being able to breed dogs? Unless,' she added speculatively, 'they think we might do it together.'
- He grinned at her. 'It's never going to. I don't want a mad-brained firebrand for a wife, thank you, and there's nothing I'd like worse than being surrounded by dogs. Horses, perhaps, but you can't tell an Arab from a carthorse.'
- 'I can ride either, but how gallant of you, Hartley dear, when I haven't even proposed to you.' She paused, thinking. 'I suppose they are afraid we might run away to Gretna Green, like my parents did.'
- 'They need not be concerned. I wouldn't do anything in such deplorable taste.'
- She flared up. 'So that's what you think of my parents, is it? Thank you, Hartley, I'm glad I know your opinion of them. Mama's parents were utterly unreasonable, refusing her permission to marry a perfectly respectable man just because they wanted her to marry a horrid neighbour and unite the two estates. I think they were sensible to elope, since they loved each other so much. I only wish I'd known them, but they died before I could even remember them at all.'
- 'Oh Lord, I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry, Abby. Look, oughtn't you to be going home instead of bandying words with me? I saw that trustee of yours arriving when I left the house. No doubt he'll want to see you.'
- 'Mr Wood? Why didn't you say so instead of keeping me here? Really, Hartley, you have no sense of priorities. Like you have no taste in choosing a waistcoat or notion of how to tie a cravat,' she flung over her shoulder as she picked up her skirts and began to run towards Henrietta Street.
- Copyright © 2010 Marina Oliver
