Annie Burrows - His Cinderella Bride

He had gone over and over their encounter, and the devil of it was he could not remember if he had uttered a single word to express his regret. His valet would, of course, be making apologies on his behalf when he found the woman, but that was not quite the same. He wanted to see that reproachful gaze soften, those moss-green eyes glow with pleasure instead of glazing with fear.

She would haunt him if he did not take care. Already her image was more real, in his imagination, than the other occupants of the room he was standing in. He could see her now, glaring at him from the shadows at the corners of the room, her body pathetically thin beneath the shapeless gown she wore, that wild red hair framing her sharp, pale features.

Dear God! He could see her standing in the shadows in a shapeless gown with a frown on her face. He reached blindly behind him for the mantel to steady himself as the floor seemed to pitch beneath his feet. What was a beggar woman doing in his host’s home?

Annie Burrows has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses, and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’.

This is Annie Burrows’ first novel for Harlequin® Historical Romance

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To Aidan, my own hero, for always believing in me.

I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Lady Hester Cuerden did not wait for anyone to answer the kitchen door of Beckforth’s vicarage. After thumping on it with her clenched fist a couple of times, she just pushed it open and marched straight in.

Caught in the act of hiding a book under her skirts, Emily Dean, the vicar’s daughter, looked up from her chair beside the fire in guilty shock. Her eyes widened when she realised that Hester was visibly trembling.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ she asked, forgetting to conceal the worthless novel from her closest friend as she got to her feet.

Hester pulled off her gloves as she headed for the warmth of the kitchen fire. ‘C…cold…’ she said through chattering teeth. ‘And w…wet…’

‘And absolutely filthy!’ Emily grabbed Hester’s gloves before they had a chance to contaminate the freshly scrubbed deal table on which she had been about to deposit them, and ran with them instead to the sink in the adjacent scullery.

With numbed white fingers, Hester fumbled the buttons of her overcoat undone. Emily came back in time to see her drape it over the back of the chair she had just vacated and stretch her hands out towards the fire.

‘Where’s your bonnet?’ Emily asked as Hester tucked a wayward coil of her distinctive vibrant auburn hair behind her ear. ‘You came out in this weather without one?’

‘Of course not,’ Hester said. ‘I was prepared for any eventuality when I set out. I had a bonnet, and a shawl wrapped over it to keep the wind off, and a basket full of provisions over my arm. You want to know where they all are now? In the bottom of a ditch, that’s where.’

Emily blinked at the circle of greenish slime that was dripping on to the flagged floor from the uneven hem of Hester’s skirt.

‘The only eventuality for which I was not prepared,’ Hester continued through gritted teeth, ‘was that I should step out of the lodge gates at the exact same moment when his Lordship, the high and mighty Marquis of Lensborough, happened to be rounding the bend in the lane at breakneck speed. That reckless, foul-mouthed…’ she struggled to find an epithet black enough to express her wrath, coming up eventually with ‘Marquis!’ as though it were the lowest form of insult she knew ‘…was going too fast to stop, and clearly deemed it imprudent to take evasive action. He might have injured his horses, mightn’t he, if he had veered towards the ditch, or scratched the paintwork of his shiny curricle against the park wall if he had tried to swerve the other way. Do you know what he chose to do instead?’ She continued before Emily even had a chance to draw breath. ‘He swore at me for flinging myself under his horses’ hooves. I’ve never heard such language.’

Emily found it hard to believe anyone was capable of exhibiting such callous behaviour. ‘Didn’t he make any attempt to stop?’

‘I was too busy diving into the ditch myself to notice.’ Hester shifted from one foot to another, drawing Emily’s notice to the greenish sludge that was oozing out between the uppers and the soles of her ancient walking boots.

‘You must get those boots off at once,’ Emily said, promptly dropping to her knees so that she could untie the sodden laces.

‘They’re done for,’ she pronounced as the mud-clogged sole peeled away in her hand as she tugged one boot from Hester’s foot.

Hester shivered violently, then sank abruptly on to Emily’s chair. ‘At least I’m not,’ she said, passing a shaky hand across her mud-streaked face. Her mind had been so preoccupied by the news that had sent her scurrying from the house as soon as she could slip away unnoticed, that she hadn’t paused to check for traffic before stepping out into the rutted lane. She didn’t know what had made her glance up. She certainly hadn’t heard the curricle approaching over the noise of the wind that was buffeting her ears.

Seeing a vehicle bearing down on her had been a shock. Far more shocking was the look of blistering fury that emanated from the driver’s night-dark eyes. It had pinned her, for a split second, to the spot, until the unbelievable sound of his foul language triggered her indignation, and from somewhere deep inside the instinct for self-preservation had kicked in.

‘I honestly believe if I was not such a good swimmer…oh, not that there was much water in the ditch, I don’t mean I would have drowned,’ she explained at Emily’s puzzled look. ‘And that was half-frozen. Just slushy enough to cushion my fall…no…I mean that it was all those hours I spent diving into the tarn at Holme Top that gave me the expertise to dive out of the way before his Lordship had the chance to crush me.’

‘Don’t make it sound as if he did it on purpose, Hester,’ Emily reproved. ‘Just because you decided not to like the man before even meeting him.’