Ryan's Bride by Maggie James Page B

marker for her mother—even though it was, in a way, stealing. Ryan had given her money to buy trunks in which to pack her lavish new wardrobe, but she had bought cheap ones and had money left over.
    Actually, she felt little guilt. Ryan did not seem to care about money. He had not only bought her expensive clothes but jewelry as well. One pair of diamond earbobs, she knew, would probably have provided her with food and shelter for years.
    She was glad he had gone away, because she wanted time to think about what lay ahead. She knew she would have to submit to him as his wife, and, remembering how it had been with her uncle, her hands trembled as she reached to pluck a dandelion from the grave.
    After it happened, she and her mother had never talked about it. She would have liked to. She wanted, needed, reassurance that her uncle was different from other men. She couldn’t imagine her father being so brutal, but even if a man were gentle, would there still be pain? She didn’t know but would soon find out, and fear crept like the ivy twining about the trees that lined the path through the cemetery.
    She hadn’t meant for her mother to find out what her uncle had done. Shamed, humiliated, and terrified, she had hidden in the cellar. A servant going down to get wine for dinner heard her crying and told her mother. When her mother came, she made her tell what had happened. And that night they had fled together in the dark with only the clothes on their backs.
    Eventually, after finding food and shelter wherever they could, they made their way to Paris. Her mother had to sell the earbobs she had been wearing when they ran away to pay for their passage.
    Angele rocked back on her heels now, her new striped gingham skirt bunched about her ankles. The bow of the plumed poke bonnet tickled her neck, and she tugged at it to loosen. It was a cool day, and she had draped a fine cashmere shawl over her shoulders.
    She had been in such a hurry that morning it was surprising she had managed to make herself presentable. But she’d had to rush in order to get away from Corbett. She still did not trust him and wondered if she ever would, because something about the way he looked at her sometimes made her flesh crawl. And try though she might, she had not been able to put his crude behavior that first day out of her mind.
    She hoped that once she became Ryan’s wife and moved into the mansion at BelleRose, she might feel differently. She wanted everyone to accept her, and planned to do everything she could to make them. After all, once she left, there would be no turning back. Her future depended on Ryan, and though she didn’t love him, she planned to dig in her heels and stay, no matter what.
    As she mused, a man carrying a shovel came walking up the trail to the paupers’ section. He saw a woman bent over a grave and squinted against the sun to see her better. Even from a distance, he could tell she was dressed in fine clothes. Probably rich. So what was she doing kneeling at a pauper’s grave? Surely anyone of means would not have kith or kin buried in such a place.
    He continued on. He had another grave to dig for someone else too poor to be buried anywhere else.
    Angele did not notice the man as he passed by. She did, however, hear the approaching carriage.
    “ Mademoiselle Benet?” The man holding the reins over a splendid black horse removed his top hat and smiled uncertainly.
    She straightened and lifted the hem of her skirt above her ankles to keep it from dragging in the tall grass as she walked toward him. “ Oui. I am so pleased you could meet me, monsieur . I was afraid you wouldn’t receive my note in time.” She had only been able to get away from Corbett long enough the day before to slip a messenger a few francs to deliver the envelope to the stone cutter.
    “I am Wilfrin Montague.” He got down from the carriage. “I brought some sketches of my work. Do you see anything you like?”
    She leafed through them