The Runaway Bride Read online

  THE RUNAWAY by LUCY GILLEN

  Samantha had had last-minute nerves about her marriage to Barney Foster so she ran away just before the wedding. But Barney simply followed her. How on earth was she going to say no to a man who refused to take no for an answer? OTHER Harlequin romances by LUCY GILLEN 1383 A WIFE FOR ANDREW 1408 THE SILVER FISHES 1425 GOOD MORNING, DOCTOR HOUSTON 1450 HEIR TO GLEN GHYLL 1481 NURSE HELEN 1507 MARRIAGE BY REQUEST 1533 THE GIRL AT SMUGGLER'S REST 1553 DOCTOR TOBY 1579 WINTER AT CRAY 1604 THAT MAN NEXT DOOR 1627 MY BEAUTIFUL HEATHEN 1649 SWEET KATE 1669 A TIME REMEMBERED 1683 DANGEROUS STRANGER 1711 SUMMER SEASON 1736 THE ENCHANTED RING 1754 THE PRETTY WITCH 1782 PAINTED WINGS 1806 THE PENGELLY JADE

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  CHAPTER ONE

  SAMANTHA looked out of the train window and sighed to herself, hastily glancing at the only other passenger in the compartment, in case he had noticed anything, but he was safely engrossed in the financial column of his newspaper and she thanked heaven for the general reticence of the average British railway traveller. She would never for a moment have admitted that she was feeling sorry for herself, but in fact she was. It had all seemed so normal and inevitable, her marrying Barney. Everyone had taken it for granted that they would marry one day, for as long as she could remember, and neither of them had taken the trouble to argue about it. Not that both of them hadn't gone out with other people at times, indeed Barney had made quite a name for himself as a ladies' man, if some of their more malicious acquaintances were to be believed. Barney's father and her own uncle and guardian had been both friends and business partners for; years. At least for as long as Samantha could remember, and Barney, as a boy and as a teenager, had been very good, she would have been the first to admit, when he was expected to put up with her on. holidays and outings. True, he had tried many times to lose her, and had once actually succeeded, somewhere in the wilds of Scotland, she remembered, when the two of them had been taken on holiday by an aunt of Barney's. Barney, it was true, had been the most anxious member of the search party who found her, cold and tired and weeping copiously, and he had given her a beautiful doll in* compensation afterwards. A doll she still had. No one but Samantha knew that his losing her had been deliberate, and she had never given him away. It was only when she saw the wedding day looming so alarmingly close that she had panicked and run. What Uncle Nicholas would say or think, she hated to think, for he had been a generous and indulgent guardian all the eighteen years he had been in charge of her, but there were limits to his indulgence, she supposed, much as he loved her. She was, after all, twenty-one and had reached what Barney sometimes jeeringly referred to as the age of indiscretion. Well, she would show him that he was right. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to go off without saying anything to anybody, after all the arrangements had been made, even to ordering her wedding dress. In fact it was when she was trying on the ywedding dress and she saw herself in the dressmaker's mirror that she had realised how things were closing in on her, and fled. She had looked beautiful, the dressmaker had told her, and that could not be denied. With a face that was truly heart-shaped, and eyes as huge as a child's and deep blue with a thick fringe of lashes, she was noticeable in any company. Her red-gold 6 hair she mostly wore long, but sometimes, as now, she swept it up into a more sophisticated style to try and make herself look older. She .had been told by many men how lovely she was, either verbally, or by implication and the expression in their eyes. Only Barney seemed to take her looks for granted, as he took everything else about her for granted. Well, she would show himi Another glance out of the window revealed a small station, more of a halt in fact, surrounded by the summery countryside of Surrey, and she got to her feet impulsively. She was travelling on a railway 'anywhere' ticket, for she had been uncertain just where she wanted to go when she arrived at the station. Her main impulse had been just to get away as quickly as possible. Anywhere away from Little Dipstock and Barney and all the wedding preparations. She got out of the train, lifting her case down carefully on to the short platform and earning herself a disapproving look from a man with a flag. She looked around her uncertainly and wondered what happened next. It was not quite as easy as she had expected, looking out for herself, especially as she was unaccustomed to it. She seldom travelled alone, and when she had her destination had always been predetermined and everything arranged for her comfort. There was nothing for her to do as a rule but hail a convenient taxi and give the address she wanted to go to. This time there was no such easy way out, she was really alone and no one to care whether she had some where to stay or not. She stood for a moment, after the train had gone on, its way, gazing after it and wondering for the first time since she had left home, if she had been too rash. However, it was no use crying over spilled milk and she gave a-resigned shrug and headed for the exit. There were several other people about, and she wondered if one of them could help her find somewhere to stay, at least for one night. She looked hopefully at the ticket collector and smiled, a gesture bound to win his sympathy. T wonder if you can help me,' she said, and he beamed confidently. 'I probably can, miss. What is it you're wanting to know?' 'Is there a hotel anywhere handy?' she asked, and he pursed his lips doubtfully, scratching the back of his head. 'Ooh well, I dunno about that,' he said. 'There ain't exactly what you'd call a hotel as such, but there's the Mermaid, just down the lane a bit. They sometimes takes in the odd one, I believe.' , Whether or not she would count as an odd one, Samantha was uncertain, but she obtained directions from him, and thanked him with another smile before setting off to find the recommended Mermaid Inn. She found it with no trouble at all and was pleasantly surprised to find it very old and rather charming. It had catered for travellers for probably the past three hundred years or so, though less now possibly than in its heyday. 8 -A pleasant middle-aged man passed her on to his wife when she enquired after a room for the night, and she was received with courtesy, if a little caution. It was not usual, the landlord's wife explained, to have young ladies turning up on their own, and so unexpectedly. Mostly they took only advanced bookings and it was only by sheer chance that they had had a cancellation that morning. Samantha accepted that she was being criticised, however obliquely, and thanked heaven she had put her hair up or she would probably have been reported to the local law as an absconding juvenile. She made no attempt to explain her unexpected appearance. If she was going to be a rebel, she would make a good job of it and explain herself to nobody. She was not able to bath before dinner, because there was not enough hot water available, but she washed and changed and went downstairs to find that her meal was to be served in the public dining-3'oom. It was a new innovation that the landlord was rather proud of, it seemed. One of the old outhouses had been transformed into a rather charming old-world-style restaurant and there were several small tables, for two or four diners. Not ambitious perhaps, but a welcome additional income for the management, no doubt, and it seemed well run. There were already one or two couples seated when Samantha came into the room and she was given a table for two on her own in one corner of the room, near a window. She might be required to share, the landlady explained, if the restaurant got full later on, and Samantha nodded agreeably. So far her rebellion was going without a hitch and she was beginning to enjoy herself. More people came in while she was eating, and she felt quite excited at being what Barney always referred to as off the leash. She frowned why did she have to keep thinking of what Barney said
all the time? She had come away to escape him, not keep applying his phrases to everything she saw and heard. She ate her main course and ordered summer pudding for dessert, sitting back to wait for its arrival. Her eyes strayed to the other diners, discreetly, wondering who and what they were, and what relationship they had with each other. It was a favourite occupation of hers whenever she was eating out, and one that Barney often teased her about. Barney! She bit on her lip and folded her hands together on the table in front of her. She must stop thinking about Barney. The landlady brought her dessert, and she picked up her spoon, glancing up again hastily a moment later, when a shadow fell across the table. It was the landlady again, but this time with another prospective diner, and smiling almost apologetically. 'Would you mind it this gentleman shared your table. Miss Dawlish?' she asked, and Samantha was about to shake her head and smile encouragingly when the intruder spoke up for himself. 'Of course she doesn't mind, do you, Sam?' Toul' 10 Samantha stared at him for a moment unbelievingly, then she began to realise that he must have followed her even tracked her down, and she felt her temper rising. 'Yes, I do mind,' she said shortly, much to the discomfiture of the woman, who gazed from one to the other uneasily. Barney, with his usual aplomb, ignored her protest and sat down anyway, shaking his head reproachfully. 'It's all right,' he assured the hovering landlady. 'I'll stay here. May I have a menu?' 'Yes. Yes, of course, sir.' She went oft hurriedly, still obviously unsure if she had done the right thing or not in allowing herself to be persuaded that he knew the young lady and would be welcome. A resident, after all, was .entitled to her own table for as long as it was possible. She returned with the menu he had requested to find the young lady in question rather pinkcheeked and looking very cross, while the new arrival seemed completely unconcerned. 'I'm glad I'm a pleasant surprise for you,' Barney told Samantha, after he had ordered his dinner. 'I knew you'd be glad to see me.' 'You're wrong,' Samantha declared bluntly, 'I'm not.' She set her normally soft mouth into a determinedly cross expression. 'Oh, come on, Sam ' He reached for her free hand and would have held it, but she snatched it away, and glared at him. 'Don't Oh, Sam me,' she told him. 'I came away to escape from you, and you have to go and follow mel' 'I didn't have to,' he argued with a grin. 'But poor old Nicholas was in a bit of a tizzy about you going off like that into the blue, and I offered to hare off after you and bring you back.' Samantha carefully spooned the last of her pudding into her mouth and swallowed it before she answered him. 'I'm not coming back,' she told him quietly. 'Oh?' He looked annoyingly disbelieving. 'Where were you thinking of emigrating to?' 'I didn't say I was emigrating,' she told him, with what she considered was a great deal of dignity in the circumstances. Let him treat it all as a joke if he wanted to, he would think differently when he realised she meant it. 'I just wanted to get away from you.' 'Oh, I see.' 'I doubt if you do,' Samantha retorted, putting down her spoon with a clatter that attracted the attention of the couple at the next table, so that they exchanged smiling glances and raised their brows. 'Im trying.' He reached for her hand again and this time managed to retain his hold on it. 'I don't even know why you're so angry with me,' he told her. She tried hard to think why herself, and supposed she was simply annoyed with him because he had caught up with her. 'I I'm not really angry with you,' she admitted. 'But you don't want to see me?' 'No. No, I don't.' 12 'Mind telling me why?' She sought for words to explain how she felt, but 'found none. She did not really know how she felt .herself, so how could she explain it to him? 'I just wanted to get away,' she said. 'I don't have to explain every move I make to you, you know.' 'No?' 'No! Now, if you'll excuse me I'm rather tired.' 'I can't think why,' Barney told her with a grin. 'You've only come a few miles, and it wasn't by stagecoach.' She frowned, wondering for the first time just 'how he had managed to follow her. 'How did you know where I was?' she asked, and he grinned again. 'Oh, you're not very hard to follow, darling. People notice you. Especially the male population.' Samantha stuck out her chin, refusing to stay and discuss the matter any longer. 'Well, don't follow me any further,' she told him. 'How much further are you thinking of going?' 'It's none of your business.' 'It is if you're going to leave me standing at the altar,' he retorted. 'I I just I just want to be on my own.' 'Wedding day nerves?' he asked, and for some reason she could not quite explain, she felt herself blushing like a schoolgirl. 'No,' she said firmly, getting to her feet. 'Realisation before it's too late.' She was rather proud of the way she achieved that dignified exit when she knew quite well that 3 Barney would be laughing at her, however discreetly. She could not stay here now. Not now that he knew where she was, and she sought out the landlady with the purpose of explaining her position. She would not be very pleased with her change of mind, she suspected, but that was something she could not help. If Barney was there she wouldn't stay, it made the whole thing pointless. She paid something for the inconvenience she had caused and left the little inn rather reluctantly, and in such a surreptitious way that she would have found it hilarious at any other time. Back at the station, she once again explained to the ticket collector who had helped that she had been called back unexpectedly and couldn't stay after all, wondering why he smiled so knowingly, until she remembered what Barney had said about her being easy to follow. Probably this ticket collector had helped him to find her. Put him on to trying the Mermaid Inn and probably now finding her further escape very amusing. She caught the first train that came in, too preoccupied to even care where it was going. Sitting back in her seat and on the move once again, she leaned back her head and thought dismally that she would probably be travelling half the night now, instead of spending it in a nice comfortable bed at the inn. And it was all Barney's fault. The long summer day was already drawing to a close when she found herself in, of all places, Brighton, and she sighed as she once again reached for 14 ; her case from the rack and stepped down from the train. This was apparently as far as the train went, ' and while it was not as far away as she would like to have been, it would have to do. At least in a place the size of Brighton, Barney would have more difficulty in finding her. If, of course, he was still bent on trying to find her. Perhaps her flight from the inn would have convinced him that she meant what she said. One of the problems of arriving at a busy seaside resort at that time of night and in summer, she soon discovered, was that there were very few rooms available. A helpful policeman directed her to a small hotel at last, however, and she took a taxi, for it was well back from the sea front, and some way out of the town proper. She was given a room without too much trouble, although she suspected that had she not had lug,gage with her she would have been less welcome. As it was, the landlady was sympathetic when she told her story of having been let down over her hotel booking and then being late because of a mixup in the trains. She was shown to a small but comfortable room that overlooked the garden at the , back of the house. 'You'll be O.K.. here, my dear,' the woman told her, and Samantha smiled her gratitude, and sat down with relief on the edge of the bed. She was not long falling asleep and only stirred when some sort of activity on the landing outside gher room brought her briefly out of a heavy slum?"ber. Nothing mattered except that she was once more on her own, and safely in a comfortable bed. Barney would not find her this time, however he went about it. She woke the following morning to find the sun streaming into the room through pretty print curtains she had not even noticed the night before, and . stretched lazily, glancing at the time as she did so. It was already gone eight o'clock and her good Samaritan of last night had told her that breakfast was between eight-thirty and nine-thirty. She was hungry, really hungry, and she sniffed appreciatively at the aroma of frying bacon that drifted up from the nether regions of the hotel, as she sought the nearest bathroom. She would stay in Brighton for a day or two, perhaps longer if she enjoyed herself, but she would let Uncle Nicholas know that she was all right. It was unfair to let him worry about her. She would tell him too, to keep Barney off her trail, or she would threaten to disappear altogether. Bathed and dressed, she
went downstairs ready for breakfast, and the landlady smiled a welcome as she came into the crowded dining-room. 'There's not much room, I'm afraid,' she told her cheerfully, 'but I've put another little table in and we'll manage, won't we?' 'I'd forgotten how busy you would be,' Samantha said with a smile that was half apology. 'I'm sorry I landed on you as I did last night.' 'Oh, don't you worry about that,' the woman told her. 'I can cope. I never like turning anyone away at this time of year, it seems such a shame to have 16 folk's holidays spoiled by a mix-up with bookings.' 'You're very kind.' 'It's funny, though,' the woman told her, bustling round a few minutes later. 'There was another lost lamb after you last night. Must be an epidemic.' Samantha frowned, vaguely recalling the sounds on the landing last night after she had gone to sleep. 'Someone else turned up after I did?' she asked, a small niggling suspicion already in the back of her mind. The landlady nodded. 'A young man,' she said. 'I don't usually like to take more than my quota in, but I just hadn't the heart to turn him away either, so I put him in with my son, George, being the only space I had left. He didn't seem to mind, and ' She broke off, looking up with a smile and making encouraging signals with one hand, while Samantha's heart sank dismally. 'Here he is now,' the woman said with a sly smile. 'You won't mind sharing a table with him, will you, dear? He's rather nice.' It would have made very little difference what she minded, Samantha thought, and looked up to see Barney's expected smile beaming down at her. He folded his long length under the little table and Samantha noticed how the girl at the next table openly eyed him. He was undeniably eye-catching, especially to a young woman on holiday and with only one thought in mind, but Samantha could not restrain a swift surge of anger when he half turned his head and acknowledged the admiration with a slow smile. i7 He looked like a man more used to taking his holidays abroad, as indeed he most often did, and his tan was deep and lasting, showing up the white smile that was never very far away. Brown eyes and almost black hair gave him a glamorously foreign appearance which he owed in part to a Spanish grandmother, and which he used unscrupulously whenever it suited his purpose. 'Good morning, Sam.' His smile dared her to make a scene here and now, and she resisted the temptation to get up and leave without her breakfast. The pangs of hunger working against the temptation as well as a dislike of scenes in public. 'I hate you ' she whispered fiercely, and he laughed. 'Oh, come on, darling, don't be so melodramatic.' 'I'm not being melodramatic ' she denied vehemently, wishing the girl at the next table would not display quite such open interest in them. 'I just object to being followed all over the country as if I was a a criminal, that's all.' 'It is criminal, the way you're giving us all so much trouble,' he told her, with an edge of impatience on his voice, and she wished she could have been somewhere a bit more private where she could have given vent to her anger without making an exhibition of herself. 'I'm not asking anyone to go to any trouble,' she said. 'I just want to be alone.' 'Away from me?' 'Yes.' 18 'Why?' He looked at her in such a way that she was obliged to meet his eyes and she was aware of the girl at the next table watching them with additional interest as if it had at last dawned on her that they knew. one another. 'What have I done that warrants sending me to Coventry, Sam?' Samantha was silent for a moment, her hands clasped tightly together on the table in front of her. 'I I don't exactly know,' she confessed. 'Don't you want to marry me?' he asked softly, and she started almost guiltily. 'I don't know that either,' she admitted. He said nothing until they had been served with breakfast, then he looked across at her on the other side of the small table, and smiled. Not a teasing smile, but one she had to admit showed a certain amount of understanding. 'It's a bit late to have second thoughts about me now, isn't it, darling?' he asked then, and Samantha bit her lip. 'I_it's oh, I don't know how to explain it,' she told him. 'I just don't feel I should marry you, that's all. Not the way we are.' He looked genuinely puzzled for a moment. 'The way we are?' he asked. She could feel the colour flooding into her cheeks and wondered, irrelevantly, what the girl at the next table made of that. 'I mean well, we're not like other couples who marry, are we?' 'Aren't we?' He was being deliberately obtuse, she felt sure. 'I mean we're not we're not ' It was dismayi9 ing to find how difficult it was to even say it, and yet it should have been easy enough to mention being in love when they were going to be married. Perhaps that was what was wrong with the whole thing. There was too much taken for granted, not enough attention paid to small details like telling each other that they loved one another. She looked across at him and frowned. He had never told her that he loved her, not once in the whole time he had known her, and she had never thought of him in any other way than as someone she was used to and would eventually marry, because everyone expected them to. 'What are you trying to tell me, Sam?' he asked quietly, as if he guessed something of what she was thinking. 'I mean I mean you've never courted me,' she told him, and could not miss the small half smile he gave at the old-fashioned word. 'Oh, I see,' he said softly. 'You want me to court you. Is that the trouble?' 'Well, is that asking too much?' Samantha demanded, on the defensive. 'After all, most girls get some small attention in that way from the man they're going to marry, don't they? I don't see why I shouldn't be entitled to as much as anyone else.' 'So I'm to start bringing you flowers and candy and going down on bended knee to declare undying passion for you. Is that the idea?' He was laughing at her, she was sure of it now, and she could cheerfully have hit him, no matter what sort of a scene she made, or what the girl at the next table would 20 make of it. 'I hate youl' she told him yet again, unable to find any other words that conveyed what she felt with such brevity. 'Well, that certainly isn't a very good foundation for wedded bliss,' he agreed with a grin that infuriated her. 'I'm glad you agree,' Samantha retorted. 'Now perhaps you'll stop following me around and let me get away on my own to think things out.' 'And leave poor old Nicholas to worry himself sick about you?' he said. 'You know I can't do that.' 'You can,' she insisted. 'I'm not a baby, and I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. Uncle Nicholas won't worry about me if I let him know I'm all right every so often.' 'And just what do you propose to do with yourself while you're haring around all over the countryside?' he asked. She shrugged. 'Enjoy myself why not?' 'And get yourself picked up at every stop by a series of seaside gigolos like that one over in the corner who's been ogling you ever since you sat down?' he asked, drawing her attention to a man she had not even noticed until then. Samantha shrugged carelessly, feeling suddenly as if she was getting the upper hand, at least for the moment. 'Maybe,' she agreed. 'Why not? He's no worse or better than that tarty blonde you've been flirting with at the next table.' Barney grinned. 'Jealous?' he asked, and she only kept her hands to herself with difficulty. She had never before realised quite how infuriating he could be. 'Of course I'm not jealous,' she told him, and he shook his head, smiling wryly. 'Then we are in a bad way,' he said. 'You might at least have enough feeling for me to resent my flirting with her.' 'It's hardly a novelty, is it?' she said tartly. 'According to Sylvia and Martin you have yourself quite a good time one way and another when I'm not around, so why should one more blonde worry me?' 'Aah, I see.' He eyed her suspiciously for a moment. 'I never thought to hear you admit to listening to tittle-tattle, darling.' She flushed, wishing she had been less rash. She had probably given him quite the wrong impression now. 'I was simply told the facts,' she said. 'I couldn't care less what you do.' He looked at her flushed and angry face and smiled, one brow flicking up into the dark hair on his forehead. "No?' 'Nol Oh, you're impossible. Barney, and I refuse to sit here and argue with you. You can do as you like, I'm going off on my own and I don't care what you do as long as you don't bother me.' 'You don't mind if I chat up that very obliging blonde next door?' His eyes sparkled wickedly, and she glared at him. 'I don't care what you do!' 'Fair enough.' 22 She eyed him suspiciously. 'You you mean you won't follow me around any more?' He grinned. 'I didn't say that, darling.' 'And I wish you'd stop calling me darling,' she told him. 'You never call me darling as a rule, and you'
ve used it at least half a dozen times since last night.' 'Have I? I haven't counted, maybe it's a good sign, hmm?' He laughed softly, holding her angry gaze. 'You wanted me to court you, darling, maybe this is the first step.' For answer Samantha got to her feet and stalked out of the dining-room with the landlady's curious and anxious eye following her. The blonde at the next table would no doubt take her departure as an encouraging sign and make the most of her chances, but why should Samantha care? 23