Stealing the Bride by Elizabeth Boyle Page B

and even more so at nine-and-twenty than when she’d been one of those impressionable young ladies standing in the wings at Almack’s.
    Seeing her again, for the first time in months he reckoned, he didn’t know whether to celebrate at finding her safe and apparently unharmed, or to offer to stand as Cordell’s best man in the wedding—just to see her wed and out of his life.
    And most importantly, out of his heart.
     
    Diana peered down the road at the carriage headed toward her, being driven along at a perilous pace. And here she’d been about to give up on their ever gaining help.
    She looked again and recognized the one-eyed driver. Elton . Which meant they’d sent Temple to fetch her home.
    Well, she’d expected no less.
    But as Elton continued to drive the horses along, he did so without any indication of slowing them down.
    And then it hit her.
    Temple had no intention of stopping.
    The wretched man was going to leave her on the side of the road with the likes of…She took a glance over at Lord Cordell, who lay on the carriage’s only blanket, on the only grassy spot, a moistened handkerchief draped over his face.
    She took a deep breath and reminded herself that this man was her fiancé.
    Her beloved intended , she thought with a barely repressed shudder.
    Now Temple meant to leave her with the likes of Cordell?
    “Not likely,” she muttered, as she stepped out into the middle of the road in front of Temple’s speeding horses.
    It was all Elton could do to stop the carriage from cartwheeling into the same state of disrepair as Cordell’s.
    But Diana hadn’t come this far to balk at a few thousand pounds of horseflesh, metal, leather, and wood hurtling at her with the same deadly intent that spinsterhood carried.
     
    “Lord Templeton. We won’t be interfered with,” Diana said, her hands now set on her hips as Temple climbed down from his still shuddering berline. “We are on the path of true love and intend to marry.”
    Cordell rose from his shady patch and eyed Temple with a mixture of disgust and amusement. His lemon-yellow coat nearly matched the color of his hair, which lay curled about his head à la Brutus. But for his penchant for dissolute living he might have been handsome; however, drink and wild company had left him with the florid features and droopy eyes of a much older man.
    The marquis laughed. “La! Milady, aren’t you droll. Who said anything about a rescue? And my dear Lord Cordell, stop contemplating a second, for I’m hardly the bride-stealing type.” He nodded toward Elton, who was even now consulting with Cordell’s driver over the state of the viscount’s carriage. “This is all my jarvey’s doing. Elton has a soft spot for true love.”
    Cordell took one more bemused glance at Temple, then settled back down to his game of flipping cards into his overturned hat.
    As much as he would like to smash his fist into the man’s face, as Temple, ton fool and Society darling, he could hardly behave like a hero from some French novel.
    Though what Diana saw in this dissolute excuse for a man, he couldn’t fathom. Women! Perhaps Pymm had the right idea. The fairer sex was an unfathomable, untrustworthy lot.
    Elton returned and with a shake of his head, announced that the other carriage was useless.
    “Then I insist you all ride with us,” Temple said, opening the door of the duke’s roomy berline. “We were on our way to a house party, but I would be remiss if I didn’t lend you a hand to the next town where you can find the assistance you need.”
    “Right kind of you, Templeton,” Cordell said, getting into the berline without a glance back at his bride-to-be, her companion, or their luggage.
    Temple smiled at Lady Diana as she stomped past him, her traveling case in hand. He took her hand to help her up, and for a moment their gazes met.
    How had he forgotten how blue her eyes were on a summer day? Or the way they sparkled in the sunshine…
    And how they made him