Excerpt of The Runaway Heiress by Brenda Hiatt

Chapter One

Staffordshire, England

December 1, 1816

The horses stamped with impatience on the dark, deserted road north. A cold rain fell impartially on the sturdy traveling coach, the huddled postboy on the box, and the couple who faced each other at the edge of the road, several yards away.

Undine Moore stared at her would-be bridegroom in blank disbelief, shivering as icy water wound along the once jaunty ribbons of her bonnet and found its way inside her cloak and down her bodice, where it added to the chill his words had given her.

"Not going? What do you mean we're not going?" Anxiety -- and anger -- made her normally low voice shrill. "We've been planning this for a month."

Diggory Tallow appeared paler and thinner than ever in the flickering lights of the coach lamps. "I know we have, Dina, but I've realized an elopement will not serve. Think of the gossip, the scandal ... of your brother's anger. A more conventional wedding -- "

"There's no time and you know it," Dina protested. "My birthday is in four days. If we wait for a license -- which Silas will doubtless attempt to prevent us from procuring in any case -- my share of the estate will become his."

Diggory stared at the ground, making patterns in the mud with the toe of his boot, and shrugged. " It's ... it's not as though I'm marrying you for your money, Dina."

"Of course not." Indeed, Diggory's fortune was three or four times greather than her own. "But why should Silas have what is rightfully mine -- what should be ours?"

She lowered her voice persuasively. "Come, Diggory, I've gone through the difficulty of slipping out of the house and walking all the way here in the rain. The carriage is already hired. And there's no knowing when Silas may return to Ashcombe, making another attempt impossible. Let's head for Scotland as we've planned. We'll be married before Silas can stop us."

Though he still did not meet her eye, Diggory spoke firmly -- more firmly than she'd ever heard him speak before. "I'm sorry, Dina. I can't."

"But why not? What has changed?" It was unlike the normally malleable Diggory to resist her leadership. His docility had been one reason she'd set her cap at him in the first place -- that and his availability, as he lived only two miles from Ashcombe and visited Silas frequently.

Of course, he had always dragged his heels when it had come to actually planning a wedding. She assumed it was fear of her brother, who admittedly was almost twice Diggory's size, and had clearly established his dominance over the smaller man during his years as Diggory's upperclassman at Cambridge.

Finally, after repeated excuses to delay their nuptials, Dina had realized the only course that would guarantee her absolutely necessary marriage before her twenty-fifth birthday was an elopement. Rather to her surprise, Diggory had seemed perfectly amenable -- until now.

"Do you no longer care for me?" she asked when he did not answer, trying to ignore thewater soaking through her thick wool cloak as well as the guilt that assailed her at asking such a question. She quieted it by telling herself - - again -- that though she did not love Diggory, she would be a good wife to him.

" It's . . . it's not that," he stammered, flicking a quick glance at her before staring at his feet again.

Hoping that denoted a softening of his inexplicable stance, Dina shivered visibly. "I'm freezing. Let's at least get into the chaise to discuss it, shall we?"

Diggory bit his lip. "I, ah, I don't think we'd better. I can't stay long."

Dina wondered with a spurt of amusement whether he feared she might try to kidnap him, to force him to elope with her after all. Then, as he shifted uncomfortably, she wondered if she shouldn't do just that.

No, it would take at least two days to reach Scotland. She could never compel him to remain with her if he was truly unwilling. Perhaps if she had brought along a pistol ...

"You promised to help me safeguard my inheritance," she said, not bothering to hide her irritation. "This is the only way."

"Yes, well, I've been thinking." He spoke quickly, as though he'd rehearsed his words in advance. "Surely you can trust your brother to do that? You can't really think he'll refuse you your dowry, once you do marry?"

Dina let out a hiss of exasperation, for she'd been over this with Diggory before. "No, I can't trust Silas in this, not with his gambling debts mounting. His own fortune is gone. I've no desire to see mine go the same way, nor can I believe you would wish for that, either."

"No, but I ... well, that is ..."

"You're afraid of him, I understand that," she persisted.

"Not ... not afraid, exactly ..."

Her brother had always held a great deal of influence over Diggory. No doubt Silas had tyrannized him -- along with the other underclassmen -- at school. Her brother had always been a bully, as Dina herself knew from long experience. Though now they were adults he rarely threatened her physically, he still occasionally vented his temper by restricting her to the house. She didn't care to think what he might do if she went back there now, if he discovered where she'd gone and why.

"Silas likes you," Dina told Diggory firmly. "He might be angry at first, but he actually told me recently that he'd like to have you as a brother-in-law."

She'd nearly told Silas about her betrothal when he'd said that, but caution had prevented her. She knew that Silas was not eager for her to marry. He'd used one excuse after another to prevent her London come-out, until he could honestly claim he couldn't afford it. And on the two or three occasions that local gentlemen had shown interest in her, Silas had "convinced" them to look elsewhere.