The Marriage Rescue. Joanna Johnson

the Publisher

       Chapter One

      Selina Agres was going to die, and it was all her own fault. Hadn’t she been warned, time and time again, to stay as far away as possible from those upper-class English animals?

      Grandmother Zillah’s words echoed in her ears as she rode for her life, her horse Djali’s hooves pounding over waterlogged ground and leaving deep tracks in their fleeing wake.

      Stupid girl.

      It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen the proof of their wickedness for herself, either.

      The last clear memory she had of her mother was the way her eyes had changed at the moment of her death. Many of the other details she could recall were blurred: snatches of lullabies sung on summer nights, when the rhythmic swaying of their creaking caravan had rocked young Selina to sleep; the barest suggestion of a comforting floral scent she could never quite pin down. But the memory of those eyes—so bright and sharp in life, missing nothing, holding a world of wisdom and humour—had clouded to a flat black, staring unseeing at the little girl who had gazed back, who had wondered where the light had gone from Mama’s face...

      She bent lower over the horse’s neck, urging him onwards ever faster. A swift glance behind showed her pursuers losing ground, hindered by their own far clumsier mounts. Selina grasped at a tentative new hope: stubborn and scarred he might be, but nobody was as fast as her Djali over level terrain. He had been her mother’s horse before she’d passed, then barely more than a colt, and Selina blessed Mama in that moment for training the bad-tempered creature so well. Perhaps they might survive this after all.

      The wind tore at her clothes, an autumn squall that threatened the rapid approach of winter tugging her riot of midnight curls free from their ribbon and tossing the heavy tresses into her face. She flung them aside with desperate haste, her other hand tightening its death grip on the horse’s reins.

      She couldn’t stop now. Just one more fence to jump and then it was all downhill to a thick copse of trees, if her memories of this wretched place were correct, and there she might just be able to hide—if she could only put enough distance between herself and those behind her... Twelve years had passed since she had last set foot on this land, and all she could do was pray her scattered recollections were right.

      ‘Come on, Djali!’ Her voice was loud, battling against the roar of the wind, belying the way her heart railed against her ribs like a trapped animal.

      The horse plunged onwards, his breath coming short and fast in a pattern that matched Selina’s own.

      She hadn’t even wanted to get so close. But what else could she have done? Left the poor girl alone in the forest? Perhaps she should have; look at where taking pity on a landowner’s child had got her.

      Seeing a Roma woman carrying a sobbing English child through the woods—Squire Ambrose Fulbrooke’s own daughter, no less—of course his men had jumped to the wrong conclusion. The idea that the little girl had escaped her governess and got herself lost would never have occurred to them, whereas everybody had heard how the Roma were a community of thieves and vagrants. Of course she was stealing the child; what other explanation could there be?

      Selina knew from bitter experience the prejudices that existed against her people. Shunned and almost feared, the Roma were well used to living on the fringes, making do in whatever ways they could. But they were strong, and that characteristic spirit was more than evident in Selina.

      Almost from her first steps she had worked hard: foraging food for the pot, fetching water, helping Papa break in horses to sell. Her hands had grown calloused and her skin tanned, and with each passing year she had become more and more like the kind, capable mother ripped so cruelly from her.

      Even Papa had commented on the resemblance once, years ago, on a camp a hundred miles from this damned estate, as he’d watched her lunge a new pony. The animal had been skittish and afraid, but with gentleness and determination Selina had brought him on well, and her father had nodded at her as he’d sat on the back porch of their wagon, pipe in hand.

      ‘What do you think, Lina? Will you make a mount of him yet?’

      ‘I believe so, Papa.’ Selina had smiled across at him and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of a hand. ‘He’s clever, and a good worker.’

      ‘I think you might be right. You’ve a good eye for horses. You get that from me.’

      He’d pulled on his pipe for a moment and Selina had seen the smile fade from his weathered face.

      ‘Everything else comes from your mother. You’re looking more and more like her every day.’

      ‘Thank you, Papa.’

      Selina’s voice had been quiet and she’d turned back to the pony, wishing with all her heart she hadn’t noticed her strong, tall Papa quickly pat a tear from his face with his old red neckerchief. The picture had stayed with her ever since, and never failed to bring a lump to her throat.

      The fence was looming fast—a straggling construction that leaned back drunkenly at an angle that would make it difficult to jump. Selina cursed beneath her breath and chanced another raking glare backwards. They were still coming, three of them now. Two were dressed in the usual muddy colours of gamekeepers, riding out in front of a third too distant to see in any real detail. She thought she made out a flash of blue, stark against the muted grey of the sullen autumn sky. When had he joined the chase?

      But it didn’t matter how many there were. She would escape them all or die trying.

      ‘Get up, Djali—good boy!’ Clicking her teeth in command, Selina touched the horse with her heels. He was galloping flat out, lips pulled back from ivory teeth and mane flying, ready to take the jump.

      She felt the rush of air as they left the ground. It hit her squarely in the face—a stinging slap that brought tears to her eyes—but they were sailing over the lolling fence and nobody would catch them now.

      And then they went down.

      Djali struck the fence with a back hoof and veered to one side, stumbling to right himself. Selina pitched forward, tumbling from the saddle in a tangle of crimson skirts and bright woollen shawls.

      She lay gasping, winded and dazed. She’d fallen from horses before, many times, but never from one so tall as Djali—one of the reasons he had been officially given over to her ownership on her eighteenth birthday, aside from sentiment, had been his surefootedness. After the fate that had befallen her mother, Papa hadn’t wanted to take any chances with his only child.

       What a cruel irony if I were to die here, too.

      The thought crossed Selina’s racing mind before she could stop it. A fresh bolt of terror tore through her heaving chest and her head swam as she struggled to regain her breath.

       We never should have come back here, even if that murdering devil Charles Fulbrooke is on the other side of the ocean.

      Her pursuers had seen her fall. She could hear them now, the unmistakable beat of hooves growing closer as she lay prone on the sodden ground, one arm flung out and the other twisted beneath her.

      She pushed herself up, wincing as she felt a dart of pain crackle through the wrist that had borne her weight. Where’s Djali? A wild scan of the grass showed him standing a short distance away, ears back as he eyed the approaching horses.

      There was no time to reach him, Selina calculated. By the time she managed to get back into the saddle her hunters would be upon her and she would have nowhere else to turn. There was only one option open to her and she seized the lifeline with both hands.

      Selina ran.

      The copse lay mere feet away from her now; if she could reach the safety of the trees she would be able