The Marriage Rescue
Rescued by her enemy Will she meet him at the altar? Romani Selina Agres has despised the gentry ever since her mother was murdered by a cruel aristocrat. But she’s not sure what to think when Edward Fulbrooke, that very man’s nephew, rescues her from an angry horde. Edward may be different from other nobles but Selina’s distrust runs deep. So she’s shocked when he proposes marriage to protect her and her people! Can she accept?
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Rescued by her enemy
Will she meet him at the altar?
Romani Selina Agres has despised the gentry ever since her mother was murdered by a cruel aristocrat. But she’s not sure what to think when Edward Fulbrooke, that very man’s nephew, rescues her from an angry horde. Edward may be different from other nobles, but Selina’s distrust runs deep. So she’s shocked when he proposes marriage to protect her and her people! Can she accept?
JOANNA JOHNSON lives in a pretty Wiltshire village, with her husband and as many books as she can sneak into the house. Being part of the Historical Romance family is a dream come true. She has always loved writing, starting at five years old with a series about a cat, imaginatively named ‘Cat’, and keeps a notebook in every handbag—just in case. In her spare time she likes finding new places to have a cream tea, stroking scruffy dogs and trying to remember where she left her glasses.
The Marriage Rescue
is Joanna Johnson’s gripping debut for
Mills & Boon Historical Romance!
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
ISBN: 978-1-474-08900-5
THE MARRIAGE RESCUE
© 2019 Joanna Johnson
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Contents
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.
