Gingerbread Bride

Chapter One: Part 1

            

"I don't run away. I run towards," she had told Rick the first time he retrieved her for her father, the admiral. That was half his lifetime ago, when she was nine, and he was a young midshipman of nearly fourteen.

He sat on his horse for a moment, watching her trudging down the meadow towards the village in the valley. The Mary of today was slowed by a bandbox in one hand and a carpetbag in the other. The earnest child of his memory—chasing after a dream through a sunlit field in Spain, or Italy, or Jamaica—had never bothered with such practicalities as luggage.

Rick hadn't seen her since she was sent home to relatives after her father's death, but he couldn't mistake her. What was Miss Mary Pritchard running towards today?

The immediate destination, he could guess well enough. He'd seen the broken-down coach back around several curves of this long, winding road, and not long ago, he'd passed the coachman with a string of passengers grumbling along behind him. And pretty rough sorts some of them looked, too.

Miss Independent Mary had undoubtedly struck out on her own across country instead of sticking to the road, and would be at the inn in the valley a good half hour before the rest of the coachload.

But what was the admiral's daughter doing on a coach in the first place? The aunt she lived with was in London. Indeed, he had dropped his card at the house. He had called three times before the aunt had consented to see him, only to explain that the niece of the Dowager Viscountess Bosville could expect better than a half-pay navy lieutenant with a bad limp and few expectations. He wanted to renew his friendship, not court her, but no doubt, the aunt knew Mary's mind better than he did.

Perhaps not, though. The aunt was, indeed, in London, but Miss Mary was definitely there below him, striding across the field.

He nudged the post horse into a walk. There must be a gate along the road somewhere. Yes. There. By the time he'd dismounted, led the horse through, shut the gate, and awkwardly mounted again, Mary had reached the lowest corner of the field and was opening a gate there.

What was that movement? Three men were creeping along her side of the field, careful to stay in the shadow of the hedge. Sneak up on Mary Pritchard, would they? He'd see about that.

He kneed the horse into a gallop. The men stopped at the noise, then spun round and hurried away uphill. Mary turned to face the horse.

She stood rigid, one hand creeping into her coat. So Miss Mary was armed? That didn't surprise him. He'd taught her to shoot himself, after the incident in the date grove just outside Tunis. He still got the collywobbles thinking about the danger she'd put herself in, running off to buy a present for her father's birthday.

The slavers were congratulating themselves when he caught up with them. They had left the sweet little red-haired girl bound and helpless, and were brewing coffee and boasting of the money she would fetch. Except she'd used the flip knife he'd given her, after the escapade in the Spanish church, to cut her bonds. When he arrived, Mary, bless the courage of her, had armed herself with the rifles they'd carelessly left slung on their camels.

When he attacked, they found themselves shot at from two directions, including from their own ramshackle weapons. They might have withstood his assault, but the sight of a child with an armful of guns gave them pause. Her first wild shot convinced them that she had no idea what she was doing, but was going to do it anyway.

With no way of predicting what would happen next, they decided discretion was the better part of valor. Rick teased Mary that he'd been tempted to flee with them, given her wildly inaccurate shooting. He had no idea how it happened that they stopped at the Tunisian market to buy a woolen klim for her father before he took her safely back to the ship.

He tugged his mind back into 1799. She'd recognized him. The tension remained, but she removed her hand from her coat.

"Miss Pritchard," he said, bowing as well as he could from the back of his horse.

"Lieutenant Redepenning." She did not sound at all pleased to see him.