For Love Alone (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 8)

Carlotta sighed. ‘I have not broken in, if that is what you are thinking. The owner does know I was living there. He agreed to allow me to stay for a while.’

‘Why?’

Carlotta looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Because he knows what my father is like.’

‘And what is that? What is he like, Carlotta?’

Carlotta wanted to tell him but knew she couldn’t. Phillip would want some sort of proof to support her claims and she had none. All she had was an overbearing father who was trying to force her to return home so he could make her marry one of his friends.

Who would undoubtedly keep me isolated so I couldn’t tell anybody what father has done.

‘He is the kind of man who sends armed thugs to fetch his daughter who hasn’t run away. I am old enough to decide that I want to live somewhere else. When my father refused to hear of it, I decided to take matters into my own hands, it is that simple,’ Carlotta replied firmly.

‘How old are you?’ Phillip asked.

‘Three and twenty.’

He raked her with a look. He had no reason to doubt her. While he was relieved that she was old enough to make her own decisions, he was quietly appalled that she wasn’t married yet. ‘Is that why your father wants you back? He thinks you should be married?’

Carlotta’s heart skipped a beat. ‘My father has made it perfectly clear that I am not supposed to marry someone I choose. He has chosen a husband for me – someone three times my age and a friend of his. The friend of his is just as draconian as my father.’

Carlotta was so angry that she marched past him and headed toward the village. Phillip’s continued questioning was unnerving, but not for the reasons she expected.

He makes me think too much.

One thing Carlotta had managed to achieve since being at Cliffe House, was learning the skill of not thinking. Thinking made her remember what she had seen. Thinking made her contemplate the problems the future might throw at her. Thinking made her worry and she had enough problems on her hands. Now, thinking made her think about Phillip when she knew it was a foolish thing to do.

Phillip watched her stomp past him. At first, he didn’t follow her. Instead, he studied the woods they had left far behind. He couldn’t see anyone moving about in them, and was too far away to hear anything, but that didn’t mean the gunmen had given up – any of them. When his gaze landed on Carlotta again, he cursed when he realised how much distance she had managed to put between them while he had been lost in his thoughts. With a curse, Phillip raced to catch up.

‘You don’t have any suitors who might be able to marry you just a little earlier than planned, do you?’ Phillip asked when he reached her. He couldn’t understand why he was tense while he waited for her to answer.

‘No. I have no wish to marry. No wish to be engaged. No wish to have any suitors.’

Phillip scowled. ‘Ever?’

‘Ever.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am sure,’ she hissed.

‘Why?’

‘Why what? Why do I not simper and yearn for marriage and a home to run like silly young women should? Why do I not want to be at my husband’s mercy, at his beck and call at every hour of my day? Why do I not want to whore myself to a husband’s lascivious dictates? I shall tell you why. It is because you are brutes. Stupid, arrogant, boorish, thugs. All of you are armed, and have little concern for women; what we want, who we are. To you, we are all here to be told how we should think, feel, and when we should wed, to whom, and when. We are here to be told how we should live our lives without any choices, all because our fathers or mothers or brothers or cousins, or any other male relation for that matter, say we should. Well, I am not being told what to do. I am not going to be sold off like cattle to the highest bidder, no matter if he is your friend, my father’s friend, or anyone else. Marriage is something I most definitely will never agree to.’ With that, Carlotta spun on her heel and stomped off. Her cheeks were flushed with indignation and temper, her eyes flashed an angry warning to anyone who happened to glance her way.

To Phillip, the rigid set of her shoulders made her look so fragile he had to wonder if she was going to shatter beneath the tension in them. He suspected he was getting to the reason why she was at the house. Someone with that much revulsion toward marriage would do whatever they felt the need to. What he didn’t know is what had happened to make her reject wedlock. He should have been quietly pleased that she was so averse to the parson’s trap because it meant she wouldn’t ever expect him to marry her. Deep inside, though, Phillip was horrified that someone as beautiful and wilful as Carlotta was so disturbed by the thought of doing something that should bring her comfort, securing, love.

‘You sound like me,’ he growled when he caught up with her.

‘Well, don’t mention it then. My father wants me to go back. Unfortunately, he has access to my inheritance. He has the paperwork in his safe

in his study and refused to hand it over so I could use some of it. Instead, he wants to sell me off to one of his cronies, probably so I never see the money. When I refused to marry his friend and insisted that I wanted my inheritance. He got mad. Very, very mad, and said I was going to marry whether I wanted to or not and the money would be given to my husband not me.’

‘That’s normal, Carlotta,’ Phillip replied quietly.

‘Is it normal for my father to spend it? Is it normal to be forced into marriage?’ she snapped. She glared at him but was aware that his reply mattered. His opinion would help her decide if she was going to take one more step with him. If he sided with her father, Carlotta knew that she had to do something to get away from Phillip once they reached the village.

‘When he planned for the oaf to visit the house so they could make the wedding arrangements, I refused to have any part in it. I left the next day.’