The Cowboy's Runaway Bride. Nancy Robards Thompson

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       Chapter One

      Lady Chelsea Ashford Alden cast a wary glance over her shoulder as she approached the front door of the gray stone cottage.

      The place looked dark and formidable—cold and utterly unwelcoming—like it didn’t want to be friends. It was so contrary to her university roommate Juliette Lowell’s vibrant personality. Hard to believe Juliette lived here. However, in the dark, Chelsea could see the numbers on the house matched the address her friend had given her.

      The fingernail of moon hanging high in the inky Texas sky wasn’t her friend, either. It did nothing to light the porch. Then again, maybe the darkness was her best ally, cloaking her in shadows, hiding her from the monster that had sent her running to Juliette for refuge in the first place.

      Life as the Earl of Downing’s daughter didn’t offer much latitude or forgiveness. In fact, sometimes it seemed as if people were standing back and waiting for her to fall. When she didn’t, others were looking for opportunities to pull the rug out from under her or stick out a leg to trip her up.

      Which was why she was in Texas.

      She was tired of the limelight; tired of the pomp and pretense; tired of people using her; tired of watching her life play out on the covers of the British tabloids. Because God knew what the paparazzi couldn’t confirm, they invented or they paid off acquaintances to create stories for them. She had experienced that compliments of a reporter named Bertie Veal, who had stalked her since university.

      Most recently, he’d colluded with her ex to ruin her life. There was no worse betrayal than when someone you trusted in the most intimate way sold your most vulnerable moment to the press.

      Chelsea tried to blink away the image, but it was burned into her brain. Intimate footage she didn’t know existed until it had appeared on the tabloid’s website.

      She shuddered at the thought as she lifted the welcome mat in search of the key Juliette had left for her. The video had set off a humiliating chain reaction, the worst of which was her father’s embarrassment and disappointment.

      The look on his face had been devastating. It had cut her to the quick when he and her mother had told her she was on her own to solve the problem, that it was best for all if she distanced herself from the family until she’d cleaned up her mess—as if by virtue of simply leaving the country, London’s upper crust would forget she was their daughter.

      At least they would pretend to forget. In the meantime, it was very clear that Chelsea was cordially invited to stay away until she’d gotten her life together.

      The first step in Plan Damage Control was to make freelance trash reporter Bertie Veal leave her alone. The only way she would accomplish that was to disappear. Celebration, Texas, was the perfect place to hide because it was the last place in the world anyone would think to look for her.

      No one would recognize her here. Most Americans seemed interested in the Buckingham Palace royals. They didn’t care about the antics of the two-bit daughter of an obscure earl. American tabloids were all about Charles and Camilla, Wills and Kate, or movie stars spotted without makeup and rap singers caught cheating.

      Chelsea switched on her phone’s flashlight app and shone it on the wooden floorboards, but found nothing.

      She tried the door, but it was locked. Juliette was a wedding planner and she was in San Antonio on business this weekend. She’d made it clear that Chelsea was welcome and apologized for not being there when she arrived, but duty called.

      After a wedding reception Jules had dreamed up had been featured in Southern Living, her business had skyrocketed.

      Chelsea was happy for her friend and glad that at least one of them had her life together. She assured Juliette she could manage, and they’d bid their temporary goodbyes with promises of a long catch-up as soon as Juliette got home.

      The only logical hiding places for a key on the front porch were the doormat and a rocking chair. Again, she used the flashlight feature on her phone to search around the chair, but she came away empty-handed.

      Perhaps Jules had left it on the back porch. They’d been in such a hurry when they’d talked that only now did it dawn on Chelsea that Jules hadn’t mentioned a specific location for the key—only that she would leave it on the porch. Or maybe Chelsea had misunderstood. How hard could it be to find a hidden key?

      The flash of headlights warned of an approaching car. Chelsea sank back into the shadows, deciding she was grateful for the cloak of darkness that concealed her. As the vehicle continued to move down the road she breathed a sigh of relief.

      After the car was gone, she made her way to the back of the house away from the street to see if she could locate another hiding spot for the key.

      When Chelsea and Juliette had roomed together at university, the two had weathered stronger forces than Bertie Veal. Well, nothing worse than discovering Hadden Hastings, her ex-boyfriend, had sold a video he’d secretly recorded of Chelsea and him having sex, but she and Jules had gotten into their share of trouble over the years. If they hadn’t been knee-deep in it together, they’d gone to great lengths to cover for each other. That was what made them such good friends.

      When Chelsea had phoned Juliette and told her she was in trouble and had given her the bare-bones rundown of Hadden’s betrayal, she’d insisted Chelsea seek refuge with her in Celebration.

      Chelsea and Juliette had both known Hadden Hastings at university. He’d been part of their group of friends. But Chelsea hadn’t dated him until the year after they’d graduated.

      When she ran into him after she got home from a year of doing relief aid work in Africa, she’d seen him with different eyes. He’d suddenly become datable. He’d been fun and funny and romantic and sympathetic to her post-university quandary—after all, he couldn’t seem to find his place in the world, either.

      He’d charmed her and she’d fallen for him.

      He was the last person she’d ever thought would secretly record their lovemaking, much less sell the footage to Bertie Veal. The betrayal hurt as much as the humiliation of having a “sex tape” published for the entire world to view. The press ate it up because there was nothing quite as titillating as a noble scandal.

      Chelsea lifted up the mat at the back door and ran her hand over the rough surface of the wooden floorboard.

      Nothing. No key there, either.

      Then she lifted up the various flowerpots and tipped the planters, all to no avail. As a last resort, she called Juliette, but the call went straight to voice mail.

      “Hello, Jules. It’s Chelsea. I’m so sorry to bother you because you’re probably knee-deep in first dances and cake cuttings right now. But I made it to your house and I can’t СКАЧАТЬ