A Forbidden Heir's Desperate Escape Branches caught and snagged on her cloaked as she fled. The baying of hounds grew closer, the duchess’s men couldn’t be too far behind. Damn them all. She pulled her cloak tighter and tried to go faster, but she simply didn’t have the wood craft needed to get through the forest at speed. Every time she tried to pick up the pace she’d stumble over a root or get whipped in the face by an inconveniently positioned branch. The duchess’s men didn’t seem to have that problem, even less so their dogs. The barking and yelling grew closer. The trees thinned and she emerged into a clearing. She crouched and rested for a moment, trying to catch her ragged breath. The cloak’s hood slid back as she looked up at the sky revealing long, curly dark brown hair. She had bright blue eyes, high cheekbones and Cupid’s bow lips. Beneath the cloak was a slender body, though curved well enough in the right places. She stood a hair over five and a half feet. A necklace had bounced out from under her shirt at some point during the run. She placed a hand over it. This little trinket had started the whole chase. She hadn’t stolen it, not really. By rights it belonged to her family! Her family that no longer had an estate or a fortune… Her family had been minor nobility, a thing that previously she’d never have believed could change. But apparently all it took was falling on the wrong side of someone bigger than you. …and then things took a turn
