Captivated By Her Convenient Husband

‘Don’t look so glum, my dear. You are about to be rescued,’ Hayworth said through gritted teeth before breaking into a smile as the Duchess of Cowden approached. ‘Ah, Your Grace, what a pleasure to see you.’

The Duchess of Cowden met them at the top of the stairs, elegant and cool in lilac silk. ‘Mr Hayworth, what a splendid little party. There you are, Avaline. Come, there are people to meet.’ Without further preface, the Duchess looped an arm through hers, effectively removing her from Hayworth’s side. The Duchess had effectively insulted him, too. Did Hayworth know? His grand harvest ball was nothing to the Duchess, whose town house ballroom in London held four hundred and even then was always a crush.

‘That man is odious,’ the Duchess whispered as they walked away. He was more than odious, though. He was dangerous. He’d not made a fortune in the East India indigo trade because he talked a lot. He’d made it because he was a man of action. He did what he said. If he thought he could dissolve her marriage and coerce her into another, Avaline was quite concerned he actually could.

‘Thank you for coming tonight,’ Avaline offered sincerely to her mother-in-law. It would have been easy enough for the Treshams to stay in town to await Major Lithgow’s return and his news of Fortis.

The Duchess dismissed the effort. ‘Major Lithgow knows where to find us. It could be days yet depending on the Channel crossing. We’d rather be here, supporting you. Today is a difficult day for all of us, made no less difficult by Hayworth’s event. He planned this on purpose and it is poorly done of him.’

Avaline smiled, grateful for the support. Fortis’s family had stood beside her all these years, treated her as a daughter when her own parents had passed within a year of each other, leaving her alone with Blandford and its debt. Would they continue to stand by her if Fortis were truly dead? That, too, would be decided when Major Lithgow returned. Her future hung in the balance as did her freedom. Regardless of Lithgow’s news the freedom she’d known would be at an end. She would be a wife or a widow. She’d either have a husband or she’d need a husband—a woman’s lot in a nutshell.

‘Try to dance and forget for a little while,’ the Duchess encouraged, reading her thoughts. ‘There’s nothing else to be done until Major Lithgow returns. I’ve arranged partners for you. Here’s Sir Edmund now.’

Sir Edmund Banbridge claimed her for the first dance, another family friend of the Treshams claimed her for the second. The Duchess had done her job well, peopling Avaline’s dance card with those who’d understand how emotional the evening was for her and wouldn’t press her for small talk. But eventually, the list ran out and Hayworth, as host, could not be denied for ever.

‘I believe supper is mine.’ Hayworth took her arm, brooking no prevarication as the supper waltz ended. Avaline understood her reprieve was over. She would not be allowed to refuse, but on principle, she had to try.

‘I find I have no appetite tonight.’ She would not have him believing she was in favour of his company.

‘Then we’ll walk outside. You needn’t stay indoors.’ Hayworth reversed direction, taking them away from the crowd moving towards the supper buffet.

Avaline saw her mistake immediately. He was punishing her. If she would not eat with him publicly, she’d be forced to walk with him privately where anything might be said or done. The French doors leading outside to the veranda closed ominously behind them, the temporarily deserted garden spread out before them. This was not a situation she wanted to be in. ‘We have our seclusion, my dear. Just the two of us. Perhaps now you’ll tell me why you resist my offer so vehemently? Or do you need some different form of persuasion?’ Something dangerous glinted in his eyes. His body shifted, moving closer to hers, crowding her against the rail, a predator stalking his prey, a horrifying reminder of how alone she was out here with him.

‘I don’t consider cornering a woman on a dark balcony persuasion of any sort,’ Avaline replied staunchly, trying to ignore the fact that to keep herself from touching him, her back was pressed against the hard wrought-iron of the balcony. She could physically go no further.

The knuckles of his hand gave a possessive caress of her cheek, his touch leaving her cold while her mind debated the plausibility of what he might venture here in the dark. Would he truly go so far as to force attentions on her? Admittedly, it was difficult to conceive that he would. She’d been raised in the belief that gentlemen knew the limits of propriety and abided by them, yet that very assumption was being challenged before her eyes. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Avaline, who has been on her own too long, you’ve forgotten certain pleasures. You need a man to remind you.’

‘I have a man.’ Avaline was starting to panic now. He was giving no sign of retreating.

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You have the memory of a man. It is not the same, I assure you.’ His mouth bent to hers in a swift move meant to take her by surprise, meant to render her helpless. The moment his mouth caught hers, she shoved, hard and certain. There could be no hesitation on her part or he would see it as acceptance. The shove bought her space, enough of it to rush past him and gain the door. She fumbled with the handle, struggling with it in her haste. She slipped inside, but not before he got his hands on her again, his grip punishing about her wrist.

‘Don’t be a fool, Avaline. I like a good, hard chase,’ he growled, ‘and I always win.’ As if to prove it, he dragged her to him and then danced her back to the wall until she was trapped between him and the damask. ‘I don’t mind if we play rough. I will have my answer.’ His mouth was inches from hers, his body pressed to hers, giving no quarter. ‘Tell me again, why do you resist?’

Then he was gone, miraculously pulled away from her, a fist crashing into his jaw with enough force to send Hayworth sprawling into a Louis XV chair too brittle to take his weight. He went down and the chair splintered with him. A man was on Hayworth like a wolf on its prey, straddling the prone figure, one hand gripping his collar, the other forming a ready fist to finish the job. No, not a man, an avenging angel, Avaline thought, taking in the dark hair, the broad shoulders beneath the soldier’s blue coat and the ripple of muscle as the man bent over Hayworth. Another blow landed, galvanising Avaline. Avenging angel or not, she couldn’t allow him to continue even if Hayworth deserved it. Violence was violence.

She ran forward, gripping her rescuer’s arm. ‘Stop! Please, stop!’ The arm tensed, muscles flexing beneath her touch, iron hard and rigid.

The man turned his face to her, blue eyes lethal, mouth set grim. ‘Are you sure, my dear Avaline? I will only stop if you say he’s had enough.’

He let go of Hayworth’s collar, dropping him on to the floor. Hayworth rolled to his side, curled in a ball, nursing his jaw. ‘Allow me to answer your question. Perhaps the lady resists your proposal on the grounds of bigamy, Hayworth.’ His growl was pure, primal possession and it sent a trill of excitement down her spine. ‘Looks as though I’ve come home just in time.’

Avaline’s breath caught. She did not remember that voice, the rich rolling timbre of it behind the growl or the sound of her name on his lips as if it belonged there. How could she forget such a voice? But the hair, the shoulders, the blue eyes, the uniform... Her mind started to grasp the details, the realities. This must be what it felt like to see a ghost, the impossible made real. The world spun. She instinctively reached for him in a desperate attempt to steady herself against the overwhelming realisation.

‘Fortis. Oh, my God, you’re back.’

Chapter Two (#u4ae82a86-eb7a-50a9-99b6-54edf2234e14)

Blandford Hall—the next afternoon

Fortis sat on a sofa upholstered in rose silk, his back to the wainscoted wall, his sight line trained on the wide double-doored entrance of the drawing room, his peripheral vision aware that beyond him to the left were French doors and beyond that a manicured garden bursting with autumn colour. He was aware, too, that he was surrounded on all sides by luxury, safety and people who loved him. Beside him on the sofa sat Avaline, keeping respectful—or was that wary?—inches between them, making sure not to touch him. Perhaps she was unsure what to make of his return? To his right sat Her Grace, the Duchess of Cowden, his mother, clutching his father the Duke’s hand against the joy and the shock of her son’s return. Across from him on a matching sofa were Helena and Frederick, his oldest brother and his wife. In the last chair sat his newest sister-in-law Anne, with his other brother, Ferris, standing protectively at her shoulder.

Everywhere he looked there were reminders that he was safe. He was returned to the bosom of his family. But what his eyes could see proof of, his mind struggled to accept. This was his life? Wherever he turned, this was what it always came back to. This was all his: Blandford Hall, his wife’s home—their home, the place they’d spent the first three weeks of their marriage; this family full of graciousness and warmth and unbounded love, this family who’d held him close in turns and cried openly at Hayworth’s ball when he’d made his appearance in the supper room, Avaline in his arms.

He supposed, in hindsight, his entrance had been rather dramatic—dramatic enough to make Avaline swoon. All he’d thought about when he’d caught her was getting her away from Hayworth, finding his family and going home. The result had been somewhat more. Upon their arrival today, Anne and Ferris had reported that romantic tales of the hero returned were already circulating the neighbourhood. His return had not been the private affair he’d envisioned on the journey from Sevastopol with Cam Lithgow. Today, however, it was just the eight of them, just the Treshams. He was missing Cam sorely. He hadn’t realised how much he’d counted on Cam to smooth the way, to be the bridge between his long absence and his sudden return. Cam had been a godsend last night, shooing people away, putting himself between Hayworth’s gawking guests and the Treshams’ emotional reunion. It had been Cam who’d ushered them all to carriages and sent them home—he and Avaline to Blandford and his family to the Cowden estate at Bramble. But he couldn’t rely on Cam for ever. Cam had his own business to see to, which left Fortis with tea poured out, no one to ease the conversation and an awkward silence settling over the room.

Fortis supposed he should be the one to say something, to take charge, but what did one say after having been gone for seven years? ‘How are you? What have you been up to?’ It seemed too trite, too open ended. Even if by some stretch of the imagination such a question wasn’t impossible to ask, it was impossible to answer in a decent amount of time. It would take Frederick alone at least an hour to tell him of his nephews—all five of them now—and Ferris another hour to tell him about falling in love with Anne, let alone anything else that had happened in his absence.

The enormity of that swamped him. He’d missed so much: births, weddings, deaths. Avaline’s parents had both died. He knew that much even if he couldn’t remember them. That was embarrassing in itself. He could not remember his in-laws, what they looked like, sounded like, what they had said to him. He knew he had them. But knowing was somehow different than remembering. Knowing was fact and he suddenly found facts weren’t enough. Was that how his family felt looking at him? That they didn’t know him? Or that what they remembered of him was somehow lacking when faced with the reality of him sitting in the room? He was not the only one for whom this was awkward. They didn’t know any more what to say to him than he knew what to say to them. Maybe this first conversation wasn’t about telling, but asking. He needed to give them permission to ask their questions.

Fortis cleared his throat. ‘You must have things you want to know,’ he said, taking up that train of thought. He’d been sprung on them as an impossible surprise. There’d been no time to send word ahead. Any letter sent would have arrived on the packet with him. Surely they would want explanations. Perhaps they might even have doubts now that the euphoria of their reunion last night had passed. He hoped he had answers. There was still so much that was a fog in his brain. He’d tried to explain as much to Cam on the journey home.

The discomfort of giving those explanations must have been evident on his face. Ferris, the physician, the brother who’d studied medicine and dedicated his efforts to serving the medical needs of the poor, leaned forward earnestly. ‘No, Fort, you needn’t tell us anything yet or ever. Cam made a thorough report and we understand.’ Fortis knew what ‘we understand’ meant. It meant the family knew he hadn’t been entirely in his right mind when he’d come out of the woods, that he’d displayed signs of confusion, displacement, that he’d been unsure of who or what he was. Cam and the army had sorted that out with him and for him thanks to the letters from Avaline in his coat pocket dated from the day before Balaclava almost a year prior, along with the miniature of her, the tattered remnants of the uniform that proved his rank and identity, his pale blue eyes and other sundry details despite the overlong dark hair he refused to let Cam cut. Even now, he was wearing it long, tied back in a ponytail like lords a generation ago.

‘I don’t need your pity,’ Fortis answered Ferris sternly. He didn’t need to be patronised or felt sorry for. Poor broken Fortis—did they think he was a shell of his former self? Did they think he couldn’t function in the world? Beside him, Avaline shifted, uncomfortable with the sharp tone he’d taken. Is that what his wife thought, too? His pretty, surprised wife who’d swooned in his arms? Did she believe her husband was not capable of fully returning? All because of Cam’s damned honest report that had labelled him confused? It wasn’t untrue, he was confused. He felt confused right now sitting amid all this love and luxury, knowing it was his, but not remembering it as his. He just preferred that confusion be private, that it remain his to manage, alone. He wasn’t used to relying on others to carry his burdens with him or for him.

Frederick intervened, smoothing the tension. ‘We know you don’t, Fort. We just need you to know we don’t expect you to disgorge everything all at once. Being home is enough for us. All else will come. It has been a long time. None of us must assume we can all pick up where we left off as if nothing and no one has changed. We’ve all changed, but we will all find our ways back to each other if we’re patient.’

Fortis nodded and took the olive branch, moving the conversation on to safer ground. ‘Helena, tell me about the boys. Five boys all under ten—are they a handful?’ That brought a round of laughter. It was a good choice of topic. Helena was a proud mother and Fortis let talk of the boys’—his nephews’—escapades swirl around him, wrapping him in laughter. He felt himself relax a certain degree. There was no pressure here. There was nothing for him to recall. He’d not known the boys. Helena had been pregnant at his wedding with her first. It was easy to laugh and smile along with the rest of them, to feel as though he was home. And yet, the feeling couldn’t quite settle, like clothes that were just the tiniest bit too small—a trouser waist too tight, a coat stretched too snuggly over shoulders so that every move was a reminder that the fit was not effortless.

After a while, Ferris rose. ‘Fort, come walk with me in the gardens.’

‘Is this your idea of rescuing me?’ Fortis asked once the glass doors were shut behind them. ‘If so, I don’t believe I was in need of rescue.’ He couldn’t seem to help himself from being defensive with his brother today.

Ferris shook his head, unbothered by the surly tone. ‘No, you didn’t. It was me being selfish. I wanted a moment with you. Will you allow me?’

‘As my brother or a physician?’ Fort was instantly wary. All his battle senses were on high alert, ready to protect himself.

‘As both, I hope. War changes a man. I see that change in you.’

Fortis lifted an eyebrow in challenge. ‘Do you? You haven’t seen me in seven years. I am sure everyone looks different after such a long time apart. I don’t think that makes it remarkable or worthy of study.’

Ferris nodded, doing him the credit of contemplating his thoughts. ‘True, your hair is longer, your muscles more defined. You’ve come into your full build. Nothing of the little brother remains. I shall have to get used to looking at the man my brother has become instead of looking for the boy he once was,’ Ferris acceded with a physician’s eye for anatomy. ‘But there are other changes as well. Mental changes.’

Fortis baulked at that. No man liked having his sanity questioned any more than he liked discussing his emotions. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Please, Fort. There’s no need to be defensive. I’ve been working with soldiers on their returns from India, the Crimea, wherever Britain has the army posted these days. In places where the men have seen violence, your condition is not unusual, nor, unfortunately, all that rare. War takes a toll on a man we’re just beginning to acknowledge, to say nothing of understand. But I hope in time we may.’

Fortis scowled. ‘And what condition is that?’

‘You sat with your back to the wall today, so you could see the entire room, so you had clear visual access to points of entry and perhaps escape?’ Ferris added with wry insight. ‘That is something men do who live on the edge of danger, on the edge of life. You have the tendencies of one who has lived under stressful conditions where the need to fight is always an imminent possibility.’

Fortis wished he could deny his brother’s conjecture, but he could not. He could not recall anything to the contrary and what he did remember—the smoke, the cannon fire, the rush and riot of battle—certainly upheld Ferris’s assertions. But Ferris wasn’t done.

‘We’ve also found that these soldiers have unclear memories, difficulty explaining their time away to others. They have a reluctance to integrate back into their old lives, back into their families. There are other symptoms, too. If I could ask you a few questions?’

‘I’m not sure I like being a specimen under a microscope or an object of study.’ He did not want to answer any questions. He felt ridiculously vulnerable standing here in the garden with Ferris, his brother’s assertions stripping him bare.

‘Not an object, Fortis. A man. I don’t want to study you. I want to help you, if you need it and if you’ll allow it. Cam’s report suggested...’