Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride

She scanned the harsh features, scarce six inches from her own face. The warmth of his breath fanned her cheek. She could smell the faint aroma of bergamot, a scent she had associated with him since the night when he had supported her, half-fainting, from the heat of that crowded ballroom. Her hands remembered the texture of his sleeve, and, through it, the strength of the arm that it clothed.

How she longed to be the one to wipe away those lines of suffering that a lifetime of disappointments had etched so deeply on his face! To make those eyes, that burned with suspicion, glow with contentment or light with laughter.

Oh, she knew he was only asking her to marry him out of disappointment in losing Susannah to a rival. But she could empathise with the streak of practicality in his nature that had him reasoning that if he could not have the woman he had set his heart on, there was no reason that he should forgo the property, as well. Had she not planned her own future along similar lines? Having given up hope of marrying the man she loved, she had decided she would at least stand on her own two feet and not be beholden to anyone.

Though it was depressing that he thought so poorly of her. He saw her as a girl with so little going for her that she would be grateful for the chance to live in comfort, even if it meant allying herself to a man he assumed no woman could look upon with anything but revulsion.

‘If any other man had asked me in such terms,’ she declared, determined to justify her intention to accept him, in spite of his insults, ‘I would have turned him down flat. Don’t you know that the way you just addressed me was hurtful, almost beyond bearing?’

‘If that is what you think,’ he said, rearing back and making as though he was about to stand up, ‘then I will trouble you with my unwelcome attentions no more.’

She regretted her impulse to put him straight, as soon as she saw the pain in his eyes. She had never intended to hurt him. Oh, blow her stupid pride. It was not worth defending if doing so wounded him.

‘Your attentions are not unwelcome,’ she hastily reassured him. ‘And of course I will marry you. It was just the way you put it…’

He got to his feet, looking down at her with an expression so fierce she felt almost afraid of him.

‘You must not expect honeyed words, or any insincere flattery from me, Miss Gillies. I may not have put my proposal with any great eloquence, but at least you know exactly what it is I am offering. I am offering you financial security, a chance at a good, comfortable future. You are about to marry a man who has been a soldier all his adult life. A man who has fought hard and lived rough. I am not going to spout some silly romantic nonsense to try to deceive you into expecting what I cannot give.’

She blinked in astonishment. Hurt tears sprung to her eyes. Had any woman ever received such an insulting proposal or had her acceptance met with such a stinging rebuke? If she had a grain of sense, she would tell him what he could do with his proposal, and walk away.

But then she would never see him again.

She would become a teacher, just as she had planned, but with the knowledge that, had she had more courage, she could have been Captain Fawley’s wife.

She could have endured that lonely life of drudgery, had he never proposed to her. But now, such a future would be unbearable.

A cold hand seemed to reach into her bowels, and twist them into a knot as another horrible thought occurred to her. Seeing the ruthless way he had tried to bludgeon her into a marriage he was convinced she could not want, was he not bound to bully some other hapless female into taking him on, so that he could get at his inheritance? She could not deceive herself into thinking she was anything more to him than the first on a list of prospective wives, drawn from the pool of available females in desperate straits.

‘I do not expect anything from you,’ she said despondently. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that he was in love with Susannah? She might have fanciful visions of creating a happy family with the man she loved, but as far as he was concerned, she could be any female.

A means to an end.

Chapter Four

A sense of elation swept over him, so strong that it made him almost dizzy. Vengeance, for all of it, was almost within his grasp! He could not believe it had been so easy. He had all those fools to thank—the fools who had made this lovely girl believe no man could want her.

He sank down on to the chair next to her, and would have seized her hand in gratitude, had he not been aware that she saw acceptance of his proposal as the lesser of two evils. Poverty and drudgery on the one hand, or marriage to a man no other woman could stomach on the other. What was it she had murmured, tears in her eyes? The devil or the deep blue sea!

So what if she felt she had made a bargain with the devil? She would soon learn that though he might not be the kind of husband most girls dreamed of, she would most definitely enjoy the comfortable lifestyle marrying him would bring her. From what he had been able to glean from his brief visit to the lawyers, to verify exactly what he needed to do to inherit, the old woman had left a tidy sum of money, as well as the property that would become their home.

‘Thank you, Miss Gillies. I cannot begin to tell you what this means to me.’ He almost winced at his own choice of words. He had been deliberately economical with the facts. For he never wanted her to discover that he had taken advantage of her vulnerability in order to exact revenge on a Lampton. Such knowledge was bound to chafe at her tender conscience.

He had suspected, before he came to put his proposal to her, that she would refuse him outright if she knew that marrying him would be tantamount to ruining another person’s future. She seemed capable of putting everyone’s happiness before her own. Look at how pleased she had been to observe Susannah’s success. She had displayed no trace of envy, though Susannah had totally eclipsed her more understated beauty, denying her a chance to attract her own suitors. And she had been pleased that the London Season, which was clearly sapping her strength, was helping her mother to get over her grief.

No, he had no intention of burdening her with the knowledge that he was determined to deprive Lampton of a fortune the man had always regarded as his.

But he had to secure it swiftly. Lampton was bound to take steps to prevent him marrying if he got wind of it.

‘We must marry at once.’