Captivated By Her Convenient Husband. Bronwyn Scott

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       Chapter One

      Indigo Hall, Sussex—Friday, October 26th, 1855

      Avaline Panshawe-Tresham could put off her entrance and all it would entail no longer. She had to get out of the carriage, had to go inside, had to dance with the men, smile at the women, suffer the solicitations of her well-meaning in-laws, who had already arrived, and not least she had to endure the dubious charms of the evening’s host, Tobin Hayworth, all the while pretending she was as oblivious to his intentions as she was to the disappointment she’d brought the Treshams—all seven years, three weeks, one day of it, and counting.

      There seemed no end in sight when it came to her association with disappointment, not that the Treshams had ever said as much. They were far too kind. Still, Avaline knew and that was all that mattered.

      She drew a steadying breath and smoothed her ice-blue skirts. She checked to see that her pearl and gold earbobs were fastened securely, that her slender pearl pendant wasn’t twisted, that her matching combs were secure in the folds of her artfully arranged hair. She was stalling, of course, as she’d stalled at home at Blandford Hall, dragging out her departure with an inane debate with herself over wearing the blue or the pink silk. Now, there wasn’t anything left to hide behind. There wasn’t a hair out of place, or a creased wrinkle to be found. She was out of excuses and out of time in so many ways, and she was furious.

      Tobin Hayworth had held his harvest ball tonight on purpose. He knew very well the import of October twenty-sixth to her. It was one day after the anniversary of the Battle of Balaclava; a year and a day after her husband, Fortis Tresham, fell in battle, never to be heard from again. His body had never been recovered. He’d fallen and he had vanished, as if he’d never been. But he had been and perhaps he still was. It was a small hope she clung to and one whose odds grew smaller by the day. It had been a year since he’d fallen, making it seven years since he’d married her and promptly departed England. It was a long time to be gone.

      That was the great failing that confronted her daily. She’d been a dismal wife, unable to keep her young, restless officer husband home. It was the one thing the Treshams had hoped she’d do by whatever means necessary. Marriage was usually a great domesticator of men of Fortis’s station—sons of dukes. Once a man married, he settled down, looked after his estate, his wife and his nursery. The plan should have worked. It had all the trappings of success. His parents and hers had arranged it. What could be more perfect than an alliance between neighbours, one of whom claimed the title of the Duke of Cowden, and the other an ailing baron, who claimed a large, unentailed tract of failing land that abutted the Duke’s estate and an eagerness to see his only child wed? Their marriage had been accomplished during Fortis’s leave. It had ended when he left three weeks later. She’d not conceived a honeymoon heir for him. She had hardly kept him in their bed long enough to do more than make the marriage binding. He’d been off, riding, hunting, shooting, and fishing with his friends for the duration of the honeymoon. She’d not tamed Fortis Tresham. If anything, she’d made him wilder.

      She’d written dutifully, one letter СКАЧАТЬ