Captivated By Her Convenient Husband. Bronwyn Scott
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Название: Captivated By Her Convenient Husband
Автор: Bronwyn Scott
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
Серия: Mills & Boon Historical
isbn: 9781474089234
isbn:
Avaline closed the door behind them and turned to face him. She smiled too brightly as she stood in the wide, now-empty entrance hall of Blandford Hall. Their home. Just the two of them, a fact emphasised by the overwhelming silence surrounding them. They were alone for the first time that counted. They’d been alone last night, but there’d been the excuse of the late hour, the need to sleep and the promise of talking tomorrow to smooth over the immediate awkwardness of surprise and shock. Now tomorrow was here and there was no more family to hide behind. Here they were, Lord and Lady Fortis Tresham. Husband and wife. In broad daylight, a seven-year chasm gaping between them. ‘That went well,’ Avaline said.
‘I thought the last bit was odd.’ And touching.
Avaline’s bright smile softened, making her even more beautiful. ‘The loss of you aged your father greatly. You cannot imagine what having you back means to your parents, especially His Grace. I think one reaches a certain age where one comes to grips with their own mortality, but never the mortality of a child. To lose you was for your father to lose part of his immortality.’ She blushed and looked away. ‘You’re staring.’
Damn right he was staring. The most beautiful woman in the world was his wife. ‘You’re lovely. I was thinking the miniature doesn’t do you credit.’ Fortis fished in the pocket of his waistcoat for it. He’d put it there first thing this morning when he’d dressed. He brought it out now and flipped it open, studying the comparison.
‘You have it with you?’ Avaline asked, surprised.
‘Yes. I carry it with me always. It’s never left my pocket, except of course when I look at it.’ He felt sheepish over the admission. ‘I suppose it’s a silly habit now that I can look at you every day.’ He put it back into his pocket.
‘You never use to stare,’ Avaline ventured, the intensity of his gaze causing her to flush.
‘I’m making up for lost time.’ Fortis smiled.
‘You didn’t use to do that either. Smile,’ Avaline commented, a little smile of her own playing on her pink lips. He’d made a study of those lips over the past hours. His eyes knew intimately the enticing fullness of her bottom lip, the symmetrical perfection of the upper. It was a mouth that invited kisses and he wanted to oblige, although he wasn’t certain how that might be received, how he might be received by this wife who’d been glad of his presence last night, but who had retreated in the light of day.
‘I imagine there will be a lot of things I didn’t used to do. I’ve been given a second chance to be a better husband, a better man, and I intend to make the most of it.’ Whatever he remembered or didn’t remember, he knew that much at least. He’d been lucky. It was nothing short of a miracle he’d come out of that forest. He could agree to that, but he could see that his words had taken Avaline by surprise. She didn’t know what to make of them or of him. But they couldn’t sort that out standing in the middle of the hall where servants might overhear them.
‘Take my arm, Avaline, and walk with me. Give me a tour of all the improvements you’ve made.’ He smiled encouragingly and he hoped calmly, all the while his heart thudding in his chest at the prospect of this angel’s fingers on his sleeve, of her skirts brushing softly against his trouser leg as they strolled. Yet Avaline hesitated. ‘I am your husband and you are my wife. You needn’t be afraid to touch me, Avaline. I will not break like glass nor dissolve in a heap like ash.’
Slowly, Avaline took his arm, her fingertips ever so light on his sleeve. It was a start.
His arm was as strong and as real beneath her fingers today as it had been last night, yet losing him was exactly what Avaline feared. Not in the sense that he’d dissolve physically, but that another, less tangible, piece of him would indeed evaporate if held up to scrutiny, the piece that had played the hero, who’d swept her up into his arms, who’d been solicitous of her needs, aware of the shock she must feel over his reappearance. He’d not pushed her to consummate their reunion last night, which hadn’t surprised her. Fortis had never shown interest in her bed beyond his wedding-night duties. What had surprised her, though, was the concern he’d shown for her well-being when he’d left her at her bedroom door. That was the man she didn’t want to lose, not before she could discover him, this more mature, less self-centred version of the husband who’d come home. Yet it was this very newness that hindered her now as they walked in the garden, silence between them once more. What should she say? There was so much to say, but none of it seemed quite the right place to start.
‘Shall we start with last night?’ Fortis ventured as they turned down a path lined with oaks that formed a vibrant canopy of changing leaves overhead. He was taking charge just as he had in the drawing room. It had been courageous of him to invite his family’s questions, to offer himself openly, and it had cost him something. She’d sensed he hadn’t been entirely comfortable with it.
She’d wanted to reach out and take his hand in the drawing room, to let him know he wasn’t alone. But the Fortis she’d married wouldn’t have wanted such sentiment. He would have seen it as an assault on his strength, so she’d not risked it. Perhaps she had not risked it for herself either. She could not allow this heroics-induced empathy she felt for the man who’d swept her up in his arms, who’d come to her aid against Hayworth, also sweep away the realities of their marriage.
Fortis had made his position on wedding her very clear before he’d left. So clear those words were still burned in her mind seven years later.
‘This is a marriage of convenience, Avaline, to secure for you an unentailed property of your father’s and eventually join it with my father’s. I have done my part. The property is secured. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I promised to meet the boys this evening.’
He’d left with the army the next day. She could not let herself forget her place, for fear she would again fall victim to the fantasies she’d once harboured about their marriage.
She had to stay strong. Fortis could not come home after seven years of not answering her letters, miracle from the grave or not, and take her for granted again. She was stronger now, smarter now, no longer the fresh-from-the-schoolroom miss straight from Mrs Finlay’s Academy, no longer the child he’d once accused her of being. But the man who walked beside her seemed oblivious to her inner turmoil. He was more concerned with the present than the past. ‘Is it safe to assume Hayworth has been making an idiot of himself?’
‘Ever since news came from Balaclava.’ Avaline paused, gathering herself against the emotions of that awful day in London when Cam Lithgow had told them Fortis was missing. Her reaction had been part fright and part an overwhelming numbness. All Fortis had left her was his name and with Cam’s announcement she’d stood to lose even that. She’d felt exposed, the very last of her protection against Hayworth ripped away. But another part of her had been shockingly numb, emotionally empty. While family members around her had wept openly, she’d not been able to conjure such a depth of feeling over the loss of a husband who had not wanted her and whom she had not seen in years.
That lack of feeling had compounded her guilt. The loss of Fortis was her fault. She’d not been enough of a wife to make him stay and now he was likely dead because of it. Last night, all that had changed. She had a second chance to keep him here if she chose to take it.
‘Hayworth wants—wanted—’ she corrected herself ‘—to have you declared dead and, if not that, he wanted the СКАЧАТЬ