Regency Innocents. Annie Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ as for that business about cutting ties with the family who had raised him … well, yes, that did sound bad. But, knowing what she did of Charles, she would not be a bit surprised to learn that it was they who had done something dreadful, and that rather than expose them he’d let the gossip-mongers make what they would of it all.

      She was startled out of her reverie when someone pushed her bedroom door open. This might be a first-class inn, but clearly some people lodging here had no manners. She was just opening her mouth to scream her objection at having her room invaded when she realised it was only Charles, entering not from the corridor but from a connecting door to another bedroom.

      ‘I am not a monster, Heloise,’ he sighed, stalking towards her. ‘You do not need to clutch the sheet up to your chin as though you fear I mean to ravish you. I can assure you, nothing is further from my mind.’

      Relief that it was not some stranger about to assault her had her sagging into the pillows. Though his words rankled. Did he think she was a complete fool? She knew all too well that when he wanted a woman he would go to one of his mistresses.

      ‘I only came to inform you of the fact that I will not be making demands of that nature upon you. I said from the start that you are far too young to be married at all, leave alone face motherhood.’ He bent over her and placed a perfunctory kiss on her forehead. ‘Goodnight, Lady Walton,’ he said.

      ‘Goodnight, Charles,’ she replied, betraying by only the very slightest quiver in her lower lip her feeling of humiliated rejection.

      She would not cry until he had left the room. He detested any display of emotion. She could only imagine how disgusted her complete breakdown the night before must have made him. But it probably accounted for his distant behaviour with her today. She must not make the mistake of showing such lack of breeding again. Even if he never came to care all that much for her, she would do her utmost to be the kind of wife he wanted—compliant and undemonstrative.

      To prove that she could do this, she tried a shaky smile. To tell the truth, she did feel a measure of relief. She was totally unprepared for a wedding night with a husband who regarded her as a necessary evil. Or to endure the ordeal of being deflowered by a man who would regard it as a duty to be performed in the cold-blooded way he seemed to live the rest of his life.

      Lord Walton ripped off his cravat the moment he entered his room, and flung it aside to land he knew not where. He felt as though he could not breathe. God, how scared of him she had looked! And how relieved when he had told her he had no intentions of claiming his husbandly rights! He strode to the side table and poured a measure of brandy into a tumbler. Then slumped into a chair, staring into its amber depths. He would find no solace there, he reflected, swirling the liquid round and round, warming it to release its fragrant fumes. The one time he had attempted to use alcohol as an anaesthetic it had failed him miserably. All it had done was make him feel sorry for himself. He had spouted the most maudlin nonsense to a virtual stranger, and woken with a thick head in the morning. He would need a clear head the next morning. If they could make an early enough start they would reach Calais and be sailing for home on the evening tide.

      Providing Heloise did not fly from him during the night. Starting to his feet, he crossed to the chamber door. And paused with his hand on the latch.

      Perhaps the gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her go.

      Heloise deserved a man who could love and nurture her, not scare and bully her.

      Dammit, why was it so impossible to behave rationally around her? He ran a hand over his brow.

      Seeing her sitting in that bed, chewing her nails like a frightened, lonely child, had made him want to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he knew it would not have worked. He was the last person she would want to seek comfort from. He was the worst of her problems. Besides, the feel of her slight body, snuggled trustingly against his in the coach, had filled him with most unchivalrous longings. Right this moment he wanted her with a ferocity that made him disgusted with himself.

      God, what had he done? What was he to do?

      Determined to prove she was capable of behaving correctly, Heloise sat bolt upright in the carriage all the way to Calais. In spite of the fact she had spent most of the night crying into her pillow, she was not going to repeat the mistake of yielding to exhaustion and falling asleep on a husband who seemed to regard any form of touching as an intrusion on his personal dignity.

      She had served her purpose—giving him the opportunity to take revenge on Du Mauriac and concealing the chink in his armour that was his love for Felice. And now he did not know quite what to do with her.

      He was avoiding her as much as he could. When they got to Calais, he left her in the carriage while he arranged their passage, then installed her in a private parlour to await the sailing while he went off for a walk. On the few occasions when he had deigned to speak to her, he had done so with such icy civility she just knew he regretted giving in to the rash impulse to marry her.

      And who could blame him? No one was more unsuitable to be the wife of such a man than she!

      By the time he came to inform her it was time to embark, she was trembling so badly she had to cling to his arm for support.

      Just as they reached the companionway, a messenger dashed up to them. ‘Countess of Walton? Formerly Mademoiselle Bergeron?’ he panted.

      When she nodded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. ‘Thank heaven I reached you in time.’ He grinned. ‘Urgent, the sender said it was, that I got this to you before you left France.’ His mission complete, the man melted back into the crowd that thronged the quayside.

      ‘You had better open it at once,’ she heard Charles say, and he pulled her slightly to one side, so that they did not impede other passengers from boarding.

      ‘It is from my mother,’ she said, after swiftly scanning the few lines of hastily scrawled script. ‘Du Mauriac is dead.’

      Translating for Charles, she read, “‘… the Royalist officials sent to arrest him employed such zeal that many Bonapartists rushed to his aid. In the ensuing brawl, somebody stabbed him. Nobody knows yet who it was …’”

      She clutched the letter to her bosom, her eyes closing in relief. Charles was safe.

      ‘What violent times we live in,’ Charles remarked, wondering why it felt as though the dock had lurched beneath his feet.

      Heloise had only married him to escape Du Mauriac’s clutches. What a pointless gesture she had made. If only she had waited a few days, and not panicked, she would not have had to make that ultimate sacrifice.

      ‘Dear me,’ he observed. ‘You need not have married me after all.’

       Chapter Five

      

      Oh, poor Charles! He was already smarting from taking on a wife he did not really want, and now he had learned that at least part of his reason for doing so had ceased to exist.

      But, instead of betraying his annoyance, he held out his arm and said in an icily polite voice, ‘Will you come aboard now, madam?’

      Oh, dear. She gulped. How he must wish he could just leave her on the quayside and go back to England alone. But he СКАЧАТЬ