A Conformable Wife: A Regency Romance with a spirited heroine
Page 31
“You wretch!” he exclaimed as soon as he could speak. “You scheming female! I dare say you positively enjoyed making me out such a figure! I suppose now the only thing for me to do is to look for this elderly female who is addicted to needlework. Had you anyone in mind?”
“There’s always Miss Dyrham. She is very fond of needlework of all kinds. And I dare say,” she added, greatly daring, “that she would make you a conformable wife.”
Suddenly the laughter had vanished. She saw the intense look in his eyes, and quickly lowered her own gaze.
“I don’t want a conformable wife,” he said in a voice charged with feeling. “I thought I did once, so that I might order her life as I was trying to order my own emotions. But in the end, I was forced to succumb to the headlong passion I had despised. I fell deeply in love with a woman possessed of her own individuality, one who could be a partner and not a chattel.”
Her heart seemed to have leapt into her throat. She dared not again lift her eyes to meet his, for fear they should betray her. Suppose he should be speaking of someone else — of Isabella Laverton, for instance?
He leapt to his feet and stood over her.
“Miss Melville — Henrietta! I offended you deeply recently in a fit of jealousy, but your attitude toward me over the past twenty-four hours encourages me to hope that I am, in part at least, forgiven. You’re too honest to make sport of me as another woman once did. Tell me at once if I have any hope of gaining your affections. I love you with all my heart! You refused me once when I offered you only a marriage of convenience.” His voice shook a little. “That may make no difference to you; I don’t know, and dare not hope. Oh, for God’s sake, my dearest girl, say something and put me out of this torment of uncertainty!”
Speech was impossible. She raised her face to his and let him read the tender message of her eyes.
He gathered her to him, pressing his lips upon her hair, her cheek, and, last of all, her lips. She surrendered herself gladly to his kiss, and his arms tightened about her as though he would never let her go. For some time they stayed thus, caught in the heady ecstasy of love’s first embrace. Time did not exist. There was neither past nor future, but only this moment of unimagined bliss.
Presently he released her and, putting his arm about her waist, led her to the sofa, where they sat down side by side. She nestled close, letting her head rest on his shoulder, and found her voice at last.
“I love you, too,” she said shyly. “I did from the first, I think, but I tried to put my feelings aside since it was plain that you didn’t share them. When did you begin to care for me? Was it —” she peeped up at him with a roguish expression — “was it when you saw me tricked out in a modish gown? I realise now what a dowd I must have looked before I came to Bath.”
“Do you really think I’ve fallen in love with a fashion plate? No, my darling, I had begun to care for you before you left Westhyde. Why else did you suppose I followed you to Bath? The thing was, I fought against my feelings. I didn’t wish to become involved again in the bittersweet of love. I’ll admit that when I saw you with your natural attractions and charm enhanced by pretty gowns, I had my work cut out to resist you! You were my Waterloo, beloved: a glorious defeat!”
“You speak very well,” she teased him, putting up caressing fingers to his cheek.
“And can suit the action to the words!”
He held her close, his lips pressed firmly on hers. Then he lifted his head for a moment. “You once wanted me to say that your beauty maddened me, Hetty. It does, b’God! How soon will you marry me?”
“As soon as you wish. As soon as the banns are called,” she promised, smiling into his ardent dark eyes.
“I’ll go to Aldwyn Court tomorrow and arrange it. You wish to be married at home, I suppose, and not in Bath abbey?”
“Oh, yes, at home.” She sighed contentedly. “To think it should come to this, when once I believed that I wanted only my freedom.”
“You’re not regretting that?” he asked with slight anxiety.
“Not that, nor anything. I did discover myself, you see, dearest, after all. I know now that I’m the kind of woman who can never exist for herself alone. I need a family about me.”
“My sweet life, it shall always be my most earnest endeavour to supply your needs,” he said with a small, quizzical smile.
She tried to hide her blushing face against his shoulder, but he tilted it up to kiss her again and yet again.
*****
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A NOTE TO THE READER
It’s wonderful to see my mother’s books available again and being enjoyed by what must surely be a new audience from that which read them when they were first published. My brother and I can well remember our mum, Alice, writing away on her novels in the room we called the library at home when we were teenagers. She generally laid aside her pen — there were no computers in those days, of course — when we returned from school but we knew she had used our absence during the day to polish off a few chapters.
One of the things I well remember from those days is the care that she took in ensuring the historical accuracy of the background of her books. I am sure many of you have read novels where you are drawn out of the story by inaccuracies in historical facts, details of costume or other anachronisms. I suppose it would be impossible to claim that there are no such errors in our mother’s books; what is undoubted is that she took great care to check matters.
The result was, and is, that the books still have an appeal to a modern audience, for authenticity is appreciated by most readers, even if subconsciously. The periods in which they set vary: the earliest is The Georgian Rake, which must be around the middle of the 18th century; and some are true Regency romances. But Mum was not content with just a love story; there is always an element of mystery in her books. Indeed, this came to the fore in her later writings, which are historical detective novels.
There’s a great deal more I could say about her writings but it would be merely repeating what you can read on her website at www.alicechetwyndley.co.uk. To outward appearances, our mother was an average housewife of the time — for it was usual enough for women to remain at home in those days — but she possessed a powerful imagination that enabled her to dream up stories that appealed to many readers at the time — and still do, thanks to their recent republication.
If you have enjoyed her novels, we would be very grateful if you could leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads so that others may also be tempted to lose themselves in their pages.
Richard Ley, 2018.
More Books by Alice Chetwynd Ley
THE EVERSLEY SAGA:
The Clandestine Betrothal
AVAILABLE HERE!
The Toast of the Town
AVAILABLE HERE!
A Season at Brighton
AVAILABLE HERE!
OTHER NOVELS:
The Jewelled Snuff Box
AVAILABLE HERE!
The Georgian Rake
AVAILABLE HERE!
The Guinea Stamp
AVAILABLE HERE!
The Master of Liversedge
AVAILABLE HERE!
Letters For A Spy
AVAILABLE HERE!
Tenant of Chesdene Manor
AVAILABLE HERE!
The Beau and the Bluestocking
AVAILABLE HERE!
At Dark of the Moon
AVAILABLE HERE!
A Regency Scandal
The Intrepid Miss Haydon
Anthea and Justin Rutherford Trilogy
A Reputation Dies
A Fatal Assignation
A Masquerade of Vengeance
Published by Sapere Books.
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Copyright © The Estate
of Alice Chetwynd Ley, 1981
The Estate of Alice Chetwynd Ley has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this work.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781913028282