The Tainted Love of a Captain

by Jane Lark

  ‘But that was why I wrote it, because you never did look for more than a second.’

  ‘I thought you were someone seeking a husband, and I was not inclined to be that.’

  ‘I know, you told me. But now you are…’ She smiled.

  He walked across the room to her. ‘But now I am, and very glad to be, because I met this beautiful woman who changed my mind. His hand lifted and his fingers touched one of the curls that had been trained to fall on to her bare shoulder. ‘When I first met you in an inn, I imagined your hair styled for a ball and I knew then you would make every other woman in the room look dull.’

  ‘I have had dance lessons while you have been away, very hurried lessons, but I think I might stumble through a few dances with you, but please tell everyone else I am yours. I do not wish to make a fool of myself with any other man.’

  ‘You will not make a fool of yourself at all, but no one else will have chance to dance with you because I shall not let you leave my side. No more separations, remember.’

  She turned and pulled on her long, white gloves and glanced at herself in the mirror again. Her dress was a deep-purple silk and it looked very grand with its white lace. The contrasting colour made her hair more remarkable too. She looked like someone who lived in the world of Harry’s family.

  Yet she did live among them and she was not frightened of this evening, even though his wider family had arrived, more aunts and uncles and copious cousins. She had been introduced to them all, in small numbers, by Katherine or Harry’s mother or father. She was liked here. No. She was loved here. And so everyone who came had judged her through the eyes of Harry’s parents or Katherine, or Rob and Caro, Mary and Drew, or Henry and Susan.

  Phillip, Rupert and Meredith, who had been at their wedding had come for the ball too, and even they had been nice under the light of joy that Harry’s mother had expressed on having Charlie as an addition to her family. ‘This is my new daughter,’ she had said, time and time again.

  When Charlie turned around, fully dressed and ready to walk downstairs, Harry leant and kissed her lips.

  She pushed him away. ‘Harry, we must go downstairs. Mama and Papa are expecting us to be in the receiving line.’

  He laughed at her. ‘Mama and Papa, is it?’

  She frowned. They had become that days ago. ‘You do not mind?’

  ‘Of course I do not. The need to be in the receiving line I am not so keen upon, however…’

  The ball had become a celebration of their marriage in the last week, and every guest had been written to, to inform them of it. So, of course they must welcome the guests too. ‘The ball is in our honour now.’

  ‘So you told me. Come along, then, and I shall enjoy every minute of it because I shall be able to show you off and make everyone else jealous. That is unless you wish to forget the ball and return to bed,’ he said the last with a broad, jesting smile. They had already spent an hour in bed since his return.

  ‘No.’ She smiled too and lifted her hand like his grandiose relations did. ‘Lead me to the ball, sir.’

  He held her fingers and then walked beside her as they left the room.

  ‘Oh, you both look splendid!’ his mother exclaimed as she saw them walking down the stairs into the hall.

  It sounded as though the rest of those staying in the house were already in the ballroom – there was a loud ring of voices coming from the open doors.

  ‘Charlie, you look gorgeous, and Harry, such a transformation.’ Katherine voiced with more excitement than Charlie had heard her express before.

  Katherine hugged Harry as his mother embraced Charlie. Then they swapped. Then John and Harry’s father took a turn in kissing her hand. Harry’s father held Harry last of all, holding him with a level of emotion Charlie had never imagined a man might show for another man.

  She curtsied time and again, greeting dozens of noble and genteel people. Then Harry lifted his arm, offering it to her as weeks ago he had offered his arm as they had paraded along the front in Brighton, only this time he walked her into a ballroom; a huge room lit by giant gilded, teardrop chandeliers and decorated with marble columns, ornate plaster patterns and paintings.

  If she had known that places like this existed when she had lain on top of the hayrick as a child, in the sunshine, chewing on her favourite liquorice root—she would have dreamed of this.

  ~

  Harry’s hand held one of Charlie’s gently, while his other hand pressed against the middle of her back, firmly, steering her more directly than he would have steered one of his sisters or cousins.

  Charlie was not light on her feet, her steps were steady and precise and yet she was confident enough that he did not see her look at her feet once as they waltzed. Instead she looked up at the chandelier that was above them, as though she watched the light sparkling in the abundant drops of cut glass or looked beyond that at the Greek God, Zeus, holding out a hand to those in the room below.

  She was truly a stunning woman. Birth. To whom a person was born. Was not something that made the person. Life and love were what made a person.

  Charlie had never been loved enough before.

  She was loved now.

  He had a feeling he had been given someone special to love because fate had known that he and his family were the people for the task. All of his family. It made him feel forgiven for his errors in the past. It made him proud of the parents he had once rebelled against.

  She was so lost in her admiration of the room, Charlie had not even realised that the room about them was full of whispers. But they were not cruel whispers. He knew what was being said, the comments would be over his lack of a uniform. Those who had been in the room already when he’d come down were only now seeing that he had resigned his post.

  But he was to become a farming man. His father’s steward. His father had confirmed it today. He would learn from the man his father had and take over and his father intended to do less now he was getting older. There was a house for them too, which would be rented for their use in the village near his father’s manor house.

  His Uncle Richard was close to there too and so there would be many of his family near.

  It was what he wanted for Charlie.

  When the dance came to a close, his brothers Rob, Daniel and David were the first to come over and then his sisters, Mary, Helen, Jennifer and Jemima. All of them exclaimed over his lack of a scarlet coat. ‘What?’ ‘Why?’ ‘How?’ The crowd about him broadened as his cousins arrived to challenge him too. Eleanor screamed with excitement as Margaret and Heather embraced him in turns.

  Then he was approached by his male cousins, who had at one time been the friends with whom he’d behaved badly, only they had given that behaviour up long before him. ‘Frederick, Gregory, William.’ He shook their hands. Then he turned and shook Henry’s hand.

  ‘I never thought I would see this day…’ Henry stated.

  ‘I could not take this woman to India.’ Harry’s hand was still at Charlie’s back.

  ‘Champagne for the happy couple!’ Harry’s father’s voice reached above the noise of the crowd about him. His father smiled at Charlie first. His father had feared she might feel overwhelmed by the crowd about them and given them an escape route. But as Harry looked at Charlie, her eyes said quite clearly she did not need it, she did not even look as though she was pretending strength, her posture was not stiff nor her chin high. She was merely enjoying all the fuss.

  She accepted the glass his father offered her.

  So did Harry. Then he looked at his friends as his father turned away. ‘And I could not separate her from her new Mama and Papa.’ His father looked back and caught Harry’s gaze through the melee of everyone else, then he smiled and laughed before turning away again.

  Harry had never been so glad of the family he’d been born into. He was a lucky man and now Charlie was lucky too. When there were children, as he knew there would be, then they would create their own family raised in this happin
ess and love too.

  As the next dance began, he leant forward. ‘I love you,’ he whispered into Charlie’s ear, as her gorgeous auburn hair tickled his cheek.

  Epilogue

  Charlie had been walking back and forth across the grass for the last half an hour, with Ash pacing behind as Charlie rocked the child cradled in her arms, and still Ellen was not asleep.

  The sound of the heavy leather ball hitting the willow bat rang through the trees at the edge of the lake. Then voices cheered and called for whoever had hit the ball to run faster.

  People were spread out across the lawn before Pembroke Place, where Charlie had first been adopted, and welcomed among them the year before. There was a marquee, where a buffet luncheon was to be served and rugs laid out for the women to watch with the children as the men played cricket.

  There was a resounding, unified sigh and then some applause behind her. She guessed the batsman had been caught out. She did not look back.

  She had walked away from where the family were gathered as she wanted Ellen to sleep. Ellen had been too busy listening to every sound and watching every face as all of Harry’s extended family came to peer at her. Ellen was only two months, the most recent offspring in the family, and so everyone wished to come across and hold her or smile at her.

  Charlie was also the newest mother and struggling to learn how to do things correctly. Though Mama had been willing to take on the task of getting Ellen to drop off for her nap, Charlie wanted to do it. She wanted to be a good mother.

  She walked on, bouncing and rocking Ellen, whispering a quiet lullaby in a hurried voice that lacked any musical tone. She was becoming frustrated. ‘Please sleep,’ she whispered desperately. She wanted to be a good mother.

  ‘Charlie!’

  She turned. Harry was walking towards her. Ash bounded over to him.

  ‘Hello,’ she called back to him. ‘Was it you who was caught out?’

  He gave her a wry smile as he came closer, leaning and patting Ash’s back. ‘Yes. And do not tease me for it. I shall hear enough of that from my cousins.’

  ‘I would not.’

  He was wearing only his white shirt and trousers, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his neck cloth removed so his shirt hung open at his collar in a slight V. His red-and-black braces were the only item in his outfit that had colour. But the white set off his dark-brown hair and blue eyes so beautifully.

  ‘How is our daughter?’ His hand touched the shock of red hair on Ellen’s head. She had been born with her hair, which Harry had said was unusual, but he had celebrated it as a wonderful thing to have a daughter with hair like Charlie’s.

  ‘And she has red hair like Charlie’s!’ he had said to everyone in the villages near where they lived.

  ‘She is refusing to sleep, though she is tired and fractious. I brought her away from the others in the hope they would not distract her.’

  Harry’s hands came up in a gesture that said, let me take her.

  She let him do so.

  ‘So my little fighter, you are distressing your mother again are you? We’ll have no more of that.’

  Ellen’s eyes focused on Harry’s face as Harry braced her in one arm while his free hand stroked across her cheek.

  He was so much easier with Ellen than Charlie was, but then he’d had numerous brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews… He knew what to do with a baby.

  ‘Come along, let us walk down to the lake.’ He lifted out his elbow, in a gesture that said ‘hold my arm’.

  She did so, her fingers curling about his elbow and holding on as she would always hold on to Harry.

  He talked to Ellen as they walked with Ash beside him. ‘Has your mother been getting herself in a dither, little one?’ He looked at Charlie. ‘Has she?’

  She nodded, tears gathering in her eyes, but they were not really sad tears, they were such happy tears – she had a daughter and a wonderful, dear husband.

  ‘You must not fret. Motherhood must be learned, just as you learned to dance and ride and write and sew. You will become used to it.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Now you must smile properly. It is only once or twice a year my family are all together and I will not have you look maudlin and not enjoy it.’

  She made a face at him, with a mock smile.

  He laughed. ‘Not good enough.’

  She gave him a truer smile.

  He laughed quietly. Oh, she loved him. ‘Ellen is lucky to have you as her father.’

  ‘She may not have thought that a few years ago before I met her mother. It is her mother who has made me a good father.’ His eyebrows lifted at her, telling her off as he had been doing for weeks, for fearing her capability with Ellen.

  But as she looked at Ellen, she saw her eyes had closed. All Harry had to do was walk with her in his arms and talk and she slept. ‘She is asleep.’

  He looked down and smiled at their daughter, but he did not stop walking. He looked at Charlie. ‘We may walk to the lake, then simply to enjoy the view.’

  She held his arm tighter and felt her spirits lift. Being a mother felt easier when Harry was with her; she only had to master the moments when he was not. A natural smile pulled at her lips as she looked at him.

  ‘You know we could move into Mama’s and Papa’s if you wish, just until you get the knack of it and feel more comfortable?’

  ‘No.’ Her answer was emphatic. ‘I do not want someone else to be a mother to our daughter. I want to achieve it myself.’

  With Ellen braced in one arm, his other arm lifted free of Charlie’s hold and instead lay over her shoulders. Then he pulled her close to his side as they walked. ‘You are her mother, so no one else will fulfil the role and you love her with all your heart, so much so you are trying to do everything just right, when there is no ‘just right’ with children. So you are the perfect mother and you must stop berating yourself. All that I am worried over is that you are pressuring yourself and upsetting yourself. Ellen has everything she needs.’

  Charlie sighed out and leant more into him, her arm reaching about him and her other hand gripping his shirt on his side. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, but promise me no more fears about how good a mother you will be. You love her, that is all that’s needed, the rest will come right if there is that.’

  ‘Thank you for being patient with me.’

  ‘Thank you for being patient with me,’ he echoed. ‘My family have a great respect for you. For accepting the task of taming their black sheep.’

  She laughed, her cheek pressing against his shoulder. He was right. Love counted for so much.

  ‘You know that seeing your mother makes you worse. I do not think you should visit any more during our stay. Not this time. Wait until Ellen is a little older and you are more confident.’

  ‘Yes.’ Because every time she faced her mother she saw how unloved she was and she was scared then of not being able to love Ellen enough.

  ‘Charlie, here, you hold Ellen.’ He stopped walking.

  She took Ellen out of his arms. ‘Everything feels right when I hold her and she is happy or sleeping.’

  Harry’s fingers tucked Charlie’s hair behind her right ear. ‘Children are allowed to cry, and they will have temper tantrums, and misbehave. I was a terribly naughty child—’

  ‘I know and so was I.’ She looked up from Ellen and into his eyes and smiled.

  ‘Then let us allow our daughter to be herself and annoying and frustrating if she wishes to be and love her regardless, no matter what mistakes she makes.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes. That is what your parents do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. That is what all my family have done. A lesson learned from my grandfather’s lack of love, and so, if we draw anything from your mother, let it be the same lesson, that we should love each other and our daughter with everything that we are and that will be our legacy.’

  ‘Yes.’ She leant and kissed Ellen’s cheek, then turn
ed and looked at Harry pursing her lips for a kiss.

  He smiled and then obeyed the silent request before whispering over her lips, ‘Ellen says, she loves you too, it is in the way she is breathing.’

  Author’s note

  Ah, well. I sort of don’t know what to say. I have lived with the Marlow family for ten years, since writing the first draft of The Illicit Love of a Courtesan, so they have a very fixed place in my imagination and my heart. It is really emotional to say goodbye to them in this last book in the Marlow Intrigues series. Perhaps I will not be able to let them go entirely and they may pop up as extras in other stories. But it is time for me to turn time back and return to writing in the Regency period in a new series.

  I shan’t say anything about my next series, but keep an eye out for it and one of the easiest ways to do so is to follow my author pages on sellers’ websites. But to belt and braces it, why not follow me on Facebook and ask for emails when posts go up and follow my blog via email and hopefully between the three you’ll find out when the new series is released, she says with a smile.

  When you read this story, if you have been following the series and have a good memory of the first two books you’ll have spotted all the parallels in this story to both the Lost Love of a Soldier and The Illicit Love of a Courtesan, there was a deliberate resonance in many scenes and I also went back to using inspirations described by Harriett Wilson, a real Regency courtesan. You’ll find all of Harriett’s true stories on my blog. She was the inspiration for the whole of the Marlow Intrigues series, really. It would never have come to my mind if I had not read Harriett’s memoirs.

  So, thank you, Harriett Wilson! And thank you to all the readers who have followed the series, posted reviews and share the stories, to spread the word. I am very grateful for your support.

  Also by Jane Lark

  Jane’s Contemporary Romance Novels

  Just for the Rush

  I’m Keeping You

  I Still Love You (A Free Novella)

  I Need You