The Bride who Vanished_A Romance of Convenience Regency Romance

by Bianca Bloom

  There was a figure already there, by the fire that my mother must have lit specially. As I walked in, he rose.

  “Alice,” he said to me, “I have been waiting for you.”

  50

  “Mama,” I said, and she did not even need to hear that word to know that I wished her to head back down the hall, where she would sit beside Viviana, waiting for us to finish our discussion.

  If, indeed, there was to be a discussion. I was determined not to speak to the man at all, though on another day his appearance might have touched me. His eyes were turned down out of respect, and he was dressed formally, as if he meant to go to some sort of ball after speaking to me. I noticed once again that the years had favored his appearance, taking some of the curves away from his cheeks and making him look every inch the elegant young man. Only the way he rubbed his fingers with his thumbs said otherwise, and I wondered if might be even more nervous than I had once been.

  The fact was, I was no longer nervous around the man. All of my capacity for worry had been wrung out of me by the evening, and I felt only anger. Luke Barlow had not earned any confidences, and the fact that he had managed to make his way into the one space that I thought would be cut off from him made me want to fight him off with a spear.

  “I don’t see why you would come here,” I told him, Rachel’s death and the shock of his presence making me feel that my heart had been stripped bare. “I do not wish to see you. I cannot make this any clearer. You’re going to get ride of any trace of our marriage, so please leave.”

  His eyes went over to the chairs. I could see that he wished to sit and talk, but he could not do so while I remained standing.

  Still, he spoke to me, and he did not whisper. “Please,” he said. “That is not at all what I wish. Will you not give me a moment, Alice? I know that it was impertinent of me to come here like this, but I could think of no other way to reach you.”

  “We cannot talk here,” I told him, and I lead the way down into the shop, where I stood by the wall, willing him to finally walk out the door.

  He did not.

  “Alice,” he said, making another attempt. “Please, listen to me. I don’t want only to erase things, to pave the way for me to marry a girl that my mother has chosen. You misunderstand me.”

  “If you keep speaking to me, Mr. Barlow, I will not just throw you out of my shop. I will scream, and bring the neighbors in, and you will leave in irons. Tell me, is that what you wish?” I hissed at him.

  “And if I don’t speak?” he asked, reaching a hand out to me without touching me. His face was so close to mine that I could tell he meant to kiss me, but only if I would allow it.

  I did not kiss him. I pushed his shoulder down, and he sank to the floor, sitting and looking up at me.

  When I joined him on the floor, I pushed him down to his back. I did not kiss him, but I rubbed at his breeches with both my hands and he moaned. Putting a finger to my lips, I took out his prick and held it in my hands. Then I raised my skirts, rubbing myself against the thing before I shoved it inside of me.

  In the midst of life, we may well be in death, but all of the death and disappointment of the evening had given me a primal need for life. After I mounted Luke, I found a bliss greater than anything I had ever felt with Mr. Wharton overtaking me. It was as if everything in my life had been simplified to the very basic goal of getting Luke deep inside me, and as long as I did that my joy would only grow. Indeed, it made me crazed, frantic.

  The dress had such a low cut that I did not even need to take it off in order to reveal myself to Luke. He grabbed at the neckline and my bosom came out easily, tender under his large hands. It bounced furiously as I threw myself into riding Luke, my bare hands over my mouth attempting to muffle what would surely have been screams of passion.

  The end came so quickly that it shocked me, my eyes opening wide as my body grabbed at Luke, death throwing me back, then forward. He clutched me with just as much fire, and it only took two more short jerks for him to lose his own composure, spending inside me before either of us could give a single thought to safety. The unreality of it all was staggering, my shop suddenly quiet, the two of us no longer shaking the furniture with our eye-splitting ruckus.

  It was also all that my mind could take, after hours in which I had been through every single emotion that a poet had ever described. Unsteady, I rose to my feet, attempting to use my shift to dry the evidence from me, pushing my bosom back into what now seemed to be an utterly ridiculous dress.

  I opened the door to the shop, and the few sounds of the night came in. A dog barked once, then I heard horses. Two men drunkenly singing to each other could be heard from several streets away. The night air was cool and sobering.

  “Go,” I told him, and he left.

  51

  Luke was too clever to make another foray into my shop. Instead, he sent a willing emissary, one whose charms he knew I would be nearly powerless against.

  Indeed, I could not help smiling when I saw my old charge Lillian. Her face was still sweet, but it was softer, and she looked just as I had imagined her grown-up self would look.

  “I am so glad to see you,” she said, taking my hands in hers, and I had to catch my breath for a moment before I could step back and attempt to resist the onslaught of feelings that she had brought up in my heart.

  “I didn’t realize that you had married,” I said to her, as soon as I saw that her stomach looked a little too large for such a slim woman. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “It has been five years, and we have two children. You were right that I was unprepared for London society, but I had the good fortune to end up with a wonderful man. That insulated me from some of its cruelties.”

  Usually, when women spoke of London society being cruel, I was the first to accuse them of exaggeration. But Lillian was frowning so much that I was sure it had indeed been hard for her, coming as she did from a background in which she socialized with almost nobody outside her immediate family.

  “I take it you have grown used to living in the city, then,” I said, ready to end the conversation. “You’ll excuse me, I must get back to my customers.”

  She nodded. “Can we not meet again, then, Miss Qu — Mrs. — well, could we?”

  I smiled, beginning to move away. “I’m afraid that I am much occupied at present, though it has been wonderful to see you again. Congratulations on your marriage.”

  I was already beginning to congratulate myself on my escape when Lillian put a gentle hand on my arm.

  “Please,” she said. “It would mean the world to my brother if you would just join us at my house for lunch. You can name a date, and I know that my husband would love to meet you. I have told him so much about you.”

  It was hard to refuse Lillian. She had apparently kept every single bit of the sweet, guileless nature she’d had as a girl. So I decided to give her the same spiel that I gave to every inappropriate man who came about, attempting to get me to take a meal with him. Many men seemed drawn to my independent nature, and so I had refined my script with years until I could reel off every single word by heart. It did not require even the slightest bit of thought. All I had to do was pretend that Lillian was a man, and the words came to me quite easily.

  “It has been marvelous seeing you,” I said. “Unfortunately, I do not think we will be able to meet again, as I am quite busy with my shop. As you can likely tell, business is booming, and I must thank God for that.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Still, do you think that, perhaps —”

  “I’m very sorry, of course,” I said, talking over her. “But family obligations also call me away. When I’m not here, which is seldom, I am with my mother and daughter. So you’ll have to excuse me. I hope you have an excellent afternoon.”

  When I saw that Lillian had made no attempt to move, but simply stood there with her mouth open, I began to realize my mistake. Before I could attempt to make up some excuse, she had bid me
good day and walked out of the shop slowly.

  By following what I usually said under such circumstances, I had revealed that I had a daughter. Lillian knew me well enough to know that Viviana was Luke’s child. It was too late for me to recover from my mistake, and I knew that now it would take even more effort for me to get rid of her.

  52

  I was not surprised to see Luke Barlow the next day, though I did think it rather thoughtless of him to choose one of the busiest times. Busy attempting to graciously re-measure the expanding waist of one Mr. Marley, I did not even notice that Luke was in the shop until he came over and asked what color of hats would be fashionable in the fall.

  Making my apologies to Mr. Marley and to a spoilt young boy who had come in to look at my finest caps, I practically dragged the man to the back corner of the shop. “Make haste,” I told Luke. “As you can see, I am otherwise occupied.”

  “You never told me about the child,” he said, his face pained.

  There was no better subject on which I might release poisoned arrows. “She is hardly a child now, anyway. Viviana is nearly nine years old.”

  It would have taken a heart of stone not to respond to the emotions playing across the man’s face. His expression rose, and he said, “A girl of nine? I can hardly credit it.”

  “Well, it is not something I made up to gain your pity,” I said, swallowing, the words coming to my stiff throat with some effort. “And she will only be introduced to a father if I marry again. Have you made any progress in obtaining an annulment?”

  He shook his head. “I am no longer interested in that,” he said, as I looked nervously over at a large party of boisterous ladies who had just swept into the shop.

  Luke waited for me to look at him again before continuing. “I am interested only in seeing Viviana. And doing something for her, of course, which I shall do directly. Might I see her now?” he said, his smile resembling that of a toothy child.

  “And why would I allow you to see her?” I told him. “You have never been a father to her, and no bribe be enough to make up for that fact.”

  He grew pale. “No, I suppose not. But you will let me do something for her, even if she does not know of it?”

  “No,” I told him, but he had already left.

  For once, Luke Barlow was the one running away.

  Exactly one day later a boy came by the shop with a “delivery,” and after I’d already tipped him I realized it was a wrapped box containing a note for ten thousand pounds, which could be retrieved from Lord Barlow’s bank at an hour of my choosing.

  53

  “I’m sure that your young fiancee would rather you attend to her needs at this moment,” I said to Luke Barlow later that day, after he had started tapping on the window of my closed shop. “Thank you for your kindness to my daughter, but you ought to go back to young Miss — well, I’m afraid I don’t presently remember what her name is.”

  And I opened the door just enough to pass the box with the note back to him. Luke Barlow would not be giving my daughter money, not today, not ever. Though it pained me to pass up a possible source of support for my beloved Vivi, it pained me even more to think that I might be in the debt of her absent father.

  Luke took this opportunity to open the door all the way and step inside the shop. He took the envelope from me, then held fast to my hand.

  “I have broken off the engagement,” he said. “And I wanted to ask you to remain my wife. If you say no this time, I shall wait until our child is of age before troubling you again. But if you would have me, my dream would be for all of us to live together,” he said, looking steadily into my eyes as he proposed it.

  I refused to hear of it. “You had one chance to live with me,” I told him. “You ordered me out of Woodshire, and I left carrying your child. That was your one chance, and no matter how many coins you may offer my daughter, it is not something you can win back with a few pretty words.”

  He seemed so surprised that he let my hand drop.

  “I told you that I did not wish you to be a prisoner,” he managed. “That is all that I said, Alice! Surely you did not take that as a dismissal? For I was hoping that you would stay, but knew that as a gentleman I could not force that.”

  This made me blink. Luke Barlow had banished me! He could not claim that he was being “just a gentleman” when he let me endure exile from Woodshire.

  But when I thought on his account, I realized that it was actually in keeping with the facts. As soon as he said that he could not require me to stay there, I had taken his words as a cruel dismissal. My perception of my love was tainted by the scandalous conduct of his mother, not to mention my poor opinion of the upper set.

  And still, my suspicions lingered. “You did not come after me,” I said, my voice beginning to break.

  “I did!” he said, drawing closer. “But I could not find you. I looked in every city, London most of all.”

  And this, too, made sense to me. After all, I had been in London, hiding from the man.

  When I looked up at him again, he knew my heart. And as he stepped forward to kiss me, I felt a desire completely unlike anything I had felt for anyone in the past weeks, even when the person I was rolling about with was Luke Barlow. At last, love came into my soul like a great blow, and after I kissed the man I began to cry.

  I felt like my tears were foolish, but Luke was also crying. When he took out a handkerchief, he was plainly unsure of whether he should dry my tears first or see to his own, and as he hesitated we both began to laugh.

  We then spent some moments just holding each other, and I felt the sort of deep calm that came to me when I had rocked Viviana as a baby. It was an instinctive sense that all would yet be well, no matter what had happened in the world, and I hoped that it would last forever.

  It did not. Soon, my crying started once more.

  When the tears came again, it was for reasons having to do with the circumstances of the reunion. “The scandal will be too great,” I groaned. “It would have been bad enough if we had gotten things right from the first, but now the damage to our reputations will cripple both of us.”

  Holding me up, Luke smiled, then he reached into his pocket and showed me a document. It seemed quite impossible that any one piece of paper would be enough to make London society forget that the man had married in secret, separated from his bride for a decade, then tried to marry another woman, but I took a look at it anyway.

  It contained something about four individuals, a ship, and a pair of dates. All of it was incomprehensible to me.

  “I had already booked the passage,” he said. “You are right that weathering the scandal in London would be impossible. But in the New World, few will know and fewer still shall attach any importance to how I have squandered the first decade of our marriage. I hoped that you would go with me, though I did not dare ask until now.”

  Shocked, I looked at the document. It was first class passage for four across the ocean. Luke would go with me, my mother, and our daughter to live there. And with his fortune and whatever I earned from selling the shop, we would be well set up for a new life there.

  I looked back at him. “But will you not miss Woodshire?” I asked. “It is your ancestral home, after all.”

  “My home is with you, Alice,” he whispered. “If you are sure that you will have me.”

  I was sure. In fact, I knew that I would have him that very afternoon, and then again and again for years to come.

  “Come,” I said, leading him up the stairs. “It is time that you met our daughter.”

  Also by Bianca Bloom

  The Rake’s Return

  To Steal a Groom

  The Scoundrel’s Son

  Free and Fetching Ladies Box Set

  The Bride who Loved

  The Bride who Strayed

  Afterword

  If you enjoyed this book and would like to read future releases free of charge, please join Bianca Bloom’s reading club.

  Take
care, and happy reading!

  Sneak Peek

  Please enjoy the following preview from The Scoundrel’s Son, also by Bianca Bloom.

  * * *

  St Petersburg is a city of theatres. It has a beauty that is European, but a savagery that comes directly from the Russian steppes.

  Much like the man who was sitting next to me in the booth, a wild-haired Russian prince who still looked bushy and coarse from the cold outside. The man was built with a strength and crudity to his body, and yet his features were so remarkably fine that he could have made a model for any of the city’s aspiring sculptors.

  No temptation could have been better designed to threaten my virtue.

  The lights were low, and to any observers we must have looked much like any other young couple in a booth. In fact, I was supposed to be chaperoned, but the man had managed to dispatch the lady charged with overseeing me quite efficiently. There was little that I knew about the whereabouts of my abigail, but I felt in my heart that she would not be attending me in the booth until well after the final curtain fell.

  And now the man was whispering, his voice subtle and insistent as the tense and dark music, now swelling into a crescendo. I didn’t know the man’s name – only that he was a prince, and that he clearly had no regard for a young woman’s dignity.

  The tones of whispering turned his voice into a growl of sorts. “You must contrive to drop to the floor,” he commanded me.

  My legs trembled beneath my long, silken gown, far less flimsy than the sort of thing that was fashionable in England. The skirts were full and hung loose on me after dropping from a fitted bodice. Though the lower part of the dress was not at all revealing, my body underneath it was warm, already sticky with longing for the stranger. In spite of my most sincere efforts not to move a single muscle, my legs fluttered. Squeezing them shut, I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, willing myself to mentally walk back into the world of godliness and solitude.