Her dreams were filled with images of that woman’s dead body on that cold, wooden table and every time she dreamed, her poor, damaged face gradually healed itself into Susan’s beautiful one. Even the newspapers were convinced of Christopher’s guilt, otherwise they wouldn’t have dared to report as they had.
She pushed herself to a sitting position in the bed, ready to take the breakfast tray from Mary, the personal maid she had collected from Somersham, then she finally noticed her wide smile. She passed the newspaper she had been clutching to the Dowager Duchess.
“What is this?” The Dowager demanded. “Did I not tell you I wanted no newspapers in this house?”
“But look, Your Grace,” she said excitedly. “She’s back.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Mary flapped the newspaper at her.
DUCHESS FOUND, SAFE AND WELL!
She stared in disbelief. She could feel no relief; she had been so certain of her son-in-law’s guilt, she could not now believe in his innocence. He must have shipped in some trollop and was passing her off as his wife! That’s what must have happened and now she would have to convince everyone of it.
She pushed the tray aside and swung her legs out of bed.
“Help me dress, Mary,” she ordered. “I have a call to pay on a certain young Duke.”
It was still early and the London streets were comparatively empty. All the Dowager could hear as she watched from the carriage windows were the calls of the milk girl and she made her way about, hoping to find early customers.
The Dowager had no time for that. The carriage was moving as fast as it could through those narrow streets, but still she wanted to urge the driver on. She wanted to get to Berkeley Square before this woman, whoever she was, had been spirited away where no one who knew Susan could see her.
She was impatient to get there; she would soon assure young Christopher that she was not to be so easily fooled. If Susan were alive and well, as the newspaper had stated, the first person she would have come to would have been her mother. The fact that she had to read about it like everyone else was enough proof for her to know that whoever this woman was, she was not her daughter.
***
Susan was happily snuggled beside Christopher in the huge four poster bed in the chamber he always used in the Berkeley Square house. Their discussion of the previous night had led to more intimate confessions than either had expected and when they at last retired to bed, exhausted, they had done so together, as married people should.
She smiled as she recalled last night and she was very glad that, although this was obviously not her first time, it was the first time she remembered. It was still new to her and she was sure he recognised that.
Now she laid her head on his bare chest and turned to kiss him, feeling content. That was when they heard the loud and imperious voice of the Dowager Duchess. Their pleasant respite was over and Susan pulled the heavy covers over herself.
They heard her marching up the stairs, yelling to the servants.
“I know the way, thank you, Dora,” she shouted. “If you thought to warn your master that he is about to be discovered, you are too late.”
Susan burrowed down beneath the covers, tucked her head under Christopher’s arm so that only her dark hair showed above the eiderdown.
The door crashed open, the Dowager stood at the end of the bed, her hands on her hips and stared at her nephew’s bare shoulders above the covers. He didn’t even have the decency to cover himself, to find a robe when he heard her coming. And the dark hair poking out beside him angered her more. He had even found a trollop with the same dark hair as Susan; how could he?
“Good morning, Aunt,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting a visitor so early.”
“I’ll wager you weren’t,” she said.
She took long strides to the side of the bed and reached down to grip the edge of the eiderdown.
“Get out of there, you whore!” She shouted, pulling the covers off to reveal the naked body beneath, the arms wrapped around her nephew’s bare waist.
Susan turned her head to look at her mother defiantly, feeling a mischievous sense of satisfaction to see the Dowager gasp at the sight of her.
“That is really not a very nice word, Mother,” she said. “Especially, since all I have done is share a bed with my husband.”
THE END
Author’s Note: Thank you for reading A Match of Honour, the first book in a series of Regency novels.
I hope you have enjoyed it and if you have, please leave a review on the Amazon website. You might also consider my other books:
The Holy Poison Series – six books set amid the turbulent and violent reign of Bloody Mary:
The Judas Pledge
The Flawed Mistress
The Viscount’s Birthright
Betrayal
The Heretics
Consequences
Pestilence – A trilogy of stories set amid the backdrop of the Black Death of 1348:
The Second Wife
The Scent of Roses
Once Loved
The Elizabethans – A trilogy of stories about three noble brothers and their lives and loves
The Earl’s Jealousy
The Viscount’s Divorce
Lord John’s Folly
Standalone historical novels:
The Wronged Wife
To Catch a Demon
The Crusader’s Widow
A Man in Mourning
The Adulteress
The Gorston Widow
The Minstrel’s Lady
Conquest
The Romany Princess
Mystery/Thrillers:
Mirielle
Old Fashioned Values
Fantasy Romance
The Surrogate Bride
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A Match of Honour (The Hartleighs of Somersham Book 1) Page 14
