Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1)

by Louisa Cornell

  Still, she was not the duchess yet. Tonight, she was Adelaide, and suddenly it meant a great deal more than it did yesterday. She gave the mare her head and in two strides they were galloping across the edge of the moors toward the distant shape of Winfield Abbey. The air was so cool and crisp, like the first sip of water drawn from a deep well. She would forever associate the smell of the moor flowers and the taste of the Yorkshire air with Marcus and all he was to her, all he would become. He was like the moors—changing, ever fascinating, sometimes remote and yet, beneath it all were hidden treasures and plunging depths few had ever seen. Marriage with, living and loving with Marcus Winfield might well be the greatest adventure of her life.

  How amusing. She had slipped out of what would soon be her home—one of them, at least, ridden across a small part of Yorkshire, rendezvoused with a notorious rake and a scurrilous old Irishman, beaten the local magistrate’s son unconscious, and stolen the man’s dogs. None of it frightened her or shook her confidence so much as the thought she could not win the heart of the man to whom she had already given her own.

  The world saw him as the Duke of Selridge. For Adelaide, he was forever the dashing young cavalry officer with eyes that made a girl forget her very name. Perhaps if she could find that man, the one he was before, she would not be so worried. It did not matter—cavalry officer or duke Marcus would love her. She would make it impossible for him to do otherwise. She was Adelaide Formsby-Smythe, and she did not take no for an answer. When terrible masters refused to sell her their dogs, she simply stole them. Stealing the heart of the man she loved, the man who had wanted her so desperately in the garden, could hardly be more dangerous than that, could it?

  They reached the grove of chestnut trees that separated the stable yard from the rest of the estate. Adelaide slowed her horse to a walk and reached down to rub the animal’s quivering withers.

  “That was a lovely little run, wasn’t it, Marabelle? Nothing like a gallop in the night air to shake out the cobwebs.” Marabelle whickered in response. She seemed to say the run was fine, but she would rather be tucked up in her nice warm stall. As a gust of wind blew through her, Adelaide tended to agree with the mare. They walked stealthily across the cobblestone yard.

  “Come along, sweetheart.” She dismounted and carefully opened the creaky stable door. “Let’s get you inside and rubbed down. You’ve had a long night.”

  As she set to making her mount comfortable, Adelaide conceded it had been a long night for her as well. Of course, parts of it had not been nearly long enough. She could have stayed in the garden with Marcus forever. Or at least until midnight when she had to leave to meet Dylan and Sully. Now there was a picture.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Marcus. I would love to let you have your way with me in the rose bushes, but I have to meet a man you think is riff raff and another who probably is riff raff to go and steal three dogs from your local magistrate. If you would like to wait, I will be back in a few hours and we can take up where we left off.”

  It was not until she returned the saddle to the tack room and closed the stable door behind her the very real absurdity of it all hit her. She’d lied to Dylan about the purpose of her longer stay in Yorkshire. Why? She was not really lying to Marcus, but she had not been completely forthcoming about her dog “rescue” activities. She knew at some point she’d have to be honest with both of them. As easy as it was to keep secrets from men, especially men who thought her too naïve and wholesome to do so, secrets were like the spiders she and her brother, Derrick, dropped into their governess’s reticule. They tended to pop out at the worst possible moment, and someone always ended up crying before it was over.

  With a last glance around to be sure she had not awakened any of the stable staff, Adelaide crept around the imposing house and slipped in through the unlatched kitchen door. It had been an exhausting night in very many ways. She would worry about telling the truth in the morning after a good night’s sleep. Everything was always better in the morning. She held her hands out to the kitchen fire and admired her betrothal ring for a moment as it winked in the light. Yes, things would all be much clearer in the morning.

  She turned to start up the back staircase when a square of white on the dark wood of the kitchen table caught her eye. On closer inspection, she discovered it to be a letter of some sort. A rather thick letter, sealed with a plain glob of red wax. Adelaide turned it over.

  The Duke of Selridge

  On a personal matter.

  What an odd way to address a letter. It had not been here when she sneaked down the back stairs earlier. Why hadn’t it been delivered to Marcus’s study? She turned it over and over in her hands. What were the rules for the future duchess in regards to reading the duke’s correspondence?

  Brisk footsteps echoed down the flagstone floors of the corridor leading to the kitchens. Adelaide gave the packet one last look, tossed it onto the table, and hurried up the stairs to the point they curved out of sight.

  “Hello?” Marcus’s voice called softly. She heard him come into the kitchen and took one more step up the staircase.

  Silence. Then the distinct sound of paper being crinkled.

  “Damn,” Marcus muttered. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”

  Chapter Nine

  Had Emily Winfield, Duchess of Selridge, and Henrietta Formsby-Smythe directed Wellington’s campaign against the little Corsican, the war would have been over in a week, two at the most. The troops would have been the most well-dressed, well-fed, and efficiently organized army in the history of warfare. These thoughts drifted across Marcus’s befuddled consciousness as he stood at his bedroom window and watched the parade of carriages deposit their passengers on the steps of Winfield Abbey. Deposit people, many of whom he had never seen in his life, all come to attend a wedding that might not have been a possibility less than a fortnight ago.

  It took God seven days to create the world. Had he enlisted the help of Marcus’s mother and soon-to-be mother-in-law, He’d have finished it in four. It comforted him to think even God could not avoid the manhandling of two determined mothers. Marcus told them to plan whatever sort of wedding they wanted, as long as he and Addy were married on Saturday. He never suspected they would work round the clock to plan the grandest spectacle Yorkshire had ever seen. Or at least the most well-attended. He fully expected the servants to rise in revolt at any moment.

  He’d had very little to do with it, other than to stand still long enough for the tailor his mother had commanded from Weston’s in London to measure him for his wedding clothes. Not that he was needed for anything else. The troubling thing was the wedding plans and the tyrant mothers were not the only things he had worked to avoid since the night in the gardens. The night he’d asked for Addy’s hand in marriage and then, on a walk in the moonlight, asked for and received much, much more.

  She knew it too, but then, why wouldn’t she? Addy was far too clever not to notice. She was also far too proud to call him on it. He hoped he was wrong. About her noticing, that is. Had he been in the clutches of the mothers all week, as she had been, he’d be hard pressed to notice his own name, let alone the rather distant, almost nonexistent attention of a soon-to-be spouse.

  And to make matters worse he’d received another of those damned letters.

  A pity if Miss Formsby-Smythe discovers the real reason your brother appeared to court her. A blot on the Selridge name should his true nature be known.

  How was he to discover the blackmailer’s identity and thwart the man’s efforts to bleed the family coiffers if his mind refused to spend two minutes together thinking of anything other than his bride? Marcus groaned and turned to go back into his dressing room for another try at his neckcloth. How on earth was he going to manage it? It was difficult to ignore or show benign neglect to a woman like Addy. In the first part, because his body was up in arms about the idea. Every time she walked into a room, his every nerve came to life. Some nerves more so than others, much to his chagrin. He’d not had t
hat sort of problem since Oxford.

  Sometimes she did not even have to be in the room. The scent of lavender or the open moor wafted over him and his senses demanded he seek her out. He spotted her in the gardens when he returned from his afternoon ride, and before he knew it he found himself walking in that direction. He always stopped himself before she saw him. It was, however, increasingly difficult to do so every time.

  Then there was the second part. Adelaide Formsby-Smythe was not the sort of woman to allow herself to be avoided. She’d been occupied with trousseau fittings, wedding clothes fittings, and the other myriad details a bride must endure before snapping the trap on her intended. How was he to avoid her once they were married? Worse, did he really want to? Much worse, would she allow him to do so? He knew the answer to that question, at least—a resounding no.

  He walked back into his bedchamber and sat down on an ottoman beside the hearth. His still untied neckcloth hung uselessly around his neck. Rather like the noose currently closing around his sanity.

  What would be the harm if he allowed Addy closer? He did not love her, but he liked her. He was fond of her. He was certainly attracted to her. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he desired her far more than he ever remembered desiring her sister. Many marriages had started with far less going for them, and they had turned into celebrated love matches. Why shouldn’t he try to make his marriage to Addy the same?

  He but had to conjure up his father’s face the last time he’d spoken to him, or his brother’s, to answer that question. Strong emotions made Marcus cruel and hateful. When crossed by someone who had the ability to stir his temper, he lashed out. When he gave in to his emotions, chaos ensued. Chaos and hurtful words uttered in a flash of temper more fierce than any lightning strike. And like lightning, they could not be called back or asked to be forgiven. Those struck by them—his father, his brother—had died before he could do so. They had died still bearing the wound of his thoughtless words.

  He alone remained to live with the knowledge those he loved most carried wounds to heaven he never had the chance to heal. They were men with stout hearts and still he managed to hurt them. He saw it in their faces and did not care, until it was too late. What havoc could he wreak on a heart as pure and open as Addy’s? She wore it on her sleeve, so to speak. It terrified him to think how easily he could hurt her, should he give in and put control of his feelings in her hands.

  People thought his sword his most powerful weapon. They had no idea how much more powerful was his anger, nor how deep it could cut when loosed. After Julius died, Marcus had determined the only way for him to gain control of his life, was to gain control of his heart. He’d built a fortress around it—to keep others out, and more important, to keep his temper in. His mother was the lone exception. He was less inclined to worry about her. She had been the one person incapable of drawing his ire. Such was the nature of a mother’s unconditional love. It served as armor against the weaknesses of her children.

  He had no right to expect that sort of love from Adelaide. The love of a wife always had conditions. Didn’t it? Clementine’s certainly had. He could not think of a single married man of his acquaintance who did not shape his life and character around the conditions placed on him by his wife’s love. That was what love did, after all. It made you become what the other person wanted to love. He was certain that’s how it worked.

  A headache began to throb behind one eye in time with the knocking on his bedchamber door. He entertained the thought if he sat there quietly, the person would simply leave. In fact, if he remained in his room, made no noise, and drew no attention to himself, perhaps the entire wedding would go on without him. He had such a small part to play in this theatrical production, he certainly would not be missed.

  “I say, Selridge, are you in there?”

  “Oh, bloody hell.” Marcus gave a heartfelt groan and clutched his head in his hands. Was there anyone his mother had not invited up from London?

  “Come on, Selridge, let a man in,” a voice wheedled from the hallway. “The place is crawling with wedding goings on. Terrible on my nerves, don’t you know.”

  “Come in, Tillie.”

  Benetton Tildenbury slipped into the room, pulled in his companion, and slammed the door like the hounds of hell were on the other side. Marcus looked to the ceiling and sighed. Trust his mother to invite the most bluntly outspoken man in the entire ton and England’s foremost male gossip to what was supposed to be a private family event.

  “I say, Selridge, splendid room you’ve got here,” Tildenbury observed as he glanced around the darkly elegant master bedchamber.

  “Why wouldn’t it be, you dolt?” D. Harold Forsythe, Earl of Creighton asked. “He is the bloody duke, after all. I suspect they let him have his pick of chambers.” He turned to Marcus and stuck out his hand. “You’re looking fit, Selridge. Felicitations and all that rot.”

  “Thanks, Creighton. What brings you two out to the country? All the gambling hells burned to the ground?”

  “Your mother fetched us out.” Tildenbury sprawled into the chair by the fire. “Had us fetched, I should say. Said you needed someone to stand up with you. So here we are. Ready to do our duty.”Marcus smiled and shook his head. He’d given no thought to asking someone to stand up with him at the wedding. He had always imagined it would be Julius standing next to him should he ever marry. Dear old Tillie seemed oblivious to it. Creighton, on the other hand, missed nothing. Never had. That, and his genuine pleasure in broadcasting the foils of his fellow man, made him an interesting and sometimes damned annoying companion.

  “I daresay we are the only two of your school friends she remembers,” Creighton said. “And I, for one, am not so foolish as to turn down an invitation from a woman like the soon-to-be dowager duchess.”

  “You mean a summons, don’t you, Creighton?” The two men exchanged a grin, whilst Tillie nodded in solemn agreement.

  “Quite so, Selridge. Creighton has the right of it. She sent that man of yours round to the clubs, don’t you know. Only a fool would refuse your mother.” He gave Marcus a jovial smile. “So here we are and ready to see you leg-shackled, well and proper. Right, Creighton?”

  “Absolutely, Tillie.” Creighton sat on the ornate blanket chest at the foot of Marcus’s bed. “So, Selridge. Care to tell us how you managed to get jilted by one sister, only to get yourself betrothed to the other in less than a year’s time?”

  “No, I do not.” Marcus held the ends of his neckcloth up in both hands. “Make yourself useful, Creighton. Tie this damned thing.”

  “Where is your valet?” Creighton made no move whatsoever to come to Marcus’s aid.

  “Don’t have one. I’m a cavalry officer. I never needed a valet. Tillie, tie this for me.”

  “Me?” Tillie sounded like a wounded old woman.

  “Yes, you, Tillie. Yours looks quite good.”

  “Do you like it? It’s my valet’s own invention. He calls it the tildenbury in my honor.”

  “It’s lovely.” Marcus looked at Creighton and they both rolled their eyes. It reminded him of their days at Oxford. “Now tie mine and we can be off to the church.”

  “Couldn’t possibly. I can barely get into my small clothes without my valet. He was ill for a week last winter, and I spent the entire week in my dressing gown. Dreadful.”

  Creighton erupted into a coughing spasm that sounded very much like “holy hell.” Marcus looked at the clock on the mantel.

  “You brought your valet with you,” Creighton reminded their friend none to gently. “Run and fetch him, whilst I question our friend about his lovely bride.”

  “Don’t you move, Tillie,” Marcus commanded. “You go and fetch his valet, Creighton. I don’t want to be left alone with the likes of you.”

  “You cut me to the quick, Selridge. I would never browbeat a duke. You are a duke now, you know. You really should have your own valet.”

  “Why does everyone keep telling me I’m a duke? I�
��m not a complete idiot.” Marcus snatched off the length of cloth and threw it across the room.

  His friends looked at him in an eerily thoughtful silence.

  “So,” Creighton said with a grin. “Did she say you were an incomplete idiot?”

  “Who?”

  “Your lovely bride. Only a woman could evoke such pique in a man.”

  Marcus’s head continued to throb. He glared at Creighton and then turned the same glare on Tillie, who sat up straight in response.

  “Actually, Selridge, my valet is dressing m’brother at the moment. It could take some time.”

  Marcus looked at Creighton, aghast, to which the man shrugged.

  “He wanted to come. Your brother, God rest his soul, did him a service of some sort. He came to the funeral, but didn’t leave his carriage because, well…” Creighton’s voice trailed off when he saw the look of bemused understanding on Marcus’s face. Tillie’s brother, Hubert, was thirty-five-years old, unmarried, heir to their cousin, the Earl of Wickenshire, and weighed approximately… Well, venturing a guess at Hubert’s weight was a game they all played when they were at Oxford. Until they realized how much it hurt Tillie. Suffice it to say, Hubert Tildenbury was not built for walking, and the church and Winfield family mausoleum lay at the top of a rather steep hill. Hubert seldom left Wicken End, a house built to such proportions as to make even him feel small. And he had come all the way from Lancashire to see Marcus married. To honor Julius.

  If Tillie’s valet was attempting to lace, squeeze, and strap Hubert Tildenbury into morning clothes, Marcus dared not ask him to stop long enough to look at his neckcloth, let alone tie it. Dealing with Tillie alone was probably worth more than the poor man was being paid.

  “What happened to the fellow who took care of you whilst you were off defending king, country, and the rest of us? Your betsman?” Tillie asked.