The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance)

by Anne Gracie

  She’d been rude to his parents; she was the one who’d wanted to leave Breckenridge then and there; and because she got sick in closed carriages, they’d traveled in the curricle, without her maid in attendance. If Polly had been with them, the question would never have arisen.

  On every count it was her fault.

  He’d been nothing but kind to her, and this was how she would repay him? By entrapping him into marriage? Because society expected it? Because he was held to be a rake and she an innocent?

  What a joke that was, bitter as only she knew.

  There was no question of marriage.

  The rain had stopped in the night. Outside the sky looked clear. Would the floodwaters have receded enough for them to pass?

  She swiftly made the bed, pulling the bedclothes straight, wondering whether they’d sleep there again. Could she trust herself to spend another night in the same bed with him? It had been a close call this morning. She’d almost forgotten herself. If he hadn’t had to stop to disentangle himself from the sheet, if she hadn’t felt a jolt of sensation at his intimate touch . . . what might have happened?

  She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or sorry.

  She picked up the patchwork quilt from where he had dumped it on the floor and began to fold it.

  The door crashed open. Freddy stood in the doorway, his blue eyes blazing with decision. “God wants us to get married.”

  She clutched the quilt to her chest and stared at him in amazement. “What?”

  He stepped inside and closed the door and said calmly, “It’s all quite clear to me: God wants us to get married.”

  She didn’t believe a word of it. “You don’t even believe in God.”

  He frowned. “How do you know?”

  “You said so, back in London when you told me to live in the moment like a Buddhist.”

  “Oh. Well, I believe in Him now.”

  “Why? What has changed?”

  “He sent a Flood. So that we would have to get married.”

  “Pfft. You don’t believe that for a moment.” It was a ridiculous argument. Endearing, but ridiculous.

  “I do,” he said with an air of virtue that didn’t deceive her in the least. “And since you do believe in God, you need to honor His Flood by marrying me.”

  “Well, I won’t.”

  “And you a missionary’s daughter! I’m shocked.”

  She finished folding the quilt and placed it on the bed. “I wasn’t a missionary; Papa was.”

  “I could convert you.”

  “I don’t want to be converted. Especially by a heathen, manipulative, devious rake,” she added, hoping it would annoy him enough to stop this foolish nonsense.

  “You say the sweetest things. So, where would you like us to get married?”

  “Nowhere.”

  He considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, yes, I know where that is. I recollect I found myself in the middle of it once. Very well, it is agreed.”

  “What is agreed? In the middle of what?”

  “The middle of nowhere—it’s in Yorkshire. Odd place for a wedding, but if your heart is set on it—”

  “It’s not. And you are ridiculous.”

  “But eligible, you must admit. And honorable, which is why we’re going to be married. So, will it be St. George’s, Hanover Square; or the chapel at Davenham, where your sister and Max were married; or—?”

  “I’m not marrying you.”

  “Don’t be silly, of course you are. Now, I’ll go and chop some wood while you try to make up your mind where the wedding will be. I must say I’m surprised. Never thought you’d be so indecisive, Damaris.”

  “I’m not indecisive—” she began, but he was gone and the door shut behind him, leaving her in a turmoil of mixed emotions, half laughing and at the same time on the verge of tears. Of course it was all nonsense but it was very sweet nonsense, pretending it was some kind of divine plan. Letting her off the hook and blaming God.

  They both knew better.

  How she would love to go along with his banter and let herself to be talked into a lighthearted wedding. She longed for a happily-ever-after as much as any other girl. But too much had happened and she was not the blushing virgin he imagined her to be. And when he learned what she had been, and done . . . well, she didn’t want to have to live with that kind of disillusion, let alone be the cause of it.

  She just had to stand firm, that was all. It would be better for both of them.

  The morning passed busily, with Freddy seeing to the horses and Damaris cleaning the cottage—she wanted to leave it as spick-and-span as it had been when they arrived—and searching through the provisions in the larder to see what she could find to cook.

  And trying not to think of how it might be if she married Freddy Monkton-Coombes.

  It wasn’t to be thought of. He only persisted because he didn’t understand why it was impossible. And unnecessary.

  And because she was too much of a coward to tell him why.

  • • •

  Around midday, Freddy came in, carrying an armload of wood—he’d never chopped so much wood in his life—and stamping his feet to knock off the mud. Round two, he thought.

  “Looking at the level of that water, I’d say we won’t be leaving here until tomorrow at the earliest. It’s not dropping yet, but it’s stopped rising.” He squatted down and began to stack the wood in the box next to the hearth.

  She nodded and went on busily pinching out little lumps of dough.

  He finished stacking the wood and brushed off his hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Making dumplings for our dinner.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down to watch her. She rolled out the lumps of dough into small circles, placed a dab of creamy green mush in the middle, then folded them in half, sealing the edges with some beaten egg.

  “Never seen dumplings like that before.”

  “They’re Chinese.”

  “Ah.” He watched as her hands moved deftly. Flatten, dab, fold, seal. The crescent-shaped dumplings multiplied rapidly. It was quite soothing to watch, but Freddy wasn’t in the mood for being soothed. “You know, Damaris, for a girl who’s normally quite good about grasping the nettle, you’re being remarkably reluctant to face the truth of our situation.”

  Her mouth flattened. “I’m not going to marry you.”

  “There’s no choice, not for either of us. If we don’t, you’ll be regarded as a fallen woman, and decent women will shun your society, while I’ll be branded as a scoundrel.”

  “We agreed this arrangement was a temporary thing only. A pretense.”

  God, but she was stubborn. “Yes, but the flood has changed everything.”

  She wiped her floury hands on a cloth. “I don’t care what people say about me.”

  “Nor what they say about me, apparently.”

  That gave her a jolt, he saw. She hadn’t considered it from his point of view. She gave him a pleading look. “I could make it clear that you offered for me and I refused.”

  He tamped down on his anger, telling himself she didn’t understand the implications, that she was an innocent and had been raised in another culture. It didn’t help. “You would tell the world that you would rather be branded as a scarlet woman than marry me? How very flattering.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” She shook her head, as if she were having a silent argument with herself. She finished the last of the dumplings, covered them with a damp cloth and began to tidy the table. “Surely people will forget after a week or two. You know how society moves from one scandal to the next.”

  He clenched his fist. Her stubborn refusal to face facts infuriated him. “I don’t care. You and I will marry—no argument. If you cannot bear me to touch you—and I don’t believe
that for a minute”—she flinched—“then we will have a white marriage. But marry me you will.”

  “I can’t.”

  At the despair in her voice, a possibility occurred to him for the first time. “Are you—you’re not married already, are you?”

  “No. But there are reasons why I cannot . . .”

  “What reasons?”

  She shook her head and started wiping down the table. He snatched the cloth and threw it across the room. “Dammit, Damaris, if I’m to be known as a scoundrel who ruined the reputation of a decent young lady, the very least you owe me is an explanation.”

  She gave him a long, troubled look, then seemed to crumple. She lowered herself onto the chair and said wearily, “That’s just it, I’m not a decent young lady. The very opposite, in fact.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.”

  —JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

  “I’ll explain, but first I’ll make us some tea,” she said.

  Freddy was about to put out his hand and stop her, but changed his mind. Women sometimes found comfort in such rituals, and tea might bring a little color back to her cheeks. That paleness worried him.

  I’m not a decent young lady. The very opposite, in fact.

  What the hell could she mean by it? The opposite of decent? That was nonsense, for a start. He’d known a lot of women, of various characters and from all walks of life, and Damaris was one of the finest, most decent people he’d known.

  He watched her making the tea—well, not proper tea; it was another collection of dried green bits. God knew what it would taste like, but if she made it, he would drink it. It was her way of delaying the inevitable.

  Judging from her expression, it was serious, this reason of hers. At least she thought it was.

  What could she possibly have done that would make her ineligible for marriage? Because that, beneath it all, was what she was saying—not that she wouldn’t marry him, but that she couldn’t.

  Finally, just when he was about to put his foot down and insist that she stop messing about with blasted herbs and tell him what the hell this was all about, she brought the teapot and two cups over and sat down again at the table.

  “It’s a long story,” she said.

  “I don’t mind.” He didn’t care how long it took, as long as he learned what could have put that bleak look in her eyes. Worse than bleak. Stark despair.

  At the prospect of marrying him.

  Damaris stirred her tea slowly, wishing, praying there were some way she could avoid telling him this. Wanting to put off the moment when the kindness and concern would fade from his eyes and be replaced by . . .

  Pray that when she was finished he would not look at her the way Papa used to look at Mama. With resentment. And disgust. Papa had no respect for Mama, none at all.

  Now, on the brink of opening herself to the same condemnation, she wondered how Mama had borne it all those years. She would have been less lonely living alone, without a soul to talk to, than living with Papa and his righteous contempt.

  No decent man could respect a woman who came to her marriage bed tarnished. Impure. And worse, driven still by the lusts of the flesh.

  And though Damaris had tried all her life to do the right thing, now she was just as tarnished, just as impure and fallen as Mama—more so, probably.

  And she had a horrid suspicion she was also driven by the lusts of the flesh.

  She stirred her tea, feeling his gaze on her, but unwilling to meet it, dreading the moment the kind light of concern would fade from his eyes.

  She traced the grain of the table with her finger, trying to decide how to start—where to start, because it was complicated. “You know I lived in China.”

  He nodded. “Yes, with your missionary father.”

  “I told you Papa died, but what I didn’t say is that he was killed. Murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  She found a crack in the grain of the timber and ran her fingernail along it, back and forth, concentrating as she spoke, as if the story she told was about someone else, not herself. “Yes. I wasn’t there when they came—I was at the market. . . .” She told him how she’d seen Zhang Liang and his soldiers riding out but hadn’t realized the significance of it until she’d heard the old lord, his father, was dead.

  Her shopping had fallen in the dust, unheeded, as she’d realized where the soldiers must have been going.

  She told him how she’d run and run, with a stitch knifing into her side, and how she’d stumbled the last few yards on shaky, exhausted legs, up the crest of the hill that overlooked the valley, and had seen the pall of smoke hanging over the mission.

  In a voice that sounded wooden to her ears, she described how she’d found their little church looted and destroyed, the children gone—she knew not where, whether they’d fled or been taken by the soldiers. And how she’d found her father’s body sprawled in the mission courtyard—beheaded.

  He frowned and reached for her hands at that point, but she waved him off. She’d never get through her story if he touched her, she knew.

  She told him how she’d buried Papa. There was nothing to be done about the children—she was helpless in that too. But on reflection she decided the soldiers would not harm them. If they’d intended harm, surely there would be small bodies in the dust along with Papa’s. No, it was only the foreign devils they were after.

  She was the only one left. She told him how she’d set out to walk to the coast, hoping to find a European ship to take her home—yes, she still thought of England as home, even though she had no memories of it, and no relatives.

  She described how she’d walked for days—no, she didn’t know how many, she’d lost track of time—and how, to her joy and relief, she had found an English ship. But that by that time she had nothing left, no food, no money to pay for her passage, only the clothes she stood up in—Chinese peasant clothes—and her mother’s locket.

  She traced the crack in the wood over and over, wishing she didn’t have to tell him this part, but knowing it was the whole point of the story.

  It was hard to find the words—no, not the words; it was the will to speak them she lacked. The words themselves were simple.

  She told him how she’d spoken to the captain and explained her situation. “I offered to work my passage, cleaning, cooking, mending the sails or whatever.” It was important that he understand that, that she had offered honest work in exchange for her passage. “And the captain agreed.”

  She still hadn’t looked at him. He’d gone very silent. He wasn’t stupid; he could see what was coming.

  She paused, wishing he would speak and save her the pain of telling it in all its sordid detail. She’d never told anyone this part of her story, had hoped she’d never have to.

  But he said not a word to spare her.

  She told him how seasick she’d been for the first few days. “It’s not only carriages I get sick in,” she said ruefully, but really she was putting off the moment.

  And, judging from the tension that seemed to fill the cottage, he knew it.

  She moistened her lips and forced herself to continue. “After a few days at sea I became accustomed to the movement of the ship. I was able to stand and keep food down. One of the sailors told me to clean myself up, that the captain had sent for me.” She swallowed. “I was told to report for duty. He—the captain was . . . he was in his cabin.

  “And then . . .” She swallowed, and traced the grain of the table with her finger, pressing her fingernail into the tiny crack as if it could somehow swallow her up. She still couldn’t look at him. “And then he told me the . . . the manner by which I was to work my passage. He said I had three choices.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What were the choices?” His voice
sounded hoarse.

  She swallowed again, with difficulty, and tried to meet his eyes but failed. “He said I could become his—his—”

  “I know what he meant. What were the other two choices?”

  “If I didn’t choose him, he would hand me over to the crew, for the same purpose.”

  He swore. “And your third choice?”

  “To swim for shore.”

  “After several days at sea?” He swore again.

  She nodded and forced herself to spit it out. “And so I made my choice, and though I know it was cowardly and contemptible, in the same circumstances, I would make the same choice again.” She braced herself for his reaction, but he said not a word. Had he not understood what she’d done? Did he expect her to say it? To admit every ugly detail?

  Papa would have.

  So, in a hard little voice, she forced out the words that would complete her confession. “I chose the capt—”

  He reached across the table and took her hands in a warm, firm grip. “No, Damaris, you chose life. And no one could blame you for it. No one, least of all me.”

  They weren’t the words she’d been expecting. Not remotely. She forced herself to look at him then. His eyes were blazing blue with some unknowable emotion. His hands gripped hers tightly, so tightly it almost hurt.

  “You did the only thing you could. No one would blame you. I certainly wouldn’t.”

  She searched his face, not entirely trusting the truth of what he’d said. “I was always taught ‘death before dishonor.’”

  “There was no dishonor in what you did,” he said softly. His thumbs caressed her hands. “Only desperation. And a desire to live. The dishonor was entirely that swine of a captain’s.”

  She tried to swallow but there was a lump in her throat. She wanted to believe him, but a lifetime’s experience had taught her the opposite was true. The woman was always at fault. Always.

  “Is that your reason for refusing to get married?”

  She nodded. “I realize that virginity is a requirement for marriage, that no decent man could respect a woman who came to her marriage bed tarnished and impure—”