The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (2 page)

“The world is pretty much divided between the weak of mind and the strong—between those who can act and those who cannot, and it is the bounden duty of the capable to let no opportunity of being useful escape them.”

—JANE AUSTEN,
SANDITON AND OTHER STORIES

Devon, England, 1816

“I
want you to look after Aunt Bea and the girls while Abby and I are on our honeymoon,” Max, Lord Davenham, told his friend, the Honorable Frederick Monkton-Coombes.

Freddy almost choked on his wine. “
Me
?” he spluttered after the coughing fit had passed. “Why me?”

“You’re my oldest friend.”

Hard to wriggle out of that one, Freddy thought. But damn, it was a hell of a thing to spring on a fellow the night before a wedding. As if being best man weren’t trauma enough. He rose and jabbed at the fire with a poker, sending sparks twirling up the chimney. The two men were ensconced in a snug private sitting room in the local inn, a mile or two from Davenham Hall in Devon.

Max’s idea, doing the honorable thing, sleeping under a separate roof from his bride the night before the wedding. Bad luck to see the bride and all that. And naturally his best man must come too. Not that Freddy minded.

The less he had to do with the bride’s sisters the better, as far as he was concerned. Pretty, unmarried, respectable girls were not Freddy’s female of choice. Good girls? No, he much preferred the company of bad girls—the badder the better. Good girls, especially good pretty girls, were . . . dangerous. And one Chance sister in particular was, to Freddy’s mind, more dangerous than most. She . . . disturbed him. In ways he preferred not to examine too closely.

And now Max must come up with this. And playing the “oldest friend” card, dammit.

“You mean
all
of them? All the girls?”

“Yes, of course all of them,” Max said impatiently. “There are only three. They’re not exactly a horde.”

That was a matter of opinion. “What does
look after
entail?” Freddy asked cautiously.

Max shrugged. “Nothing very arduous, just the kind of thing I’d do if I were there. My aunt is well up to snuff, of course, but she’s still somewhat of an invalid and would appreciate having a man to rely on if needed.”

Having a man to order about, more like it, Freddy thought.

Max continued, “And Abby’s been fretting a little about leaving her sisters—you can understand that after all they’ve been through recently. Knowing you’ll be on hand to protect them if necessary will ease her mind.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you could ask?” Freddy said desperately. “I mean, you know my problem with unmarried females.”

“Your problem is with the kind of unmarried female you call a muffin. You told me Abby and her sisters were most definitely not muffins.”

“They’re not, but—”

“Then there’s no problem.”

The noose was tightening. Freddy ran a finger around his suddenly tight collar. “Am I really the sort of fellow you want associating with Abby’s sisters? I don’t have the best reputation around women; you know that,” he said hopefully.

“I have complete faith in you.”

Damn. “What about Flynn? Didn’t you say he’d be arriving any day now?” Flynn was the head of the company in which Freddy and Max were major partners. “Couldn’t you ask him?”

Max frowned. “Yes, I expected Flynn to be here by now. Shame he’ll miss the wedding.”

“You don’t think anything bad has happened to him?”

Max gave a wry half smile. “Sea travel is uncertain at the best of times, but Flynn has a knack of turning disaster into success, so I’m not worrying yet. If he turns up, the two of you can share the responsibility if it makes you feel better. But Flynn doesn’t know Aunt Bea and the girls like you do. Nor does he know anything about London society. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll show him the ropes.”

“Oh,” Freddy said. More responsibilities. Delightful.

Max’s grin widened. “He’ll need your fashion advice too. He’s planning to cut a swath through London society, and currently he’s a little . . . unorthodox in appearance.”

“Oh. Joy.” Just what he wanted, to play guard dog to respectable females and social and sartorial adviser to a rough Irish diamond.

Max laughed. “Don’t look so glum. Flynn is a good fellow. You’ll like him. But you don’t need to worry about Flynn—he can look after himself. It’s my aunt and the girls I’m most concerned about.”

Freddy sipped his claret thoughtfully, trying to work out a way to wriggle out of what, on the surface, seemed quite a reasonable request.

Max, misunderstanding his silence, added, “Look, it won’t be hard. Just drop around to Berkeley Square every few days, make sure they’re all right, see to anything if there’s a problem, protect the girls from unwanted attentions, take them for the occasional drive in the park, pop in to their literary society—”

“Not the literary society. The horror stories those girls read are enough to make a fellow’s hair stand on end.”

Max frowned. “Horror stories? They don’t read horror stories, only entertaining tales of the kind ladies seem to enjoy, about girls and gossip and families—”

“Horror stories, every last one of them,” Freddy said firmly. “You asked me to sit in on their literary society last month, when you went up to Manchester, remember? The story they were reading then . . .” He gave an eloquent shudder. “Horror from the very first line:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Must he, indeed?
What about the poor fellow’s wants, eh? Do they matter? No. Every female in the blasted story was plotting to hook some man for herself or her daughter or niece.
If you don’t call that horror, I don’t know what is!”

Max chuckled.

“You can laugh, bound as you are for parson’s noose in the morning,” Freddy said bitterly, “but every single man in that story ended up
married
by the end of the book! Every last one.” He numbered them off on his fingers. “The main fellow, his best friend, the parson, even the soldier fellow ended up married to the silly light-skirt sister—not one single man in that story escaped unwed.” He shuddered again. “Enough to give a man nightmares. So no literary society for me, thank you.”

“I need you there,” Max said simply.

“Why? Your aunt holds her literary society in her own home—you can’t get much safer than that.”

“It’s not so much their safety I’m worried about,” Max admitted, looking a little sheepish. “It’s my aunt.”

“What about her? She’s in her element there—all her cronies about her, dozens of
tonnish
ladies, even a handful of men.”

“Exactly. And therein lies the problem.”

Freddy shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust your own aunt? Your only relative?”

Max sighed. “You know she almost died while I was away.”

Freddy nodded.

“The girls nursed her back to health and it’s given her a renewed lease on life—which of course I’m delighted about, don’t get me wrong. The trouble is, it’s made her think she’s invincible.”

“She
is
invincible,” Freddy muttered. “Always was. I remember her from when I was a schoolboy. A force of nature even then.”

Max nodded. “My uncle kept her more or less reined in. Now she’s a law unto herself.”

Freddy frowned. “Hasn’t broken any laws that I know of.”

“Not laws, as such,” Max admitted. “But think about it—she already has more than half the
ton
believing that the girls’ mother was her wholly imaginary half sister Griselda—Griselda, I ask you!—and their father was an Italian marchese called Chancealotto.”

“I heard he was Venetian,” Freddy said.

Max threw up his hands. “You see? Venetian. The whole of the
ton
knows it.”

Freddy shrugged. “Nothing people love more than a hushed-up scandal.”

“But it
wasn’t
a hushed-up scandal,” Max said, exasperated. “It wasn’t
any
kind of scandal at all! Her mother
never
ran off with an Austrian nobleman
or
gave birth to another daughter who grew up to marry any blasted Venetian marchese—she died! It’s all a ridiculous tale my aunt invented.”

There was a long silence. Freddy sipped his wine. Max stared into the fire, brooding, no doubt on his father-in-law, the late and imaginary marchese di Chancealotto. Must be hard for an honorable fellow like Max, having to accept—at least in public—imaginary in-laws. And he was getting married in the morning. That was a worse fate than having to listen to a few horror stories.

“All right, I’ll attend the literary society,” Freddy said in a soothing tone. “But I warn you, I’m not going to read any of those dratted books.”

“No, that’s all right, it’s not the kind of literary society where people read—they have the stories read to them. So I’d be grateful if you’d just keep an eye on Aunt Bea.” He glanced at Freddy. “And stop her if she starts telling any more outrageous tales.”

Freddy choked on his wine again. “
Me?
You think
I
could stop her from spreading outrageous stories? You couldn’t, so what makes you think I could? She still treats me like a schoolboy!”

“I know, but I’d feel better if you were there, at least. And you could always
try
to stop her.”

Yes, and Freddy could always
try
to fly. But he didn’t say so. Max was his oldest and best friend. Max was also the reason Freddy was now independently wealthy. If it hadn’t been for Max and his trading company, Freddy would still be eking out a living on the inheritance he’d received from his aunt—or worse, dependent on his father—and that didn’t bear thinking about.

Max had never really asked him for anything.

Freddy drained his glass, his sixth for the night, and in a moment of vainglory said, “Very well, I’ll
try
.
And
I’ll attend the blasted literary society
and
keep an eye on the girls for you and Abby,
and
I’ll look out for Flynn, if he ever arrives.” Flynn was the other reason Freddy was now a rich man. He probably owed Flynn a few favors too.

“Good man,” Max said. “I’m probably worrying about nothing. I’m sure you’ll have a delightful time with Aunt Bea and the girls. There’s no one I’d rather trust them to.”

“You’re the only person in the world who’d trust me with a bunch of unmarried girls.”

“I know you better than most people. Now, don’t look so glum. Abby and I will only be gone for a month or so, and they’ll be no trouble, I’m sure.”

 • • • 

China, eight months earlier

S
he breasted the hill and stopped, catching her breath at the sight of the line of brilliant blue that shimmered along the horizon. The sea. She took a deep breath, breathing in the clean, fresh salt tang of it, the taste of freedom. . . .

Then her heart started to thump as she saw in a dip between the hills three slender vertical lines silhouetted against the blue. Tall masts. Which meant a European ship.

Pray it was English.
It should not matter, as long as it took her away from this place where she would always be foreign, unwelcome, no matter that she’d lived all her life here and knew no other place. But she was English, and an English captain would understand and, pray God, an English ship would take her home. To what, she did not know—she had no living relatives that she knew of—but first things first.

She started to run, then stumbled to a ragged halt. She was hot, filthy, dusty and sweaty from the endless walk. She’d lost track of how many days she’d been walking, hiding from others, sleeping under bushes and foraging for whatever food she could find along the way. She could not approach the captain of a European ship looking like a filthy beggar.

She scanned her surrounds and spied a ragged line of green meandering across the dusty brown landscape. A stream. Just what she needed.

In the stream she washed, head to toe, immersing her body, fully clothed, in the water, then stripping to the bare minimum for modesty; it would not do to be caught naked in the open. She scrubbed as best she could without soap, using sand on her skin and beating her wet clothing on the rocks, as the women back home did.

No, not home; the mission would never be home again. England was home, no matter that she had no memory of it. It was where she’d been born.

She rinsed, scrubbed and rerinsed until her skin and scalp tingled and she felt clean again. She combed out her hair in the sun, using her fingers to ease out any tangles. She braided it neatly and wound it around her crown in a damp coronet, tucking the ends in and fastening them with her last two pins. The heat of the sun ensured her clothing dried quickly, wrinkled, but clean looking, at least.

She wished she had a proper English dress, but she’d worn her simple black Chinese peasant tunic and pants to the market so she wouldn’t stand out as foreign, and everything else had been destroyed when the mission was burned. She had no other clothes, no other possessions at all, only her mother’s locket on its thin gold chain. She never took it off.

She did a quick check that she was as neat as possible, put on her hat and set out toward the three black masts silhouetted against the strip of shimmering blue.

Pray that the ship was English.

A small port, with a straggle of buildings scattered around it. In her faded black tunic and pants and her conical straw hat she drew no notice from the coolies busily loading bundles and boxes and rolls of fabric onto smaller boats and ferrying them out to the big ship that floated serenely at anchor a few hundred yards from shore.

She squinted against the glare of the sun on sea to read the name.
Liverpool Lass.
English. Thank God. Tears of relief pricked at her eyelids. She blinked them back.

She searched among the swarming coolies for an English face and found a tall young seaman with ginger hair supervising the loading of a boat, checking items off on a list and rapping out orders in a mix of pidgin English and bad Chinese.