The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (3 page)

She approached him quietly and, when he had a moment, said in English, “Excuse me, sir, could I speak to the captain, please?”

“He’s bus—” The young seaman stopped and looked up. “
What
did you say?”

She repeated the request.

His jaw dropped. He stared at her in disbelief for a moment, taking in her faded coolie clothes and hat. “You can’t be
English
!” He pulled off her hat. “And what the hell—you’re a
girl
?”

 • • • 

S
he couldn’t move. The weight pressed her down, crushing the breath from her lungs. The heat, the sweat, the stench sickened her. She struggled to resist, to block out the words echoing insidiously in her ear—

Damaris jerked upright, gasping for breath, fighting desperately to get free . . . and encountered nothing but cold air and tangled bedclothes. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to catch her breath—she was panting as if she’d run a mile—and waiting for her pounding heart to slow to normal. Her body was slicked with sweat. It chilled slowly in the cold predawn air.

The dream again. The third time in as many days. It was getting worse.

She sat in her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest and rocking slightly. The weight of the dream hung over her. The weight of memory.

She was not that girl, she told herself. Not anymore. She’d left Damaris Tait behind; she was Damaris Chance now.

It was supposed to be a fresh chance, Abby had said; a chance for a new life for them all. And it was true. Mostly.

But the dreams, the memories stayed with her, returning in the night, vivid, intense and horribly real. Even now, the acid bile of panic—and shame—scalded her throat.

She took a sip of water from the glass by the bed. Nothing would wash away those memories; the dreams would keep them fresh.

She rocked gently in the chill gray dawn, contemplating her options. There weren’t many. She knew what was stirring up the dreams.

She couldn’t go on. She had to stop it now, before it went any further. The sooner the better.

She broke it to Jane after luncheon when they were getting ready for a drive in the park.

“Not make your come-out?” Jane dropped the pelisse she was about to put on and stared at her in shock. “But why? It’s what we always dreamed of.”

“You dreamed, Jane, not me.” Damaris picked up the pelisse and handed it to Jane. “Now get dressed, Mr. Monkton-Coombes will be here any minute.”

Jane didn’t move. “But why would you not want to make your come-out, Damaris? It’ll be such fun—new dresses and dances and balls and routs and—”

Damaris shook her head. “I can’t do it, Jane. I just can’t.”

“Can’t what?” asked Daisy as she entered the bedchamber. She was carrying a half-finished pelisse. “Try this on before you go out, will you, Damaris? I want to make sure the sleeves are right before I finish it off.”

Damaris removed her warm winter pelisse and slipped on the almost completed garment. Made in Daisy’s distinctive mix of old and new fabrics, it was light, intended for spring or summer wear.

“Oh, it’s lovely, Daisy,” Damaris exclaimed. She touched the contrasting brocade collar and cuffs, currently only pinned on. “These are from one of Lady Beatrice’s old gowns, aren’t they? I remember the embroidered birds, so pretty and still looking so fresh—the colors are so clear and bright. And the contrast of the different fabrics—I would never have thought to put these together but it’s perfect. You have such an eye.” She stood before the mirror, admiring the elegant fall of the pelisse, while Daisy frowned in concentration and repinned one of the cuffs.

“It’s beautiful, all right,” Jane said, “and you’re very clever, Daisy. But it’s going to be wasted on Damaris.”

“Hmmph?” Daisy looked up, frowning, her mouth full of pins.

“She says she’s not going to make her come-out.”

“Hmm-mmph?” Daisy didn’t take the pins from her mouth but let her eyebrows do the talking.

“I’m sorry,” Damaris said. “I just can’t bear the thought of it.”

“Bear the thought of what?” Jane asked. “A come-out is fun.”

Daisy gave Damaris a long, considering look, then shrugged and returned to her pinning.

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you both.” Damaris
hated
letting people down. It was just . . . she couldn’t do it. The dread had been growing, day by day, and this morning, when she woke with the familiar feeling of sick apprehension, she knew she had to say something. It was better to let everyone know now, several months before the season started. Surely.

“But why? I still don’t understand,” Jane persisted. “Is it because of the brothel? Because you were only there a few days longer than me, not quite a week, and—”

“It’s not the brothel,” Damaris said. She hadn’t told anyone what had happened before the brothel, not even her sisters. And she never would.

“I should say not,” Jane said. “It wasn’t our fault, and I refuse to let my life be less because of what that evil man tried to do to us. And so should you.”

“It’s
not
because of the brothel.” The pinning complete, Damaris carefully eased off the pelisse and handed it to Daisy, then shrugged herself into her winter one again.

“The false name then?” Jane persisted. “I know your parents were missionaries—”

“My father was. And no, it’s not the false name—though heaven knows how Lady Beatrice is going to explain—”

“Explain what?” The old lady stood in the doorway. “Are you gels ready? Featherby tells me Freddy Monkton-Coombes is downstairs awaiting our pleasure, and while I approve of making a gentleman wait, who knows what the weather will do? Come along now.” She flapped a pair of lilac kid gloves at them. “You can explain on the way. Daisy dear, give me your arm, would you? These dratted stairs.”

Daisy hurried to take the old lady’s arm. Lady Beatrice was still a little weak and unsteady on her feet after months, if not years, of being ill, bedridden and neglected. Since Abby had discovered her, and the four girls had moved in to become Lady Beatrice’s “nieces,” the old lady had made a gallant recovery, but stairs were still her bugbear. She could walk down them with assistance, but climbing them required the strong arms of William, their footman.

“Now, what were you gels saying?”

“It’s Damaris,” Jane told her. “She says she doesn’t want to make her come-out.”

“What’s that? Doesn’t want her season, you say?” She swiveled around on the stairs and gave Damaris a sharp glance. “Is that right?”

“Yes, Lady Beatrice, and I’m sorry, but I won’t change my m—”

“It’s because of the brothel, I know,” Jane said. “Only—”

“It’s
not
because of the brothel,” Damaris said in a low voice, glancing downstairs. “And keep your voice down, please. I don’t want . . . anyone to hear.” Below them in the hall, the Honorable Frederick Monkton-Coombes paced restlessly, long, loose-limbed strides in gleaming high boots. Dressed in a many-caped coat of superfine merino, and holding a curly brimmed beaver hat in his long fingers, he was the epitome of masculine elegance.

He looked up and met Damaris’s gaze. She forced herself to look away.

“Then why—”

“Hush, Jane! Damaris is right—this is not something to be discussed on the stairs,” Lady Beatrice instructed. “Freddy, my dear boy, how very punctual you are.”

“Punctual?” He glanced at the clock in the hall. “But it’s—”

“We won’t be long. The girls and I need a moment’s privacy.” She gave him an enigmatic look. “A female thing, you understand. Featherby, fetch a pot of coffee and some muffins for Mr. Monkton-Coombes.”

“No, really, I—”

“Nonsense, I know how much you love your muffins and Cook has made a fresh batch especially. We won’t be long,” Lady Beatrice declared and swept the girls into a small sitting room farther down the hall. As the door closed behind her she said, “The dear boy is looking after us quite splendidly while Max and Abby are on their honeymoon, isn’t he? Normally he avoids respectable gels like the plague.”

Daisy snorted. Jane giggled and after a moment Damaris joined in.

“What has cast you gels into whoops, now?” Lady Beatrice demanded.

“Respectable girls?” Jane spluttered. “Two escapees from a brothel—three if you count Daisy—”

“’Course you count me. I grew up in one, din’t I?”

“And we’re all living under a false name, pretending to be your nieces,” Damaris added.

“Stop that nonsense at once!” the old lady snapped. “I don’t want to hear any more about that dratted brothel! You
are
respectable gels—no matter what happened in the past. You’re my nieces and if I say you’re respectable, you are!”

“And if you say we’re your nieces, we are,” Jane added mischievously.

“Exactly.” Lady Beatrice didn’t believe in irony. “And when your sister married my nephew that made everything legal, so that’s the end of it.”

It was nothing of the sort, not when Damaris and Daisy were no relation to Abby and Jane, but none of them wanted to argue.

The old lady raised her lorgnette and turned it on Damaris. “Now, m’gel, what’s all this about you not making your come-out with Jane in the spring?”

Damaris bit her lip. “It’s true. I . . . I don’t want to do it.”

Jane said, “But Daisy’s already designed a whole coming-out wardrobe—”

“Leave me out of this,” Daisy said bluntly. “I won’t ask Damaris to do nuffin’ she doesn’t want to.”

“Anything,” Lady Beatrice, Jane and Damaris corrected automatically.

Damaris gave Daisy a grateful smile.

“But we’ve had it all planned out for ages,” Jane said unhappily.

“Only a month or two,” Damaris said. “Before that we never even had a chance of a season. The height of our ambition then was for you and Abby to attend a public ball in Bath.” Jane still looked unhappy, so she added, “And the start of the season is still months away, so there’s plenty of time to adjust our plans.”

There was a short silence. Damaris was uncomfortably aware of the old lady’s shrewd gaze on her. “Think of the money you’ll save, with only one of us.” A London season was fearfully expensive, she knew.

Lady Beatrice snorted. “It’s my money and I’ll spend it how I like.” Technically it was her nephew’s money, but they all knew Max, Lord Davenham, would deny his aunt nothing.

Jane said sadly, “It won’t be half as much fun if we don’t have our season together. I won’t know anyone.”

“Of course you will,” said Damaris in a bracing tone. “What about all those people who come to the literary society?”

“Oh, the literary society,” Jane said. “They’re all old.”

Lady Beatrice cleared her throat and leveled her lorgnette at Jane, who blushed and said hurriedly, “I mean, of course, they’re all charming and quite delightful, but it’s not like having your sister with you, is it?”

Damaris didn’t bother pointing out that Jane would have Abby with her, and Abby was a real sister, not a pretend one. Abby was married, currently away on her honeymoon, but she’d be back in time for the season. But Jane had a point; having your married sister there wouldn’t be the same as two unmarried girls entering the marriage mart together.

“I could come as your companion.”

“A companion?” Lady Beatrice turned her lorgnette on Damaris. “A
companion
?” She spoke the word with loathing. Clearly it was not an option.

“But if you would attend social gatherings as a companion, what’s the difference from making your own come-out?” Jane asked.

“Nobody would ask a companion to marry him.”

Jane’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to get married. I have . . .” Damaris swallowed. “I have an abhorrence of marriage.”

There was a short, shocked silence.

It was a ludicrous statement in most people’s eyes, she knew. Not want to get married? How else could a girl without property or means expect to live?

She would work. She wasn’t afraid of hard work; she’d worked all her life.

Being sponsored into society, being given the chance to marry a man of wealth and position would be most girls’ dream of a lifetime. A year ago it might have been Damaris’s. Not anymore.

“And what,” Lady Beatrice said after a moment, “does getting married have to do with making your come-out?”

All three girls blinked at her in surprise. “But isn’t that the whole purpose of a come-out?” Jane said. “To find us husbands? That’s why they call it the marriage mart.”

“It’s
some
people’s purpose,” Lady Beatrice conceded graciously. “Most people’s, perhaps.
We
are not most people.”

Jane looked worried. “But I
want
to find a husband.”

“I know, Jane dear, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the young fellows making cakes of themselves over you. Don’t fret, you’ll have your pick of them.” The old lady turned to Damaris. “As for you, my dear gel, nobody said you
had
to find a husband.”

“But I thought—”

“Oh, the young men will make cakes of themselves over you too, I’m sure, and quite a number of the old ones as well, as we’ve seen at my literary society. You’ll have plenty of eligible offers, take my word for it—and a few ineligible ones. But there’s no need to
accept
any of them.”

“But . . .” Damaris frowned. “If I don’t find a husband, isn’t it a terrible waste of money?”

Lady Beatrice’s elegantly plucked and dyed eyebrows rose. “Waste of money? Pish-tush, what nonsense is this? There is only one reason for you to make your come-out, Damaris—to have fun.”

“Fun?” Damaris echoed, bewildered. Squandering a fortune on her so that she could have
fun
?

“You’ve had precious little fun in your life, haven’t you, my dear?”

Damaris swallowed. “How did you know?”

The old lady snorted. “Daughter of a missionary? Raised in the Wilds of Foreign? One could make a wild guess.” She chuckled at Damaris’s expression. “Cheer up, my dear, nobody will compel you to marry. It would, however, please me greatly if you made your come-out with Jane, attending balls and routs and parties, dancing till dawn, wearing Daisy’s beautiful dresses—and making her the most fashionable mantua maker of the season—”