Catherine March - The Brigadier's Daughter

The moment had come to make her choice.

Alexandra stood still, poised in between two lives, two futures. She could speak up now and tell Captain Bowen the truth, and go back to her life as the lonely Miss Packard with no suitors. Or she could keep quiet, not say a word, until the ship sailed and they left England’s shores. She could step into Georgia’s shoes and the role of Mrs Reid Bowen.

A memory of his face came to her mind. His blue eyes, his fair hair, tanned skin, the set of his broad shoulders, his warmth, his smile and his voice, even his smell had already melted into her skin, her blood, into her heart, and she could not, however sensible it might be, do anything to part herself from him.

Catherine Marchwas born in Zimbabwe. Her love of the written word began when she was ten years old and her English teacher gave her Lorna Doone to read. Encouraged by her mother, Catherine began writing stories while a teenager. Over the years her employment has varied from barmaid to bank clerk to legal secretary. Her favourite hobbies are watching rugby, walking by the sea, exploring castles and reading.

Novels by the same author:

MY LADY ENGLISH

THE KNIGHT’S VOW

THE KING’S CHAMPION

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London—10 December, 1876

‘Congratulations, dear boy! Well done!’

Captain Reid Bowen rose from his seat in the lounge of the gentleman’s club in Mayfair and accepted the hearty handshake from his uncle, murmuring his thanks and waving a hand at the leather armchair opposite. ‘Would you care to join me, Uncle Percy?’

‘Indeed!’ He clicked his fingers at a nearby waiter. ‘This calls for champagne.’

Reid demurred, with a modest shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘Come now, Uncle, let’s not go overboard.’

‘And why on earth not, dear boy? It’s not every day that my favourite nephew returns from India and is promoted to the rank of major!’

‘Uncle Percy.’ Reid Bowen laughed. ‘I am your only nephew!’

‘Indeed, indeed you are.’

‘And my promotion is not substantive until the spring.’

‘Major Bowen, humour an old man, please!’

They both laughed and a bottle of champagne was ordered.

With his usual generosity Percy, the Earl of Clermount, invited a few fellow club members to join them, but as the last drop of expensive and delightful golden liquid was drained and the gathering dispersed, Uncle Percy turned to his nephew with a gleam in his eye, to broach a subject that had long been a bone of contention.

‘Well, now, with your posting as military attaché to the Embassy in St Petersburg, you seem to be short of an essential item of kit, dear boy.’

Reid set down his empty champagne flute and looked at his uncle with a puzzled frown. ‘And what would that be, sir?’

‘A wife, of course!’

Reid laughed, and flicked up the tails of his black evening suit, before sitting down in the leather armchair. ‘I had not given it any consideration, but you may be right. I will need a hostess.’

‘A wife is far more than just a hostess, Reid.’

His nephew glanced at him with a twinkle in his dark blue eyes. ‘Shame on you, Uncle, I did not think you had such thoughts about the fairer sex.’

Uncle Percy blushed, his jowls wobbling as he shook his head and clucked his tongue. ‘I was thinking of progeny, my dear boy. Sons, to inherit all that I shall one day leave you.’

Reid Bowen sighed, and nodded his head, yet kept his thoughts within the seclusion of his mind.

Undaunted, Uncle Percy ploughed onwards. ‘Now, the Christmas Ball at Lady Westfaling’s this evening will be an ideal occasion to see what’s, um, er, on the market, so to speak. You did receive an invitation, did you not?’

‘Yes, I had the misfortune,’ Reid replied drily.

‘Splendid! We will go together and I will point out the most eligible young chits. There’s the Bellingham girl: pretty, intelligent, a little dull perhaps; and the Tinson-Byrne chit is a fine filly; not to mention the enchanting Packard girl, though she may be a trifle young and flighty.’

Reid gave him a keen look. ‘With all respect, Uncle, I think I am old enough to select my own wife.’

‘Then why have you not done so, Reid, dear boy?’ Uncle Percy returned his glance with one as equally penetrating. ‘I believe you will be thirty-four next spring, and it’s high time you got yourself down that aisle and acquired what every man needs most in life—the love and support of a good woman.’

‘When I find her, I will no doubt rush to drag her to the altar.’

‘Well, with that sort of attitude, it’s no wonder you’re still on the shelf.’

‘Indeed, Uncle?’

‘The chits today don’t much go in for the dragging bit; they much prefer to be courted with respect and devotion. I think you will find that, if you apply as much savvy to courting as you do to soldiering, you will have no trouble in finding a suitable wife.’

‘Sasha!’

Miss Alexandra Packard sat before her dressing table as her maid finished pinning up her hair. She glanced in the mirror at one of her three sisters, standing in her bedroom doorway and wailing with a most disgruntled expression on her pretty face.

‘What is it, Georgia?’ Her voice was soft and quiet, laced with a patience she was frequently called upon to exert.

‘I can’t find my white gloves. Have you seen them?’

‘I’m sure Polly laid them out on the bed, with your gown. Did you not, Polly dear?’ Sasha glanced at their ladies’ maid, who nodded her head and dipped a curtsy in confirmation of this fact.

‘Then someone’s taken them!’ cried Georgia, flouncing on her heel with a whirl of white petticoats. ‘Philippa!’

Sasha sighed and rolled her eyes at Polly, her glance skimming away from her own reflection. Compared to her beautiful sister Georgia, who had inherited their father’s blond and blue-eyed features, she felt there was nothing appealing about her appearance, being the only daughter to have the sable-dark hair and black eyes of their Russian-born mother, the Princess Olga Alexandrovna, now simply Lady Packard, who was also slightly built and somewhat pale. All that her sisters seemed to have inherited from their mother was her temperamental nature, sometimes passionate and full of life, at other times sinking into a sulk that could last for days. After the birth of four children in close succession, none of whom had been the son her parents had hoped for, her mother had been incapacitated by a weak heart and now spent much of her days lying upon a chaise longue, bravely insisting that there was nothing wrong with her and encouraging her daughters to go out and enjoy their own lives to the full.

It was left to her eldest daughter, Alexandra, twenty-three years old and fondly known as Sasha, to see to the girls: Georgia, the prettiest of them all; Philippa, nineteen and ripe for the marriage market, though she was cruelly afflicted by a glandular problem and a trifle overweight; and Victoria, the youngest, who shared her father’s passion for the library and spent much of her time with her nose buried in a book.