Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

Alone. As she would be now for the rest of her life.

* * *

She had travelled back to England in the second carriage with Sophie, her nurse, Francine, and the new French maid. She’d realised she would much rather hold the child’s head over the bowl as she vomited than watch her former companion and courier makings sheep’s eyes at each other all the way to Calais.

Both she and Monsieur Le Brun were on their best behaviour whenever Fenella was watching, though she couldn’t resist taking one last swipe at his masculine pride by insisting on paying all the wedding expenses and then making it as lavish as she possibly could. She met the groom’s objections by pointing out that Fenella had been robbed of a society wedding the first time round and she deserved the best.

There was more than a hint of retaliation in the way he promptly invited a veritable crowd of remarkably well-connected people to both the church and the wedding breakfast, since most of them looked down their aristocratic noses at her. But she shrugged it off. She’d been mean to him, so...

Or perhaps it wasn’t anything to do with her at all. Perhaps he really was responding to what she’d said about Fenella deserving a society wedding and was just doing his utmost to provide it?

* * *

Fenella had thoroughly enjoyed her day, which was the main thing. Though she was very tearful when it came time to part on the morning after.

‘I hate to think of you going back to Stanton Basset all on your own,’ she said.

‘I do not plan to stay for very long. I will just see that my aunt’s house is cleared for sale, or rent, and then come to join you. Not in your marital home, I hasten to add,’ she put in when Monsieur Le Brun looked distinctly alarmed. ‘But in some nearby hotel, while I view the properties on offer.’

‘Still, I don’t like the thought of you travelling all over the country by yourself,’ persisted Fenella.

‘I do not like it myself,’ put in Monsieur Le Brun, to her surprise. ‘You hired me to act as your courier from Stanton Basset to Paris and home. London is not your home.’

‘If you think I can stomach the sight of you two fawning all over each other in a closed carriage for the next three days you are very much mistaken,’ she retorted. ‘And I am quite certain that the last thing you want is a former employer joining you on your bride trip.’

The newly married couple blushed.

‘Besides, it is not as if I shall be travelling alone. I have employed a woman to act as escort and chaperon.’

Fenella and Monsieur Le Brun both glanced across the inn yard at the nondescript wisp of a woman Amethyst had hired from an agency not two days earlier.

‘She doesn’t look as if she will provide you with much company, though,’ said Fenella with an anxious frown.

‘Believe me, I shall not pine for conversation after that last trip with the two French maids jabbering away incessantly like a pair of magpies. Peace and quiet will suit me very well.’

‘Ma chère, Mademoiselle Dalby has clearly made up her mind. Have you ever been able to sway her, once she has done so?’

With one arm round Fenella’s waist, and Sophie’s little hand clasped in his own, Monsieur Le Brun firmly ushered his new little family into the coach that stood waiting for them.

A swell of resentment surged through Amethyst as she boarded her own carriage. If it wasn’t for him, they would all be going home together. She would still be smarting from losing Nathan, but at least she would have...

She shook her head, angry at herself. When had it ever done her any good relying on others? She was stronger than this.

She consoled herself, for the first few miles of her own journey, with visions of Monsieur Le Brun’s discomfort, shut up with a child whose reaction to the bouncing and swaying of their coach was going to be inevitable. Served him right for breaking up her happy home!

Except...Fenella loved him. And if he felt anything like she did about those two, he wouldn’t be finding it a trial. Caring for each other was part of being a family.

Or it should be. It was what she’d always wanted, deep down. She knew herself so much better since being with Nathan. He’d let her express her opinions, rather than trying to form them, and the more she’d done so, the more she understood what she really thought and felt about everything.

And she’d seen that, all her life, she had just wanted to have somebody love her. It was what had made her strive so hard to please both her parents, and then her aunt.

And what had made her fall into Nathan’s bed. It hadn’t been just adventure she craved. It wasn’t just about rebelling and proving that a woman could do anything a man could do. She’d wanted him to love her. Yet when he’d claimed he did, she hadn’t been able to believe it. Why should he love her? Nobody else ever had. They’d made her believe there was something intrinsically unlovable about her. And so she’d pretended she didn’t care. Hardened herself against hurt. Pushed people away before they had a chance to make so much as the slightest dent in her defences.

But it did hurt, knowing that Nathan didn’t love her, any more than anyone else ever had.

She slumped into the squabs, that grey pall making the mere act of breathing feel like an effort.

England was such a damp and dreary place. People scuttled about, heads bowed into the drizzle, as though they were the nation that had just been defeated, rather than the French.

Or was it just the air of defeat hanging over Amethyst that made the rest of the world look so bleak?

The woman she’d hired from an agency to lend her respectability on the journey very soon gave up attempting to converse with her taciturn employer. And no doubt gave thanks, reflected Amethyst on one of the stops to change horses, that her employment was only temporary.

* * *

Amethyst gave her a generous tip when at last they reached their destination.

‘I hope your return trip is more pleasant,’ she said to the startled woman. ‘It couldn’t have been very comfortable for you, having to travel so far with an employer who had only roused from her depression to make acid remarks about the deficiencies of any stray male unfortunate enough to cross her path,’ she said self-deprecatingly.

‘I...I don’t like men any more than you, madam,’ said the woman, with just the hint of a sympathetic smile, before dropping a curtsy and scuttling off towards the town square and the coaching inn where she would rest overnight before taking the stage back to London the next morning. Amethyst half-wished she was going with her. She had to brace herself before walking up the path to Aunt Georgie’s front door. After the glorious freedom she’d known on her travels, setting foot inside the house would be rather like putting on a stiffly starched collar. The minute she crossed the threshold, she got the urge to fling open all the windows. Only, since it was raining, all it would achieve would be to make her cold, as well as depressed.

‘There is a fire in the morning room, Miss Dalby,’ said her butler, a long-suffering individual she’d inherited from her aunt along with the house.

‘Thank you, Adams,’ she said, suddenly wondering why he’d borne the brunt of her aunt’s displeasure for so many years. He wasn’t paid much more than the average for his position. ‘But I would rather take tea in the study.’

‘Of course. I had the fire lit in there, too, thinking you might like to cast your eye over the correspondence awaiting you.’

‘That was very thoughtful of you,’ she said with real gratitude. ‘Thank you.’

He dipped his head in a kind of truncated bow, swiftly, but not before Amethyst had caught a startled look on his face. Good grief, had she really been so lacking in manners towards the man that a mere ‘thank you’ could surprise him?