Paula Marshall - The Deserted Bride

“I am Drew Exford, and I would know who you are.”

Bess looked down into his perfect face, and, giving him a smile so sweet that it wrenched his heart, she said softly, “But I have little mind to tell you, sir. You must discover it for yourself. Now, let me go, Master Drew Exford, for I have no desire to be behindhand with the day.” She rode off, leaving Drew to gaze after her.

“Was she real?” he demanded of Charles. “Have you ever seen such a divine face and form? Dress her in fine clothing and she would have half of London at her feet.”

“Now, Drew, you do surprise me,” drawled Charles as the pair of them remounted. “I had thought that your wish would be for her to have no clothes on at all!”

The Deserted Bride

Paula Marshall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PAULA MARSHALL,

married with three children, has had a varied life. She began her career in a large library and ended it as a senior academic in charge of history in a polytechnic. She has traveled widely, has been a swimming coach and has appeared on University Challenge and Mastermind. She has always wanted to write, and likes her novels to be full of adventure and humor.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

He was her husband. He had been her husband for ten years, and all she had ever had of him was the miniature which had arrived that morning.

And the letter with it, of course.

The letter which simply, and coldly, said, “My Lady Exford, I am sending you this portrait of myself in small as a token of my respect for you. I am in hopes of paying you a visit before the summer is out. At the moment, alas, I am exceeding busy in the Queen’s interest. Accept my felicitations for your twentieth birthday now, lest I am unable to make them in person. This from your husband, Drew Exford.”

Elizabeth, Lady Exford, known to all those around her as Lady Bess, crumpled the perfunctory letter in her hand. All that it was fit for was to be thrown into the fire which burned in the hearth of the Great Hall of Atherington House. At the very last moment, though, something stayed her hand. She smoothed the crumpled paper and read it again, the colour in her cheeks rising as her anger at the writer mounted in her.

About the Queen’s business, forsooth! Had he been about the Queen’s business for the last ten years? Was that why he had never visited her, never come to claim her as his wife, had left her here with her father, a wife and no wife? She very much doubted it. No, indeed. Andrew, Earl of Exford since his father’s death, had stayed away from Leicestershire in order to enjoy his bachelor life in London, unhampered by the presence of a wife and the children she might give him.

The whole world knew that the Queen liked the handsome young men about her to be unmarried, or, if she grudgingly gave them permission to marry, preferred them not to bring their wives to court. And from what news of him came her way, the Queen had no more faithful subject than her absent husband.

How should she answer this? Should she write the truth, plain and simple, as, “Sir, I care not if I never see you again?” Or should she, instead, simply reply as an obedient wife ought to, “My lord, I have received your letter. I am yours to command whenever you should visit me.”

The latter, of course. The former would never do.

Bess walked to the table where ink, paper and the sand to dry the letter awaited her, and wrote as an obedient wife should, although she had never felt less obedient in her life.

And as she wrote she thought of the day ten years ago when she had first seen her husband…

“Come, my darling,” her nurse had said, on that long-gone morning, “your father wishes you to be wearing your finest, your very finest, attire today. The damask robe in grey and pink and silver, your pearls, and the little heart which your sainted mother left you.”

“No.” Ten-year-old Bess struggled out of her nurse’s embrace. “No, Kirsty. Father promised that I should go riding with him on the first fine morning, and it is fine today. Besides, I look a fright in grey and pink, you know I do.”

Her nurse, whom Bess was normally able to wheedle into submission to her demands, shook her head. “Not today, my love. I cannot allow you to have your way today. Your father has guests. Important guests. They arrived late last night after you had gone to bed, and he wishes you to look your very best when you meet them.”

Kirsty had an air of excitement about her. It was plain that she knew something which she was not telling Bess. Bess always knew when people were hiding things from her but, even though she might be only ten years old, she was wise enough to know when not to continue to ask questions.

So she allowed Kirsty to turn her about and about until Bess felt dismally sure that she looked more like a painted puppet dressed up to entertain the commonalty than the beautiful daughter of Robert Turville, Earl of Atherington, the most powerful magnate in this quarter of Leicestershire. She disregarded as best as she could Kirsty’s oohings and aahings, her standing back and exclaiming, “Oh, my dear little lady, how fine you look. The prettiest little lady outside London, no less.”

“My clothes are pretty,” said Bess crossly, “but I am not. I am but a little brown-haired thing, and all the world believes that fair is beautiful, and I am not fair at all—as well you know. And my eyes are black, not blue, so no one will ever write sonnets to them.”

Useless, quite useless, for Kirsty continued to sing her praises of Bess’s non-existent beauty until aunt Hamilton, her father’s sister, came into the room.

“Let me look at you, child. Dear Lord, what a poor little brown thing you are, the image of your sainted grandam no less.”

Far from depressing Bess, this sad truth had her casting triumphant smiles at the mortified Kirsty, who was cursing Lady Hamilton under her breath. Fancy telling the poor child the truth about herself so harshly. It couldn’t have hurt to have praised the beautiful dress m’lord had brought from London for her, instead of reminding her of the grandam whom she so resembled.

For Bess’s grandam had been the late Lady Atherington, who had always been known as the “The Spanish Lady”. She had accompanied Catherine of Aragon when she had arrived in England to marry the brother of the late and blessed King Henry VIII, the present Queen’s father. The then Lord Atherington had fallen in love with, and married her, despite her dark Spanish looks, and ever since all the Turville daughters had resembled her, including the brisk Lady Hamilton. Brown-haired herself, and black-eyed, she had still made a grand marriage, and the sonnets which Bess was sure would never come her way, had been showered upon her.

“Golds,” she was exclaiming, “and vermilions, or rich green and bold siennas, are the colours which your father should have bought you. Trust a man to have no sense where women’s tire is concerned! Never mind, child, later, later, when I have the dressing of you, we may see you in looks. This will have to do for now. Come!”

She held out a commanding hand, which Bess took, wondering what the fuss and commotion was all about. She had been living quietly at Atherington House as she had done for as long as she could remember—which admittedly at ten was not very long—until yesterday, when her father had arrived suddenly, with a trunkful of new clothes for her, and a train of visitors who had stared at her when she was brought into the Great Hall after they had dined.