The Bride who Loved_A Marriage of Convenience Regency Romance

  The Bride who Loved

  A Marriage of Convenience Regency Romance

  Bianca Bloom

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Also by Bianca Bloom

  Afterword

  Sneak Peek

  1

  May 27th, 1815, Australia

  When Mr. Hamilton Bell woke, he was alone in the room.

  It was a better room than he ought to have been able to afford, richly furnished and full of light. Indeed, the house that he had taken, right in the middle of the little town, was uncommonly expensive, and one of the first of its kind to be built in all of Australia. But for the beautiful Sonia, he wanted only the best.

  And, he reflected, lying in his wide bed with its soft sheets, he had found the best.

  His cook was brilliant, his large household staff a picture of discretion. Though he had never been married, Sonia had. In fact, she was still married, which threw a tiny little wrench into the grand plans that her lover wished to lay for her.

  Sonia, daubing at her eyes, told the heartsick Hamilton Bell that they could not marry. She could not procure a legal annulment or divorce without her violent husband finding her. When Hamilton pressed her, promising to fight the lout, little Sonia convinced him that they could simply pretend to be married, thus enjoying all manner of domestic delights.

  And so they did. Every morning that he spent with her was a delight, the sunlight on her summery fair hair a balm to his soul. Every night that they spent in the wide bed was a glimpse of paradise. When the happy couple went about the city, it was only rarely that Mr. Bell detected whispers. Australia was, after all, an outlaw’s colony. And Mr. Bell did not have the time or inclination to pay much attention to the town at large, not with his beloved’s face so fair and sweet before him.

  And so it was a little bit strange that he had awoken to an empty bed that Sunday morning. Usually, Sonia slept, and when she rose it was only to “fix her face,” as she put it. He thought this madness – she was hardly a day over twenty, and his lined face surely needed much more tending than hers.

  But this morning, she was gone. And without a note, too. On the rare days when she did have to leave for hours at a time, she would wake her sweetheart and kiss him, or tuck a note under his pillow.

  He checked behind the headboard to make sure that she had not left something there.

  Perhaps she was simply downstairs, he reasoned, or perhaps she had dressed and gone out to look at the garden. Though something within him warned that she was not the sort of woman to tend the garden first thing in the morning, he still could not bring himself to feel abandoned. For Sonia, his innocent and delightful little woman, would never abandon him.

  There was a loud rapping at the door. This was not a little neighborly knock, but a clamor of someone demanding entry.

  Hamilton Bell, still half-asleep, had hardly enough time to pull his dressing gown about him and run down the stairs. The gown he wore was a ratty tartan thing, and Sonia had often teased him about it. But she did not insist that he replace it, only said that she must have a new one for herself. “My skin is so soft,” she said, “Coarse cloth like that scraping against me? It would be torture.”

  Her expenses, which covered her fine clothes and jewelry, ran into the hundreds of pounds. But Mr. Bell had managed to scrimp by on an inheritance from his father, and he still had over a thousand pounds yet. It was a thousand pounds that he would eventually get through if Sonia continued to spend as she did, but each time she showed him a new trinket or perfectly fitted dress he was too enchanted to reprimand her. She was a beautiful woman, and life with her in his arms was very nearly perfect.

  Still, in his heart of hearts, he hoped that Sonia would soon be his wife. He had offered to help her with a divorce, to find her terrifying husband, to see that everything was as it should be so that the pair could be married.

  “Dear heart,” she would say, “That is ever so sweet. But I consider us married already, my darling. Indeed, you could not be any dearer to me, even if you were my husband.”

  At that point, she usually stroked his cheeks, drawing him to her, and the subject was often lost in a flurry of passion.

  The rapping continued at the door, and so even though the thought of Sonia had started to work Mr. Bell into a state of warmth and discomfort, the large dressing gown would have to do – with any luck, it would cover up all evidence that he was thinking only of his lady love. He was all business as he opened the door. “Good morning.”

  The gentlemen elbowed their way into the house, without Mr. Bell’s invitation. He followed them into his study, where they stood by the bookshelf. Normally, he would have objected strenuously to such a lack of manners, but the three men had glowering faces that seemed to guard against any such protestation.

  “Your lass is in a spot of trouble, guv. Think you can do a lady a favor?”

  Instantly, his body froze, and he had to force his jaws open. “What’s happened?”

  “She’s scarpered while owing a lot of money, is what. We let her off last time, but this time we’re going to have to go teach her.”

  All Mr. Bell could do was blink. “Teach her what? Surely you won’t hurt her?”

  They looked at each other. “Look, the boss does what he likes. But we can’t have little women going about, owing money all over the place. Bad for business.”

  “I have money,” Mr. Bell burst out, and he could tell that this response did not surprise them. “I will pay her debt, whatever it is!”

  They looked at each other. “Have you got thirty thousand pounds, then?”

  His heart fell out. “Thirty thousand . . . well, no!”

  They shook their heads, making what he later realized was a calculated move toward the door. “Well, then, what you’ve got won’t be enough to save the lady’s life.”

  “I’m good for it, though! Here,” the desperate lover said, bringing out a piece of parchment with trembling hands, writing an address down. “I will give you everything I have now, and you can reach my solicitor’s office. I will continue to communicate through them.”

  The big man raised his eyebrows. “You’ll sign for the thirty, then
? And you know that we’ll be needing interest if you’ve not got it now?”

  “Yes!” he practically yelled. “I will, I’ll promise it all.”

  The giant took out a piece of paper and a shaking Mr. Bell signed it, almost without thinking. The short man looked at him. “You realize now that your little lady’s cleared, then? If this isn’t paid, and the interest on it, then we’ll come after you, not the woman.”

  Mr. Bell breathed a sigh of relief. “But I would not have it any other way – she has to stay hidden from her husband!”

  The men looked at each other, laughing. “Her husband! Why, he’s the one was with her! They’re quite a pair, at that, I shouldn’t say,” said that short one, laughing.

  The Scottish nobleman’s stomach was now so sour that he doubted he would be able to eat anything again.

  “She fears him. She’s been hoping that he wouldn’t find her,” stammered the shaking Hamilton Bell.

  “Ah, g’won, then. They’ve been seeing each other, like they always did. Begging your pardon, guv, but she’s always got one man or another giving her a nice house and a nice signature.”

  The large man snatched up the note, tucking it into his coat as he walked out the door. “This time, it just happened to be you.”

  2

  May 27th, 1815, Isle of Skye

  I always woke before Adam. Even though my daughters were more than old enough to get their own breakfasts, even though Esther would see to it that my tray was brought discreetly, part of me always snapped awake. The household was mine alone. I was not only Lady Marion Bell, wife and mother. I was the owner and superintendent of a vast estate. And in my husband’s absence, my duties had only grown.

  Indeed, there were many other things beside the household that belonged to me, and my day was to be full of them. The Muir family was once again struggling with their cows, and I would need to be the one to go over and help them. After all, if they were late with their rent, I would be the one losing money. All of my enterprises might suffer.

  I made as if to rise, but Adam held me fast. He never wore anything at all when he slept, preferring instead to keep a warm body next to his.

  And I never minded. My body curled into his as I sighed in delight, already tempted to stay in the bed. He was mostly asleep, but already hard, and pulling at my gown so that he might bury his head in my bosom.

  “Darling,” I whispered to him, “I know not how you have the energy.”

  Every single time he visited me, every single time we met, he was ready to bed me. And he seemed to want more every time. We had been meeting ever since my husband left for India two years ago, and he had not tired of my body one whit.

  He whispered in my ear. “Your husband does not have such energy, does he?”

  I sighed with pleasure. “No,” I confessed. “I know not how I will manage to give the man an heir when he visits only once each year. And each visit, he ignores me.”

  Adam was kissing my wrist now, languidly. “Darling, only a madman could ignore you. You are un-ignorable.”

  I looked at him, knowing that I had to soon rise from my bed. The man was already yanking at my nightdress. He was practically growling. And, as I did on so many mornings with my lover, I wondered whether I might put off the day’s engagements, if only by a few minutes.

  Even an expeditious little romp in the sheets, however, was not going to be possible. Esther was knocking most urgently at my door.

  Adam frowned, holding me tighter. “Tell her to wait,” he whispered.

  I escaped from his arms, grabbing my dressing gown. “You may wait,” I hissed. Esther, more than any other member of the household, was the one who made my liaisons with Adam possible. It was she who ensured that my room was perfectly tidy afterwards, without even a whiff of impropriety, and that the second servants’ stairway was always empty. She did everything in her power to make sure that neither my daughters nor my husband ever learned of my blissful nights with Adam, and for that we were greatly indebted to her – little though Adam seemed to appreciate it.

  We could also be sure that Esther was very familiar with what went on in my large and drafty bedroom, both at night and in the light of the early morning. And if she were interrupting, it would certainly be for a good reason.

  I stepped into the hall to speak with her. Though she was not a bad sort, she did not waste time with those words of deference that another servant might have used.

  “There’s an express at the door.”

  For a moment, my competence deserted me, and I froze.

  “It must be important,” she continued. “You will go down right away.”

  Nearly instantly, I agreed. “My accountants would never go to such an expense. And yet they are the only ones who could have sent an express.”

  We both knew that this could spell ruin.

  None of my daughters appeared to be awake as I stood in the hall, looking down at the front door where the lad who had delivered the express stood stiff and formal. I opened the thing, sure that it would spell ruin, and nearly collapsed.

  It did spell ruin for my family. But not the sort of ruin that I had expected.

  3

  I managed to whisper to Adam that he ought to wait where he was. I could not even bear to give him the terrible news until I had spoken to my daughters.

  Flora was curled up in her bed as if she were quite a child. Her curls were maintained with great care, and she was the plumpest and prettiest of all the girls. It was rather odd that she was prettier than her twin sister Frances, as the two of them had looked exactly alike as babies, but Flora had somehow ended up with an angelic glow that was all her own.

  She and Frances had my dark hair, but at eighteen they were already both a head taller than I was, though Flora was a little shorter than Frances. They had their father’s handsome features, their wide faces and rosy cheeks a near-daily reminder of my first hasty, ill-advised marriage.

  My second husband, Gilbert, had not been able to manage much patience with his twin step-daughters. Lord Gilbert Bell, wanting only children of his own, had always been annoyed with Flora’s social antics and exasperated by Frances’ dramatic nature. And then I only gave Gilbert one child, a terribly charming little imp named Grace, so smart that her father was quite perplexed. Indeed, he seemed ill at ease in his own household. A wife who knew her own mind, two twin stepdaughters of eighteen, and a daughter of eight, who was already so precocious as to make him uneasy – it was rather too much for the man.

  Well, now nobody would have to worry about pleasing Gilbert. We would all have much greater burdens. Already I mourned the early morning, when I had thought that my troubles began and ended with my inability to give Gilbert a son! All of a sudden, the lack of an heir no longer simply an annoyance. It was practically a death knell.

  I woke Flora quickly, shaking her shoulder, before my contemplation of her sleeping face made me lose my nerve. “Flora, up with you. Here, get your gown on.” She grumbled, but she knew that it was a rare enough occasion, so she did not speak much as I dragged her into her sisters’ room.

  Frances took some shaking, but Grace was wide awake, and she looked ready to tear across the moors in her favorite jumper. I noted that her fair hair was already tied back in clean plaits. How long had Grace been putting her own hair back, I wondered, recalling that this used to be Flora’s duty. All at once, I realized that my beautiful trysts with Adam had made me rather unaware of what my own daughters did all morning.

  “Grace, what are you doing up?” I asked her.

  “I’m always up, mama. But you told me to stop getting in the maids’ way when they do the fires, so I usually stay here.”

  I gave her a long look, then went to put an arm around her as Flora settled in next to Frances.

  “I keep theatre hours,” moaned Frances. “I wish to sleep at a late hour and rise at a late hour.”

  “Those seem like a lazy woman’s hours,” I said for a moment, as my entire life before I
married Gilbert had necessitated hard work and early rising.

  Frances only rubbed her eyes and moaned, and I shook my head. “Girls, I’ve brought you in because I do not have happy news for you.”

  Flora only rolled her eyes, but Frances sat on the edge of her own bed, relishing the drama.

  Grace looked up at me, always the most level-headed of the three of them. “What is it, mama?”

  “I just got word that Gilbert had a fever in India,” I said, looking around at them, then at my hands. “I’m afraid he is dead.”

  Grace’s first response was shock. “Are you sure, mama?” she whispered.

  I kissed her forehead and drew her to me. “Yes, darling, I’m sure.”

  For a minute, all three of them were shocked enough to be silent. But Grace was the only one of my daughters who was truly a quiet girl, so I knew that the silence would not last.

  Flora was awake almost immediately, sitting straight and wide-eyed next to Frances. “So we will all be paupers, then? I suppose that means that no gentlemen will want us.”

  At times, Flora seemed just as dramatic as her twin. “Nonsense,” I said. “Do you understand that I have been earning and putting aside money for many years now? We will none of us be paupers.”