An unsuitable alliance, p.1
An Unsuitable Alliance, page 1
An Unsuitable Alliance
Dutiful Wives ~ Book 2
Beverley Oakley
Copyright © 2022 by Beverley Oakley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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
What’s Next?
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About the Author
Chapter 1
It was not the name by which she knew him. Since inheriting the title, he’d won celebrity as a poet and become the darling of the gossip columnists. Adelaide’s mother couldn’t keep those snippets of the real world from her, though she tried.
James. Fifth Viscount Dewhurst. Adelaide closed her eyes against the afternoon sun and tried to block her last memory of him: desperate, pleading. Not the James she knew – the irrepressible charmer who knew no woman could resist him, least of all Adelaide.
Tristan must have misinterpreted her shocked silence for memory failure, for he squeezed her hand and repeated, ‘Lord Dewhurst. I’m talking about my old friend, James.’ Very gently he added, ‘He and his wife were very good to you, if you remember.’
If you remember…
Her husband’s reference to her previous life was almost more painful than the reference to James, though panic quickly succeeded shock at his next remark.
‘James is coming to visit us? Here?’ She gripped Tristan’s arm tighter and concentrated on the path. One foot in front of the other, head down so she didn’t stumble on the stones that bordered the hydrangeas from the neat gravel walkway. Tristan continued to talk in the measured, comforting tone he used when her equilibrium was unsettled. In the past he’d sought her reassurances that she was comfortable with his plans; that there was nothing he’d neglected to facilitate her comfort. Always Tristan put Adelaide’s feelings first.
Not today.
Tristan was too excited at the prospect of seeing his boyhood friend to recognise her horror, assuming Adelaide would be delighted to play hostess since she’d foolishly voiced the desire just last week to entertain more often.
She remained silent as she walked at his side, contemplating her own strategy if this visit was a fait accompli. She just needed to know when, so she could prepare.
‘At the end of the week!’ She repeated Tristan’s calmly delivered answer to her question in the tone Black Jack, the South American parrot she’d owned in Vienna, used to mimic the death throes of a man at the end of the gallows. A good thing her husband considered Adelaide an invalid, that he’d misconstrue the flare in her eyes, the gasp as she pressed against the pain in her side – her heart?
‘Adelaide, you are discomposed. Perhaps I should not have invited James without consulting you, but I thought since…’ Concern clouded his kind blue eyes as he trailed off.
‘He was very good to me.’ She whispered the old litany.
It’s what Tristan liked to believe.
‘He was. Shall we go back to the house?’ He stooped to cup her face in his hands, as tender with her as if she were another of his rare hothouse blooms. As if she might wilt at the suggestion of anything beyond the ordinary, the mind- numbingly mundane.
And yet today she more than wilted as she stumbled on the smooth, carefully raked gravel path. Her heart was in danger of tearing in half. James. Here, at Deer Park …?
She pushed away the fear, straightening of her own accord. Adelaide could be a good deal stronger than Tristan believed her. Than her mother painted her.
‘So silly of me,’ she murmured, smiling as she tucked her hand once more into the crook of her husband’s arm, firming her step, indicating with a nod that they continue their usual morning walk. Minutely managed and predictable. Around the path that bordered the maze, over the little bridge and across the lawn, skirting the deer park beyond the iron gated border to the dower house where her mother would be waiting. Keeping up the pretence of recovery in response to his troubled gaze, she added, ‘Really, I’m perfectly fine.’
How many times had she made similar reassurances? Of course, she hadn’t been fine when Tristan had made her mistress of Deer Park three years before; a marriage offer she’d only accepted because she believed she’d be dead of grief within the twelvemonth. And if not dead, then at least free of her mother. Neither had happened.
‘So James has left Milan.’ She forced herself to say his name. It came out as a faint thread of sound.
James. He needed to stay far across sea and land if she were to have any peace in this life.
‘James’s father died three months ago so of course he must return from the Continent and take up his responsibilities at Dingley Hall.’ Tristan stopped and put his hands on her shoulders to study her more closely. ‘Darling, you’re very pale. Perhaps we should call Dr Stanhope—’
‘No!’ She truncated the hysteria in her response, adding with commendable calm, ‘Please, let us carry on.’
Tristan was clearly not convinced by her assurances, but he returned to his commentary as they walked sedately through Deer Park’s beautiful gardens. ‘James’s standing has changed with his father’s death, and now that his book has become a sensation so have his fortunes. He’ll be able to put to rights all that his father almost destroyed through his love of gaming.’ He gave a half laugh. ‘I’m told my old friend is nearly as famous as those fellows up in the Lakes. I daresay I should read The Maid of Milan before he arrives. Perhaps you’d enjoy it, Addy.’
The Maid of Milan. Dear God! An image of herself and James, naked limbs entwined upon a vast expanse of white linen tablecloth in the Villa Cosi after the guests had gone, seared her brain.
No, she was getting beyond herself. James had continued living in Milan with Hortense, the wife he despised. Of course there’d have been other women after Adelaide had been dragged, screaming, from James’s arms. Adelaide could not be James’s Maid of Milan. Not after the terrible finale to their affair. In three years Adelaide had heard nothing from him. Nothing, except that one terrible, terrible letter …
She nodded weakly, forcing herself back to the here and now, noticing Tristan’s limp was more pronounced than usual. He hated his disability while embracing Adelaide’s weakness. She clenched her gloved hands, breathing away the panic, about to quiz him on his health when he forestalled her, the normal resolve of his firm mouth sweetened by reminiscence. ‘I haven’t seen James since his marriage to Hortense, and they were newlyweds, just like Cassandra and I.’
Trying to calm her breathing, Adelaide studied her husband’s strong, handsome profile for some sign that he was testing her. The fear of losing Tristan’s high regard was always with her now. How much easier it had been when she’d felt only indifference towards her husband.
But he was not testing her. Of course not, for he believed Adelaide as pure as the driven snow and as delicate as a porcelain vase. Why would he question her when she’d been so very careful with the truth?
Her mother had seen to that.
But this was not about her, she could see that as she studied the uncharacteristic excitement that roiled in his eyes and the agitation with which he mused upon the past.
‘The happy foursome,’ Adelaide said, smiling weakly, recalling Tristan’s tales of the convivial friendship shared by Tristan and James, and the neighbouring young women they’d married: Tristan’s first wife, Cassandra, his childhood sweetheart, who’d died five years before he’d married Adelaide, and James’s first wife, Hortense, Tristan’s cousin, who’d died three years ago.
For so long Adelaide had felt no jealousy and little curiosity. Lord, she’d felt almost nothing for two years.
The fact that James and Tristan had been boyhood friends had seemed of no importance when she and her mother had arrived at Deer Park for what was to be a one- week stay while they looked for other lodgings. Hortense had asked the favour of her cousin Tristan on behalf of Adelaide’s mother, Hortense’s mentor. Naturally Hortense wanted Adelaide as far away as possible from James.
An irony, then, that Adelaide had married Tristan.
Hortense must have railed at that.
Now James was coming and Adelaide had no idea where his loyalties lay.
‘Do you miss Cassandra? Am I anything like her?’ Swallowing down her anxiety, she slanted an enquiring look up at him. He’d given her an avenue to change the subject.
Tristan raked his hand through his buff-coloured curls, fas
She was moved by the thickening of his voice. ‘Cassandra has her place in my heart but, Addy, I swear, until I met you I knew nothing about true love.’
She could not meet his eye and hoped he’d not misinterpret her lack of response. In the early days of their marriage she’d not troubled to hide her disinclination for his attentions, but now, the truth was she was too choked by emotion to know what to say.
She continued to walk, silent, gaze focused on the middle distance, her expression betraying nothing. Nothing of the terror that James’s visit would disrupt the peace she’d finally found in her life, or of her admiration of her husband’s fine character, his handsome looks, his noble aspirations which to her surprise, she who was so shallow, was beginning to share. Tristan had presence though he was not one to worry about his appearance beyond ensuring he was in line with fashionable trends. He was comfortable in his own skin, decided in his views.
Determined as to what was morally correct.
‘You seem preoccupied, Addy. I shouldn’t have mentioned your departure from …’
He trailed off and Adelaide waited, her breath coming faster, fear replaced inexplicably by the desire for him to touch upon the forbidden topic. Suddenly she felt infused with the strength to tackle the lie her mother had concocted to explain Adelaide’s invalidism. Perhaps it was the danger posed by James’s return that crystallised how much more Tristan deserved than Adelaide had given him.
Not that she could ever give Tristan the whole truth – his love for her would never survive that – but she could at least begin to assert herself. Transcend the lie her mother had fabricated that had made Adelaide acceptable to Tristan but which had shackled her to a life of deception.
Tristan left his sentence unfinished as he slid his gaze across to her mother coming across the bridge to fetch her.
She fought to steady her voice. ‘I’m glad you’re so happy, Tristan.’
‘More than I can say. James and Hortense were very fond of you, you know. But you seem anxious.’ The concern in his blue eyes was genuine. How many women were lucky enough to be granted a second chance with a man of Tristan’s calibre? Not only had he fallen immediately in love with her, but his fortune – which her mother had found so irresistible – came with an unexpected title, to boot. Not that any of that had mattered back when Adelaide had wished for death rather than marriage.
‘A slight megrim, that’s all.’ The familiar lie tripped off her tongue. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had a megrim. Her robust body continued to betray her, yet the pretence of delicacy was ingrained in her.
The flare of disappointment that clouded Tristan’s expression reminded her it was Thursday.
‘I’m sure it’ll be quite gone by this evening,’ she reassured him, bolstering her own smile while a flare of feeling shot through her heart. Thursdays were becoming increasingly fraught as she welcomed her husband to her bedchamber for the weekly duty visit. In the first two years of marriage that’s all it had been; a duty as she lay in the dark and let Tristan do to her what a husband did. She didn’t even think of James, for it would have sent her mad – more than she already was – to dwell on what she’d lost, knowing she’d never feel love and passion in her life again.
She slid another glance up at Tristan and was surprised at the little thrill she felt to see how affected he was by her reassurance she would be well enough for him to bed her. He wanted her, desired her.
And she was starting to desire him. No, she very definitely did desire him.
Maybe she could respond tonight, though he must never discover her true nature. Her lustful impulses would only shock him and threaten the security for which she had traded everything else in her life. It was what her mother always said, though lately Adelaide’s feelings for her husband were giving her the strength to challenge her mother’s strictures. Surely Tristan could only be delighted at some spark of feeling from her?
His soft kiss upon her brow made her restless for more. Tonight she would meet Tristan halfway. Her mother need never know.
‘Mrs Henley is here,’ he whispered, giving her shoulders a squeeze and smiling a guileless smile, for how could he know how dangerously he had tilted her world by his invitation to a man she’d hoped never to see again? ‘And I must go, for I have an important paper to write.’
She gripped his wrist to stay him. ‘You take your responsibilities as the local MP seriously, Tristan.’ She bit her lip, wanting to convey something of what she felt when the avenues open to her were so limited. ‘I’m proud of you.’ He looked taken aback, as well he might. Adelaide had not voiced such a sentiment, before. She tilted her head, warming to her theme: her admiration for her worthy husband. ‘You are firm in your convictions, even when all is lost.’
Smiling at his unconcealed amazement, she released his wrist as she prepared to meet her mother. She wanted Tristan to know how much she’d started to take an interest in the events which concerned him, that she was preoccupied with more than her own supposed frailty. She might wait a little, though, to tell him she’d begun reading, with growing interest, the pamphlets and news-sheets he discarded. Her mother declared he’d dislike Adelaide voicing strong opinions, and as much as Adelaide believed her mother mistaken, she had the power to make Adelaide’s life a misery if she overreached herself. ‘Public sentiment is that the ringleaders of this latest agitation should hang. You preach moderation, Tristan, and I would not hang them, either, but those in power are not so tolerant – are they?’
‘Tolerant?’ He seemed to look at her with new interest. ‘I should like to hear your views, Addy. The law believes that men who seek to overturn society should definitely hang.’
Adelaide smiled her first easy smile. ‘I care more than you think. And I follow the issues that interest you, though we might not have discussed politics together in the past. I’m starting to feel well again, Tristan.’ A glorious inner glow was permeating her body, infusing her with the strength and moral courage needed to acknowledge the past sufficiently to embrace the future. With Tristan by her side, it could be a good one. She took his hand, bringing it to her lips. ‘You ask me my views on what is tolerant? I believe nothing is black and white. When people are judged they should be judged on what is in their hearts as much as by their deeds, for sometimes unintended consequences are the result of passionate beliefs … or naiveté.’ She brought it back to the men standing trial though she could have been speaking of herself. ‘Men who cannot feed their families have no choice but to resort to desperate acts.’
There was appraisal in his eyes, and she wished her mother wasn’t nearly upon them. ‘Perhaps this evening you might expand your views, Addy. I’m a lucky man to have married a woman whose intelligence matches her beauty.’
‘James, now Lord Dewhurt, is coming to stay.’ Adelaide made sure she said the words while Tristan was still within hearing in as conversational a manner as possible.
Adelaide was almost amused by the horror on her mother’s face and the stricken look she sent Tristan’s retreating back before she gripped Adelaide’s arm and hurried her down the path towards the dower house, well out of earshot. They passed the lychgate and continued down the drive. This was no conversation to be had presiding over the seed cake that awaited them in her little drawing room where they could be overheard by servants.
‘Dear God, Adelaide, when?’
The only time Adelaide’s ennui was unfeigned in her mother’s presence was in response to her mother’s overreaction. She shrugged as if the matter were of little concern to her. ‘The end of the week, I think Tristan said.’
