Romance
Read Chapter One of The Secret Wedding (continued):
After that, he'd given it not a thought. Until now.
Someone in Yorkshire was inquiring about Jack Hill.
There couldn't be any connection, but an icy worm was creeping down his back, and he'd learned to pay heed to it.
What if the letter had been a lie, and his bride still lived?
He didn't want to be married. Growing up in a modest manor house bustling with infants cured a man of that, and one advantage of having seven healthy brothers was that his father had never pressed him on the matter.
Until now — not to secure the line, but to ensure the family's fortunes by hooking wealth through marriage.
Christian knew his father wasn't motivated only by money. When the ear came to Town for Parliament, he shook his head over his son's "solitary state" — struth, did he not understand barracks life? — and lack of wifely comforts. Christian didn't think his father could be as naïve as to assume him celibate, so he assumed he meant a well-managed household. And children.
Christian shuddered.
His father, both his parents, were dear souls and a loving couple. So much so that they produced children constantly. After him had come Mary, Sarah, Tom, Margaret, Anne, Elizabeth, and Kit. Then the easily remembered Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and finally, he hoped, Benjamin. Surely his mother must be past childbearing age now.
He had no memory of his solitary reign as eldest, but a clear one of a new baby every couple of years, demanding attention and filling the household fuller and fuller. No wonder he'd been keen to escape when the opportunity presented.
He'd been ten, and Lisa was squalling in her cradle when his father had been approached by the guardians of the young Duke of Ithorne, one of whom had been Christian's uncle. Thorn's father had died before he was born, so he'd been born a duke and an only child. His guardians had belatedly realized he needed a companion of his own age, and Christian had been the lucky choice.
He remembered his parents' tears, but they'd seen the value of the opportunity. With boyhood callousness, Christian had felt nothing but the thrill of adventure. He'd traveled to Ithorne Castle to become the young Duke's foster brother with all the space anyone could want, and everything else as well — horses, boats, weapons, travel.
Thorn.
He was in Town at the moment, and his level head could be useful. Christian would stroll around for a visit tomorrow and talk this over. Delahew's query had to be some wild coincidence. His long-forgotten bride couldn't be stirring from the grave.
"Hill, m'man!" Someone poked him hard. "Wake up."
"Not asleep, and it Grandiston."
"Well, I beg your pardon, your damned grandstandandiston!"
Struth, it was Pauley and he was a fighting drunk.
"No offense, Pauley. As you say, half asleep and with weird dreams. Dreamt I was married."
The whole coach rocked with the cries of alarm, and as it pulled to a stop, the bunch of young bachelors tumbled out laughing to stagger off to their beds."
 |
|
Read more...