The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) Read online

  “Not laws, as such,” Max admitted. “But think about it—she already has more than half the ton believing that the girls’ mother was her wholly imaginary half sister Griselda—Griselda, I ask you!—and their father was an Italian marchese called Chancealotto.”

  “I heard he was Venetian,” Freddy said.

  Max threw up his hands. “You see? Venetian. The whole of the ton knows it.”

  Freddy shrugged. “Nothing people love more than a hushed-up scandal.”

  “But it wasn’t a hushed-up scandal,” Max said, exasperated. “It wasn’t any kind of scandal at all! Her mother never ran off with an Austrian nobleman or gave birth to another daughter who grew up to marry any blasted Venetian marchese—she died! It’s all a ridiculous tale my aunt invented.”

  There was a long silence. Freddy sipped his wine. Max stared into the fire, brooding, no doubt on his father-in-law, the late and imaginary marchese di Chancealotto. Must be hard for an honorable fellow like Max, having to accept—at least in public—imaginary in-laws. And he was getting married in the morning. That was a worse fate than having to listen to a few horror stories.

  “All right, I’ll attend the literary society,” Freddy said in a soothing tone. “But I warn you, I’m not going to read any of those dratted books.”

  “No, that’s all right, it’s not the kind of literary society where people read—they have the stories read to them. So I’d be grateful if you’d just keep an eye on Aunt Bea.” He glanced at Freddy. “And stop her if she starts telling any more outrageous tales.”

  Freddy choked on his wine again. “Me? You think I could stop her from spreading outrageous stories? You couldn’t, so what makes you think I could? She still treats me like a schoolboy!”

  “I know, but I’d feel better if you were there, at least. And you could always try to stop her.”

  Yes, and Freddy could always try to fly. But he didn’t say so. Max was his oldest and best friend. Max was also the reason Freddy was now independently wealthy. If it hadn’t been for Max and his trading company, Freddy would still be eking out a living on the inheritance he’d received from his aunt—or worse, dependent on his father—and that didn’t bear thinking about.

  Max had never really asked him for anything.

  Freddy drained his glass, his sixth for the night, and in a moment of vainglory said, “Very well, I’ll try. And I’ll attend the blasted literary society and keep an eye on the girls for you and Abby, and I’ll look out for Flynn, if he ever arrives.” Flynn was the other reason Freddy was now a rich man. He probably owed Flynn a few favors too.

  “Good man,” Max said. “I’m probably worrying about nothing. I’m sure you’ll have a delightful time with Aunt Bea and the girls. There’s no one I’d rather trust them to.”

  “You’re the only person in the world who’d trust me with a bunch of unmarried girls.”

  “I know you better than most people. Now, don’t look so glum. Abby and I will only be gone for a month or so, and they’ll be no trouble, I’m sure.”

  • • •

  China, eight months earlier

  She breasted the hill and stopped, catching her breath at the sight of the line of brilliant blue that shimmered along the horizon. The sea. She took a deep breath, breathing in the clean, fresh salt tang of it, the taste of freedom. . . .

  Then her heart started to thump as she saw in a dip between the hills three slender vertical lines silhouetted against the blue. Tall masts. Which meant a European ship.

  Pray it was English. It should not matter, as long as it took her away from this place where she would always be foreign, unwelcome, no matter that she’d lived all her life here and knew no other place. But she was English, and an English captain would understand and, pray God, an English ship would take her home. To what, she did not know—she had no living relatives that she knew of—but first things first.

  She started to run, then stumbled to a ragged halt. She was hot, filthy, dusty and sweaty from the endless walk. She’d lost track of how many days she’d been walking, hiding from others, sleeping under bushes and foraging for whatever food she could find along the way. She could not approach the captain of a European ship looking like a filthy beggar.

  She scanned her surrounds and spied a ragged line of green meandering across the dusty brown landscape. A stream. Just what she needed.

  In the stream she washed, head to toe, immersing her body, fully clothed, in the water, then stripping to the bare minimum for modesty; it would not do to be caught naked in the open. She scrubbed as best she could without soap, using sand on her skin and beating her wet clothing on the rocks, as the women back home did.

  No, not home; the mission would never be home again. England was home, no matter that she had no memory of it. It was where she’d been born.

  She rinsed, scrubbed and rerinsed until her skin and scalp tingled and she felt clean again. She combed out her hair in the sun, using her fingers to ease out any tangles. She braided it neatly and wound it around her crown in a damp coronet, tucking the ends in and fastening them with her last two pins. The heat of the sun ensured her clothing dried quickly, wrinkled, but clean looking, at least.

  She wished she had a proper English dress, but she’d worn her simple black Chinese peasant tunic and pants to the market so she wouldn’t stand out as foreign, and everything else had been destroyed when the mission was burned. She had no other clothes, no other possessions at all, only her mother’s locket on its thin gold chain. She never took it off.

  She did a quick check that she was as neat as possible, put on her hat and set out toward the three black masts silhouetted against the strip of shimmering blue.

  Pray that the ship was English.

  A small port, with a straggle of buildings scattered around it. In her faded black tunic and pants and her conical straw hat she drew no notice from the coolies busily loading bundles and boxes and rolls of fabric onto smaller boats and ferrying them out to the big ship that floated serenely at anchor a few hundred yards from shore.

  She squinted against the glare of the sun on sea to read the name. Liverpool Lass. English. Thank God. Tears of relief pricked at her eyelids. She blinked them back.

  She searched among the swarming coolies for an English face and found a tall young seaman with ginger hair supervising the loading of a boat, checking items off on a list and rapping out orders in a mix of pidgin English and bad Chinese.

  She approached him quietly and, when he had a moment, said in English, “Excuse me, sir, could I speak to the captain, please?”

  “He’s bus—” The young seaman stopped and looked up. “What did you say?”

  She repeated the request.

  His jaw dropped. He stared at her in disbelief for a moment, taking in her faded coolie clothes and hat. “You can’t be English!” He pulled off her hat. “And what the hell—you’re a girl?”

  • • •

  She couldn’t move. The weight pressed her down, crushing the breath from her lungs. The heat, the sweat, the stench sickened her. She struggled to resist, to block out the words echoing insidiously in her ear—

  Damaris jerked upright, gasping for breath, fighting desperately to get free . . . and encountered nothing but cold air and tangled bedclothes. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to catch her breath—she was panting as if she’d run a mile—and waiting for her pounding heart to slow to normal. Her body was slicked with sweat. It chilled slowly in the cold predawn air.

  The dream again. The third time in as many days. It was getting worse.

  She sat in her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest and rocking slightly. The weight of the dream hung over her. The weight of memory.

  She was not that girl, she told herself. Not anymore. She’d left Damaris Tait behind; she was Damaris Chance now.

  It was supposed
to be a fresh chance, Abby had said; a chance for a new life for them all. And it was true. Mostly.

  But the dreams, the memories stayed with her, returning in the night, vivid, intense and horribly real. Even now, the acid bile of panic—and shame—scalded her throat.

  She took a sip of water from the glass by the bed. Nothing would wash away those memories; the dreams would keep them fresh.

  She rocked gently in the chill gray dawn, contemplating her options. There weren’t many. She knew what was stirring up the dreams.

  She couldn’t go on. She had to stop it now, before it went any further. The sooner the better.

  She broke it to Jane after luncheon when they were getting ready for a drive in the park.

  “Not make your come-out?” Jane dropped the pelisse she was about to put on and stared at her in shock. “But why? It’s what we always dreamed of.”

  “You dreamed, Jane, not me.” Damaris picked up the pelisse and handed it to Jane. “Now get dressed, Mr. Monkton-Coombes will be here any minute.”

  Jane didn’t move. “But why would you not want to make your come-out, Damaris? It’ll be such fun—new dresses and dances and balls and routs and—”

  Damaris shook her head. “I can’t do it, Jane. I just can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” asked Daisy as she entered the bedchamber. She was carrying a half-finished pelisse. “Try this on before you go out, will you, Damaris? I want to make sure the sleeves are right before I finish it off.”

  Damaris removed her warm winter pelisse and slipped on the almost completed garment. Made in Daisy’s distinctive mix of old and new fabrics, it was light, intended for spring or summer wear.

  “Oh, it’s lovely, Daisy,” Damaris exclaimed. She touched the contrasting brocade collar and cuffs, currently only pinned on. “These are from one of Lady Beatrice’s old gowns, aren’t they? I remember the embroidered birds, so pretty and still looking so fresh—the colors are so clear and bright. And the contrast of the different fabrics—I would never have thought to put these together but it’s perfect. You have such an eye.” She stood before the mirror, admiring the elegant fall of the pelisse, while Daisy frowned in concentration and repinned one of the cuffs.

  “It’s beautiful, all right,” Jane said, “and you’re very clever, Daisy. But it’s going to be wasted on Damaris.”

  “Hmmph?” Daisy looked up, frowning, her mouth full of pins.

  “She says she’s not going to make her come-out.”

  “Hmm-mmph?” Daisy didn’t take the pins from her mouth but let her eyebrows do the talking.

  “I’m sorry,” Damaris said. “I just can’t bear the thought of it.”

  “Bear the thought of what?” Jane asked. “A come-out is fun.”

  Daisy gave Damaris a long, considering look, then shrugged and returned to her pinning.

  “I’m sorry to have disappointed you both.” Damaris hated letting people down. It was just . . . she couldn’t do it. The dread had been growing, day by day, and this morning, when she woke with the familiar feeling of sick apprehension, she knew she had to say something. It was better to let everyone know now, several months before the season started. Surely.

  “But why? I still don’t understand,” Jane persisted. “Is it because of the brothel? Because you were only there a few days longer than me, not quite a week, and—”

  “It’s not the brothel,” Damaris said. She hadn’t told anyone what had happened before the brothel, not even her sisters. And she never would.

  “I should say not,” Jane said. “It wasn’t our fault, and I refuse to let my life be less because of what that evil man tried to do to us. And so should you.”

  “It’s not because of the brothel.” The pinning complete, Damaris carefully eased off the pelisse and handed it to Daisy, then shrugged herself into her winter one again.

  “The false name then?” Jane persisted. “I know your parents were missionaries—”

  “My father was. And no, it’s not the false name—though heaven knows how Lady Beatrice is going to explain—”

  “Explain what?” The old lady stood in the doorway. “Are you gels ready? Featherby tells me Freddy Monkton-Coombes is downstairs awaiting our pleasure, and while I approve of making a gentleman wait, who knows what the weather will do? Come along now.” She flapped a pair of lilac kid gloves at them. “You can explain on the way. Daisy dear, give me your arm, would you? These dratted stairs.”

  Daisy hurried to take the old lady’s arm. Lady Beatrice was still a little weak and unsteady on her feet after months, if not years, of being ill, bedridden and neglected. Since Abby had discovered her, and the four girls had moved in to become Lady Beatrice’s “nieces,” the old lady had made a gallant recovery, but stairs were still her bugbear. She could walk down them with assistance, but climbing them required the strong arms of William, their footman.

  “Now, what were you gels saying?”

  “It’s Damaris,” Jane told her. “She says she doesn’t want to make her come-out.”

  “What’s that? Doesn’t want her season, you say?” She swiveled around on the stairs and gave Damaris a sharp glance. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, Lady Beatrice, and I’m sorry, but I won’t change my m—”

  “It’s because of the brothel, I know,” Jane said. “Only—”

  “It’s not because of the brothel,” Damaris said in a low voice, glancing downstairs. “And keep your voice down, please. I don’t want . . . anyone to hear.” Below them in the hall, the Honorable Frederick Monkton-Coombes paced restlessly, long, loose-limbed strides in gleaming high boots. Dressed in a many-caped coat of superfine merino, and holding a curly brimmed beaver hat in his long fingers, he was the epitome of masculine elegance.

  He looked up and met Damaris’s gaze. She forced herself to look away.

  “Then why—”

  “Hush, Jane! Damaris is right—this is not something to be discussed on the stairs,” Lady Beatrice instructed. “Freddy, my dear boy, how very punctual you are.”

  “Punctual?” He glanced at the clock in the hall. “But it’s—”

  “We won’t be long. The girls and I need a moment’s privacy.” She gave him an enigmatic look. “A female thing, you understand. Featherby, fetch a pot of coffee and some muffins for Mr. Monkton-Coombes.”

  “No, really, I—”

  “Nonsense, I know how much you love your muffins and Cook has made a fresh batch especially. We won’t be long,” Lady Beatrice declared and swept the girls into a small sitting room farther down the hall. As the door closed behind her she said, “The dear boy is looking after us quite splendidly while Max and Abby are on their honeymoon, isn’t he? Normally he avoids respectable gels like the plague.”

  Daisy snorted. Jane giggled and after a moment Damaris joined in.

  “What has cast you gels into whoops, now?” Lady Beatrice demanded.

  “Respectable girls?” Jane spluttered. “Two escapees from a brothel—three if you count Daisy—”

  “’Course you count me. I grew up in one, din’t I?”

  “And we’re all living under a false name, pretending to be your nieces,” Damaris added.

  “Stop that nonsense at once!” the old lady snapped. “I don’t want to hear any more about that dratted brothel! You are respectable gels—no matter what happened in the past. You’re my nieces and if I say you’re respectable, you are!”

  “And if you say we’re your nieces, we are,” Jane added mischievously.

  “Exactly.” Lady Beatrice didn’t believe in irony. “And when your sister married my nephew that made everything legal, so that’s the end of it.”

  It was nothing of the sort, not when Damaris and Daisy were no relation to Abby and Jane, but none of them wanted to argue.

  The old lady raised her lorgnette and turned it on Damaris. “Now,
m’gel, what’s all this about you not making your come-out with Jane in the spring?”

  Damaris bit her lip. “It’s true. I . . . I don’t want to do it.”

  Jane said, “But Daisy’s already designed a whole coming-out wardrobe—”

  “Leave me out of this,” Daisy said bluntly. “I won’t ask Damaris to do nuffin’ she doesn’t want to.”

  “Anything,” Lady Beatrice, Jane and Damaris corrected automatically.

  Damaris gave Daisy a grateful smile.

  “But we’ve had it all planned out for ages,” Jane said unhappily.

  “Only a month or two,” Damaris said. “Before that we never even had a chance of a season. The height of our ambition then was for you and Abby to attend a public ball in Bath.” Jane still looked unhappy, so she added, “And the start of the season is still months away, so there’s plenty of time to adjust our plans.”

  There was a short silence. Damaris was uncomfortably aware of the old lady’s shrewd gaze on her. “Think of the money you’ll save, with only one of us.” A London season was fearfully expensive, she knew.

  Lady Beatrice snorted. “It’s my money and I’ll spend it how I like.” Technically it was her nephew’s money, but they all knew Max, Lord Davenham, would deny his aunt nothing.

  Jane said sadly, “It won’t be half as much fun if we don’t have our season together. I won’t know anyone.”

  “Of course you will,” said Damaris in a bracing tone. “What about all those people who come to the literary society?”

  “Oh, the literary society,” Jane said. “They’re all old.”

  Lady Beatrice cleared her throat and leveled her lorgnette at Jane, who blushed and said hurriedly, “I mean, of course, they’re all charming and quite delightful, but it’s not like having your sister with you, is it?”

  Damaris didn’t bother pointing out that Jane would have Abby with her, and Abby was a real sister, not a pretend one. Abby was married, currently away on her honeymoon, but she’d be back in time for the season. But Jane had a point; having your married sister there wouldn’t be the same as two unmarried girls entering the marriage mart together.