An Uncommon Courtship Read online

  Silence still reigned as they rolled down the drive. She pressed her head to the window and watched the already blurry house grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind a small rise in the drive.

  She’d never loved that house. More than one afternoon had been spent with her nose in a book so she could escape to somewhere else, anywhere else. The sadness that crept in as they turned onto the main road surprised her. She might never have cared for Moonacre Park, but it was all she knew. And it wasn’t home anymore.

  So what was?

  Chapter 3

  He was married.

  It was difficult to move beyond the undeniable fact that the rest of his life would now include the woman sitting across from him.

  From the time Trent was old enough to realize the freedom granted to second sons, he’d known that his eventual marriage would be one of the most significant decisions he ever made. Without giving it any conscious thought or particular care, an expectation had developed. He’d assumed it would be a happy occasion, filled with friends and family thankful for an excuse to gather together in the middle of the year. He’d anticipated loving his bride and sharing small smiles fraught with hidden meanings, like he’d seen his sisters exchange with their husbands.

  Instead he had a wife who hadn’t met his gaze once, not even during the ceremony. She’d spoken her vows to his cravat, so he hoped she wouldn’t mind the fact that he didn’t wear the same one every day.

  It was his own joke, formed only in his head, but he couldn’t resist the smile it inspired.

  She didn’t smile back, but that could have had something to do with the fact that her attention had drifted all the way down to his toes. Did that mean she would soon circle back around to the top and finally look him in the face?

  “I hope you don’t mind leaving a bit early. I thought we might be more comfortable in our own home.”

  “Our home?” Lady Adelaide blinked at him, or at least her gaze was directed in his general vicinity when her thick black lashes fluttered up and down over her crystal blue eyes.

  The owlish blinks reminded him that her mother had insisted she not wear her spectacles during the wedding. He’d retrieved them from her maid, intending to give them to her at the breakfast, but she’d been pulled away as soon as they walked in the doors and he hadn’t been near her since. Hopefully the lenses would make a nice peace offering now, a tiny gesture to set the tone he wanted for the marriage.

  It was the one they were both stuck with, after all.

  He pulled the spectacles from his pocket and extended them across the carriage. “Here. I obtained them from your maid earlier today.”

  “Thank you.” She slid the frames onto her nose and looked him in the eye for the first time since that disastrous night in the old stone keep. “Isn’t London a bit far to travel in one day?”

  “I’ve arranged for fresh horses halfway along the route. If we push hard, we can make it.” Trent shifted in his seat, wondering not for the first time if he’d made the right decision.

  She nodded. “I’m sure we can. Perhaps one of the inns along the way will pack us a meal we can bring with us.”

  It was Trent’s turn to blink. He’d expected a little bit of resistance, had even been reconsidering his options on places to stay the night. Now he couldn’t help but wonder if her ready acceptance of his pushing to London meant she was in agreement with his thinking or that she expected him to be a harsh husband. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before now that she might be just as wary of this marriage as he was? “I think we can take the time to eat properly.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry I misunderstood, Lord Trent.” She blinked again and her gaze fell once more to his toes.

  If this was an indication of how the rest of their lives was going to be, it was a sad sign indeed. With a sigh, Trent switched to her side of the carriage. Perhaps they could start over and find better footing before they made it to London.

  Sitting shoulder to shoulder with her unsettled his insides, though. He couldn’t recall ever sitting alone in the same carriage as a woman he wasn’t related to, much less in the same seat. The sensation was far from unpleasant. He cleared his throat and reached for her hand. “I believe it would be proper for you to call me Trent, as my family does.”

  “If that is what you wish.”

  The silence pressed in as Trent waited for her to reciprocate the offer of a less formal name. When it didn’t come he decided to press for it. “May I call you Adelaide?”

  She turned and blinked those confused owlish eyes again. “Of course.”

  The carriage rolled easily along, but the conversation was mired in the deepest mud he had ever encountered. They’d found things to talk about when the sun had been high in the sky, beating down on them as they tried to find a way out through the vines. It was only as the moon had risen, and its silvery glow had sealed their fate, that the conversation had withered. Three weeks apart in anticipation of the wedding hadn’t done anything to revitalize it.

  The miles that had separated them while growing up seemed shorter than the distance between them in this carriage.

  “I went down to the creek you mentioned. The one by the sheep fields that curves around and almost makes an island.” When they’d talked about their favorite places to walk in the area, Adelaide had mentioned how she liked to go there and read because no one else ever disturbed the natural beauty.

  “Did you take a book with you and sit in the gnarled tree?” She shifted her shoulders until she faced him more fully.

  He grinned and turned his body to face hers as well. “I’m afraid I was a little too big for your reading nook. I had to sit on the ground and lean against it.”

  “Oh.”

  And the topic of the almost island was over as soon as it had begun. Adelaide turned back to the window, seemingly unperturbed by the lack of conversation and the high tension. It made Trent wonder what she was expecting of this union. If it wasn’t interaction with him, what was it? Social connections? Managing the house?

  Trent bit back a groan. His house. He’d been so focused on getting away from the prying eyes, so desperate to return to what was familiar, that he hadn’t thought through all the ramifications of taking her home to London. “I should probably warn you.”

  She turned from the window, eyebrows lifted until they were completely lost behind the short hairs over her forehead. “About what?”

  “Our home. In London.” Trent smiled through the stabbing pain in his chest at using the word our. “It’s a bit unconventional.”

  That was putting it lightly. He’d inherited half the staff when he moved in after Amelia, a family friend abandoned by her guardian in London, had moved into Hawthorne House as Griffith’s ward. The staff had all but raised Amelia, which meant they acted more like family than servants. It had taken him a few weeks to adjust—and he’d known what he was walking into. How much worse would it be for Adelaide? He should probably try to ease into explaining the bizarre world she was about to walk into. Any woman who knew the extent of the strange way his household functioned would run in the other direction.

  Not that Adelaide had that option anymore.

  A small crease appeared above the center of her glasses as she tilted her head in thought. “You have been living in bachelor quarters, so I would assume things have been done a certain way. I can change that.”

  “No!” The word came out sharper than he’d intended, but Adelaide needed to know that she was not going to dismiss anyone from Trent’s household staff. She could hire more if she wished, but he couldn’t let go of the ones that were there. That would upset Amelia and all the other women in his family by extension.

  “No?” More of that blinking. Did her eyes not get tired?

  He rolled his shoulders and tried to look relaxed as he leaned against the cushioned seat back. “What I mean is that I’d prefer you not let anyone go who is currently employed. They do good work. It’s just that the house is run a bit . . . dif
ferently.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened in surprise. Long black lashes rimmed the large expanse of white with the clear blue lakes in the middle. The pupils were extremely small. That probably wasn’t a good thing. “I’m sure I can adjust.” She shifted farther into the corner of the seat. “Mother woke me quite early this morning. Do you mind if I take a nap?”

  “Of course not.” What else could he say? No, you may not fake sleep just to avoid an awkward conversation? With parents like hers—or rather a mother like hers, because Lord Crampton wasn’t the worst sort of fellow—she had to have encountered more than her fair share of discord. Had she simply taken herself off to bed when things got difficult? Maybe that explained her constant state of mild dishevelment.

  He watched his wife pretend to fall asleep. If he didn’t keep calling her that, he was afraid he’d forget that he was married. Despite the uncomfortable morning, part of him wasn’t convinced it had actually happened. Yet he’d stood before the priest and claimed her as his own, said the vows before God and man, and signed his name to the church register. What more did he need to do to convince himself the deed had been done? That he was now in possession of a wife?

  He frowned. That probably wasn’t the best way to think of her, even in the privacy of his own mind.

  A light snore drifted across the carriage, surprising him enough to pull the beginnings of a smile from the corners of his lips. She’d either been truly tired or she was the most accomplished fake sleeper he’d ever encountered. Not that he’d encountered that many. There wasn’t much call for pretending to sleep at social functions.

  Trent settled into his own corner. He could have moved back across the carriage, but that was what couples did when they were courting. Even if he did not feel married, he needed to start acting like he was. Farce had become truth for Adelaide’s sleep. Maybe the same thing could happen in their marriage.

  Chapter 4

  The race to London—for it could be called little else—left Adelaide confused, with a dull ache over her whole body and stabbing pain in the back of her head. In the last vestiges of sunlight, London was still busy as they pulled into the city, allowing Adelaide to marvel at the hugeness of it all.

  She tried not to gawk as they rolled through, but it was fascinating to a girl who’d never seen anything larger than Birmingham. The columned façade of St. George’s of Hanover Square jutted into the road, just as it did in the Ackerman prints. It was a wonder that Mother hadn’t been willing to wait and have the wedding there.

  It wasn’t as if delaying would have given Lord Trent an opportunity to back out, would it? If that had been an option, Adelaide wished they’d taken it. She’d read enough books to know that loveless arranged marriages, where the parties barely knew each other, were quite plentiful throughout history, particularly amongst the aristocracy. But she was a modern woman, and being foisted off onto a man she barely knew felt wrong. Besides, there was no political gain, no great joining of estates or assets. Nothing but the societal requirement that Lord Trent’s freedom be sacrificed on the altar of her reputation. At least women who had stumbled into truly compromising situations would know the man in question, would have chosen him in some way. All she knew about Lord Trent was he enjoyed reading novels.

  And he had an affinity for punching things. The fact that he trained to be able to punch things better made her a little uneasy. She’d heard the stories before, whispers about the women who wore an extra shawl in the village marketplace even in the summer heat. She tore her gaze from the city scenery outside the window and took in the way his shoulders took up a large portion of the seat and stretched the seams of his well-tailored coat. A shawl might not be enough for Adelaide if he wasn’t the man she hoped he was.

  She snapped her head back around to face the window once more. The houses they now passed were beautiful and well-appointed, with large numbers of windows testifying to the wealth of the area. Was he taking her to Hawthorne House? That would explain his cautioning her about not having much say over the hiring of servants. She’d heard quite a bit about the splendor of the mansion on Grosvenor Square and looked forward to seeing it, but she hoped they weren’t going to live with his family. “Where do you live?”

  “We live in Mount Street.”

  The emphasis he placed on the word we brought a swift blush to Adelaide’s cheeks.

  “And here we are.” Trent smiled as the carriage slowed.

  Adelaide pressed her face to the window, anxious to see her new home in spite of the sudden trepidation that made her dinner shift uncomfortably in her stomach.

  She’d heard enough about London to recognize that the homes in front of her were modest by aristocracy standards but were certainly better than many others in Town. Bay windows curved out from the light brown building, adding a sense of division to the attached houses. They were too small to house ballrooms, which suited her nicely. A small dinner party would be easy enough to handle, but were the drawing rooms in this house large enough to hold more sizeable gatherings?

  “Do you host things?” She winced at the blurted question. Her tongue was really going to have to learn to phrase things better before letting them out.

  “As a bachelor? I haven’t hosted anything, aside from the occasional family meal.”

  He opened the door himself and jumped from the coach, leaving Adelaide to fret over whether or not that meant he expected her to arrange a lot of social gatherings now. Would a younger son have reason to host such things? She took the hand Trent extended back into the carriage and stepped down to the pavement, willing her shaky legs to hold her steady.

  The door in front of them swung open to reveal a tall man with a large pointed nose and a shockingly bald head. Light from nearby candles actually reflected off of the man’s scalp. Did he polish it?

  “Welcome home, my lord.”

  “Good evening, Fenton. Is the household assembled?” Trent reached back for Adelaide’s hand and pulled her arm through his before escorting her into the house. Escorting might be a misleading word to use. He nearly had to drag her into the house because her feet had somehow become disconnected from her brain and refused to walk next to him without inducement.

  There was a household gathered beyond that door waiting to meet her. What if they didn’t like her? What if they wouldn’t listen to her? What if she didn’t know what to say to them? There was no what if about that one. She hadn’t the first idea what to say to them.

  “Yes, my lord.” The tall man swung his arm wide to indicate the line of servants along the hall wall. The hall wasn’t large, but the staff wasn’t either, leaving plenty of room for all of them to stare openly at the woman beside their master.

  Had Lord Trent sent word? Did they know who she was?

  “Everyone, I would like you to meet Lady Adelaide . . . my wife.” Trent dropped her hand and stepped to the side, throwing his arm out with a flourish, as if he were presenting a prize mare at the market.

  “Oh, how exciting!” A tall, thin woman with nearly nonexistent hips and tight grey curls framing her face stepped forward from the front of the line. The housekeeper, Adelaide assumed. She looked like a friendly woman. An overly friendly woman if the hug Adelaide found herself wrapped in was any indication.

  The embrace was brief and the housekeeper soon stepped back to more fully address Trent. Her fists plopped on her hips, or rather the narrow section of her body where hips could normally be found. The woman looked like a tall, skinny column. “You didn’t drive all the way from Hertfordshire today, did you?”

  Trent ducked his head and shifted his feet like a little boy caught stealing biscuits from the kitchen. “Well, I . . .”

  “Hmmph.” The housekeeper sniffed at Trent before turning her smile back to Adelaide. “I’m Mrs. Harris, the housekeeper. Would you like tea in the drawing room? I’m afraid he told us only that someone important was coming, so I didn’t air out the proper bedroom. It will take me a bit to set things to rights. Did you bri
ng a maid?”

  Why hadn’t Adelaide considered her maid and her trunks? Their mad dash for London didn’t seem to include an abundance of luggage. “I don’t—”

  Trent cleared his throat. “My apologies for the misinformation.”

  Adelaide blinked. He was apologizing to his housekeeper?

  “Her maid and Finch will be arriving Monday or Tuesday with the remainder of our luggage. Lady Adelaide has a small trunk in the carriage. I was hoping Lydia could see to her needs for the next few days.”

  Would anyone notice if Adelaide simply sat on the floor? She hoped not because she was actually becoming dizzy. There was so much to take in. She assumed Finch was Trent’s valet, which meant both of them were now here without their personal servants. Rushing to London was seeming more and more a bizarre decision with every passing moment.

  “I’d be delighted.”

  Adelaide swung her gaze down the short line of servants until it landed on a blond moppet. Wild yellow corkscrews of hair jutted out from various places beneath her cap. At first glance, Adelaide thought the young woman was a child, but closer inspection revealed otherwise. Where Mrs. Harris was lacking any curves, this young lady had them aplenty. Including one in the front that gave her skirt a slight flare. Adelaide couldn’t stop herself from going a bit slack-jawed. That maid was with child!

  Trent slid her arm through his once more and leaned in until his lips brushed her ear. “Not a word. I’ll explain later.”

  She was still shaking off the shivers his whispering breath had induced when the housekeeper shooed them toward a drawing room off the hall. “You two rest, and I’ll see to the tea. There’s no reason she can’t meet the rest of them in the morning.”

  The staff scattered by some unspoken command, leaving Trent and Adelaide alone in the once elegant drawing room. She’d barely had time to take in the green-and-white-striped settee that had certainly seen better days when the butler entered. “Will you be requiring anything else, my lord?”