Barely a Bride

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  * * *

  “Kindly unhand my wife.” Griffin barked the order at the Duke of Sussex.

  Sussex looked pointedly at Griffin’s cane. “I thought your wife might enjoy a turn on the dance floor.”

  “Not with you.” Griffin smiled.

  Sussex raised an eyebrow. “Is that your wish as well, Your Grace?” He turned to Alyssa.

  “No,” she answered, looking Griffin in the eye and daring him to contradict her.

  Sussex offered Alyssa his elbow.

  Griffin stopped them. “She can dance with me.”

  Alyssa stared at her husband. “I could, but I won’t.”

  “Why not?” Griffin asked. “You’ve danced with nearly every man here tonight except me.”

  Everyone and everything in the ballroom seemed to recede into the background until Alyssa and Griffin were the only two people in the room.

  “The other men here tonight don’t find my presence a chore.” Alyssa said.

  “Alyssa…” Griffin began.

  She glared at him. “You set me free, Griffin. Remember? You set me free to find a man worthy of me. You left me a letter telling me that’s what you wanted, so you’ve no right to interfere if I choose to do so in your presence.”

  “Alyssa, you don’t understand…I made promises…”

  “So did I,” she said.

  “I promised myself I would fight the French and become England’s greatest hero.”

  “You’ve succeeded,” she reminded him.

  “I know,” he answered. “But I didn’t expect to survive it.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t expect to live through it. I’m a cavalry officer. I expected to die in battle.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No,” he answered. “Unfortunately, I never planned beyond it. I never planned for the future. I was never afraid of dying, I was afraid of not being where I was needed. And now that I’m home…” He looked at her. “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

  “I heard you were returning to your regiment,” she said. “I heard you’d been offered a command. Is it true?”

  “You don’t need me,” he said. “You need someone stronger. Someone who won’t disappoint you. Someone who won’t let you down.”

  She blinked back tears as she looked up at him. “I love you, Griffin. You’ve never let me down,” she answered. “Until now.” Alyssa turned back to the duke of Sussex. “Shall we?”

  Griffin tried again. “Alyssa…”

  “Go back to the cavalry,” Alyssa told him. “Keep your promises to your Free Fellows League. Keep your promises to everyone except me. Leave. Go back and become England’s greatest dead hero since Nelson, but please, stop setting me free. Stop breaking my heart.” She reached for Sussex’s arm, but her tears blinded her as Sussex stepped back and Griffin took his place. Neither of them noticed him slipping away.

  “You love me?” Griffin asked, dumbfounded by her revelation.

  Alyssa gazed up at him. “Of course, I love you,” she said simply. “I’ve loved you since the moment you kissed me. Do you honestly believe I’d have turned down a duke to marry a viscount if I hadn’t loved you?”

  Griffin laughed. “Yes, I did. Because you said you didn’t want to be a duchess.”

  “I was an idiot,” she told him. “And you, an even bigger one.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “How could I confide my feelings?” she asked, lifting her chin a notch. “Why should I? You didn’t tell me anything except that you needed a wife before you left to join your regiment. You didn’t tell me about your Free Fellows League, or the vows you took, or the full nature of the work in which you’re engaged. You kept it a secret but you made no secret of the fact that you didn’t want me. I understood your loyalty to your league and your great love for the cavalry. I was under no illusion. I knew you intended to join your regiment and I understood that marrying me was simply a means to that end. But you aren’t the only one cursed with a full measure of pride, Griffin. I share your affliction and I learned that it was better to keep my feelings to myself than to hear how little I mattered to you. You only wanted me in order to get an heir and I failed to do that.” She hesitated, then took a deep breath and continued, “And now, you’re trying to be rid of me. And although, I hate to admit it, I know it’s only a matter of time before you succeed. You’re a hero now. And a duke. Nothing is too good for you. There’s no reason for you to remain tied to a barren bride. Once all the fuss dies down, you shouldn’t have any difficulty petitioning the church for an annulment. That was, after all, the only reason you ever needed me. You had the Free Fellows and the cavalry and you didn’t want anything else.”

  “You knew about the Free Fellows?”

  Alyssa nodded. “I was standing behind the potted palms that night at Almack’s. I heard you talking about the Free Fellows with Shepherdston and Grantham.”

  “And after hearing all that, you married me anyway?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank God,” he breathed. “Because I don’t want to let you go. And your ability or your inability to conceive an heir has nothing to do with it. I love you, Alyssa. I love you more than the cavalry. I love you more than the Free Fellows League. I love you more than life itself.”

  She frowned at him. “Well, you have a most peculiar way of showing it. You set me free.”

  Griff snorted. “I tried to set you free. I tried to be noble and do what’s best for you…”

  “You’re what’s best for me.”

  “Am I?”

  “Of course, you are.”

  “I want to be the best for you,” he admitted. “But I’m not at all certain that I am or that I ever can be.” Griff stared at her, memorizing her features and the expression on her face. “When I was on the Peninsula, I believed I could be. I read your letters and I knew in my heart that you were my soul mate—my other half—and I believed that I was yours. I wanted to be. With all my heart. I thought I could be, but after everything that’s happened—” Griff’s words caught in his throat and he had to work to get them out. “I’m afraid,” he whispered. “I barely sleep and when I do, I dream of war. I dream of all I’ve seen and done. I see their faces and I wake up in a cold sweat. Christ, Alyssa! You’ve seen me. My hands shake. I ask you, what kind of hero has hands that shake uncontrollably? What kind of hero is afraid of crowds? Of fireworks?” He shook his head in disgust. “Bloody hell!”

  “Bloody hell is right,” Alyssa answered vehemently. “That’s what you’ve been through. Of course, you’re afraid. Who wouldn’t be after all you’re endured? You spent a year in hell. And you’ve only just returned home. You haven’t given yourself time to heal. It will get better.”

  “Time heals all wounds?”

  Alyssa nodded. “I believe it does.”

  “I hope so.” Griff squeezed his eyes shut and gave voice to his greatest fear. “But what if it doesn’t? What do we do if it doesn’t? Can you stand to be awakened by my nightmares every night of your life for the next forty or fifty years?”

  Alyssa blinked back tears. “I can if you can,” she promised. “I can stand anything as long as I have you. As long as I can hold you in my arms. As long as you let me love you for the next forty or fifty years…”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to break your heart. I don’t want you to suffer with me when you might have a chance to be happy with someone else…”

  “There is no one else for me,” Alyssa promised him. “Only you.”

  “Then we’re in complete accord.” Griff pulled her close, then leaned down and took her in his arms and kissed her, his path in life suddenly, vividly clear. “I’m not leaving you, Alyssa. I’m not setting you free.” He smiled down at her. “I refused the offer of a new command. My place is here with you. I spoke with the prime minister and with the regent and the senior members of the War Department about t
he conditions in the field—the food, the supply lines or lack thereof, the incompetence of officers and the lack of training of the common soldiers, as well as the burdens placed upon young officers, like Hughey, who are forced to supply their own equipment or forced to do without. We agreed that we must improve and reorganize the military. From top to bottom. I believe there’s a better, more efficient way, to run an army and I intend to find it. I’m buying Knightsguild and I’m going to use it to train military leaders—especially foolhardy and hot-headed cavalry officers. I want to make a difference. And I want you to help me.”

  “I’ll help you in every way I can,” Alyssa told him. “But I know nothing about the military except what I learned from you.”

  Griff laughed. “Alyssa, my darling duchess, you’re the best field commander I’ve ever seen. You know all there is to know about organizing and mobilizing large groups of people and I want you to teach me everything you know.”

  Alyssa grinned. “That may take some time, Your Grace, for I have a vast store of knowledge on the subject.”

  “I’m counting on it taking some time, Your Grace,” Griff answered. “Say, for the rest of our lives?” He leaned down and kissed her again. “I love you, Alyssa. More than anything and I intend to love you for the remainder of my life and beyond.”

  “Then we’re in complete accord, my love,” Alyssa whispered. “For that’s exactly how long it will take.”

 

  Epilogue

  “A man must have love. He cannot live without it.”

  —Griffin, Duke of Avon, journal entry, 19 July 1811