A Most Unsuitable Bride

by Jane Toombs

  * * *

  A MOST UNSUITABLE BRIDE

  by

  JANE TOOMBS

  * * * *

  ISBN 1-59279-495-5

  Copyright ©2006 by Jane Toombs

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  www.amberquill.com

  Also By Jane Toombs

  A Beguiling Intrigue

  An Improper Alliance

  Dangerous Medicine

  Ladies Of The Lakes

  Love's Last Stand

  Rebel's Revenge

  Snow Flower

  Temple Of Serpents

  Traitor's Kiss

  The Wrong Girl

  DEDICATION

  For my readers who enjoy the stories I love to write.

  CHAPTER 1

  Deirdre looked down on the city as from a great height. Below her the river Thames flowed silently, serenely to the sea. To her right she recognized the ancient Tower of London, and the magnificent dome of St. Paul's. Ahead of her she saw the spires of the city's many churches thrusting into the clear sky.

  The rich scent of roses permeated the air.

  She drew nearer, swooping down as a bird might, passing over the boats plying the river, looking down on the imposing Houses of Parliament with the summer green of St. James’ Park a short distance beyond. There was no sound, the silence absolute and everywhere.

  Now Mayfair lay spread out below her with its ordered squares and stately homes. As she came closer still, she somehow knew the imposing redbrick house with the slate roof and the proliferation of chimneys must be her destination. Fashionably garbed ladies and gentlemen of the ton were gathered in the garden under a blue June sky. All about them roses bloomed in a profusion of reds and whites. This gathering, Deirdre knew with absolute certainty, was not merely a wedding party, but a very special one.

  She noticed a short, unprepossessing man among the guests, a man she had never seen before. Though garbed in the height of unfashion, he seemed to be the center of considerable attention. As she watched in rapt fascination, the bridegroom appeared—how could she fail to recognize dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome Clive Chadbourne? Yet he bore a scar on his left temple. Strange, since he'd had no such scar when she last saw him. Clive bowed to the unprepossessing gentleman. The man's lips moved, but Deirdre could hear nothing of what either man said.

  The two men turned as the bride appeared on the arm of Mr. Roger Darrington, Dierdre's father. The bride, her face and hair concealed by a white veil, wore a flowing white gown beaded with pearls. She carried a bouquet of fragrant pink roses. Clive strode to his bride, murmured in her ear, and then scooped her into his arms and carried her up onto the terrace. The bride reached up, obviously intended to kiss her beloved.

  Deirdre waited, heart pounding, for the identity of the bride to be revealed. It must be, it had to be, surely it could be no other than her...

  Deirdre opened her eyes to sunlight suffusing her bed chamber, warning her that she had overslept. She sat up with the memory of her dream vivid in her mind. How real the wedding had been! Or had this been more than a dream? Was it a foreseeing, a vision of the future, of her future?

  As she hurriedly dressed, the certainty grew in her mind that she, Deirdre Darrington, had been the bride in her dream. Though she had never seen the redbrick mansion in Mayfair before and though her family had never been even on the outermost fringes of the Regent's court, in her dream her father had escorted the bride and the groom had been Clive Chadbourne.

  Clive. Her pulses raced as she pictured him in her mind's eye. He was so handsome, so dashing; she loved him more than she could say, she had always loved him. Not with a selfish love, she assured herself, since she desired nothing for herself, she only wanted him to be happy.

  Deirdre frowned as she recalled the scar she had glimpsed on his left forehead, wincing as she imagined the wound he must have suffered to cause such a scar. Perhaps she had been mistaken, she told herself, perhaps there had been no scar after all.

  "You must take the good with the bad and the bad with the good,” her grandmother, whose given name was also Deirdre, often chided her.

  Should she tell Grandmama about her dream? Deirdre wondered. No, this would be her secret, a secret to be locked away in her heart ready to be taken out and savored as often as she pleased. Besides, telling Grandmama of the dream would only serve to discomfit her. Deirdre wanted nothing more than to protect the now elderly woman who had raised her following the death of her mother.

  "Dreams are messages from the devil,” her grandmother had often said, “as my own mother had occasion to warn me more than once. At first I refused to believe her, much to my regret."

  Yet her dream, Deirdre told herself, had been no missive from the devil. Quite the opposite. Her fondest hopes would be realized and her impossible wish would become a reality if she, Deirdre Darrington, was really destined to be the bride of the Honorable Clive Chadbourne. There was little doubt in her mind that the promise of the dream would be fulfilled. It mattered not at all that she had last seen Clive more than twelve months ago. She had wished for this so long, so devoutly and with such unwavering intensity, that her vision must be true.

  "Clive Chadbourne is like the brother you never had,” her grandmother had said years before.

  And Clive had, she was forced to admit, always treated her as a brother might treat a favorite sister. Though she was six years younger than Clive, he had encouraged her to go with him on his rambles over the countryside when he came down from London to stay for the summer at nearby Chadbourne House, had even shown her the hidden entrance to the glen and the path to the knoll overlooking a secluded pool beneath the waterfall that became their special place, their secret place. He had taught her to ride and, risking the displeasure of her grandmother, to shoot.

  "Disgraceful!” her grandmother had said when Deirdre told her. A moment later, however, her grandmother was smiling indulgently, for who could fail to offer forgiveness to the charming Clive Chadbourne? Even Roger Darrington, her father, admitted to having a grudging admiration for her grandmother's sometime neighbor, praising Clive for being proud without becoming arrogant, for being an idealist while never becoming a prig.

  Reluctantly setting aside her thoughts of Clive, Deirdre hastened down the stairs while the long-case clock in the hall chimed nine times.

  "Here you are and the day half gone,” Deirdre imagined her grandmother saying as soon as she joined her in the breakfast room. Her grandmother invariably rose well before seven. Breakfasts at the customary hour of ten in the morning were not for her.

  But her grandmother was not in the breakfast room. She had finished eating, Agnes told her, more than an hour before. “And then the boy comes with the letter,” the maid added.

  "The letter?” Deirdre paused with her cup of tea halfway to her lips.

  Agnes glanced right and left before leaning forward and lowering her voice. “From your father in London, I expect."

  Deirdre caught her breath, frowning in dismay as she recalled her dream. The arrival of her father's unexpected letter—he wrote faithfully once a fortnight and his last letter had arrived less than a week before. This letter must be thought of as unexpected, so coinciding with her dream of a wedding could hardly be a coincidence. His letter must bring startling news, perhaps ominous news, and what could be more startling or ominous than the announcement of the impending marriage of the Honorable Clive Chadbourne.

  Pushing away her plate, even though the fact that it still contained a goodly portion of her breakfast ham gave Deirdre a twinge of guilt. “Waste not, want not,” was her grandmother's oft-repeated admonition.

  Leaving the breakfast room in search of her grandmother, Deirdre opened the door to the
library and saw her sitting at her desk. Seeing how frail the older woman looked brought a pang. Her grandmother was writing in the family Bible that she must have carried from the marble-topped table in the center of the room. The recently arrived letter lay on the desk beside the open book. Deirdre hesitated, puzzled and now exceedingly ill-at-ease, since she knew that only the most momentous family events were recorded in the Bible—births, christenings, deaths and, yes, most certainly, marriages.

  "Grandmama?” she said tentatively from the doorway.

  Her grandmother started in confusion at the sound of Deirdre's voice—her hearing had been failing this last year. Seeing her granddaughter in the doorway, she rose and led Deirdre to a rolled-end couch near the window. “Sit with me here,” the elderly woman said, still holding to Deirdre's hand.

  What calamity did this solicitude portend? “Has someone died?” Deirdre asked, wondering who it might be. She had no aunts and but one uncle, her father's brother who had emigrated to the colonies, to Canada. “Is that the news from Father?"

  Her grandmother shook her head. “His letter brings joyful news, not sad. Your father's letter brings word of a wedding, not a death.” Although she called the news joyful, there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  Deirdre's hand flew to her mouth as a sudden frisson of fear shot along her spine. Her fear was followed by an engulfing emptiness when she realized the implication of her grandmother's words. Clive Chadbourne was married! Her hopes, raised so high but a short while before by her dream, were about to be dashed forever by this wretched news from her father.

  But wait, Deirdre told herself, her grandmother would have no reason to record the marriage of Clive Chadbourne in the family Bible. Had she once again been guilty of leaping to a conclusion based on the scantiest of knowledge? Thoroughly addled, she blurted, “I dreamed of a wedding, of Clive's wedding."

  "Tell me about your dream,” her grandmother said as if, Deirdre thought, she wished to postpone, if only for a few minutes, the time when she would have to share her news from London.

  "It was so very, very real.” Deirdre hesitated, then described the dream to her grandmother without, however, revealing that she had believed the bride to be none other than herself.

  When she finished, her grandmother shook her head. “A man or woman who could actually see into the future, would be a man or woman cursed. Remember this well, Deirdre ... No one can foresee. We may glimpse a fragment of the future as through a glass darkly, but what we see there, or think we see there, is so distorted by our hopes and fears it invariably leads us into error. Our futures are found in what we do, not what we dream."

  "Yet I believe in my dream,” Deirdre insisted. “How can you possibly explain the fact that on the same day I dreamed of a wedding, we receive a letter from father informing us of one?” She hesitated before asking the dreaded question.

  "Was it Clive? Is Clive married?"

  "No, not Clive."

  Thank God, Deirdre told herself. But if not Clive, who could it be? “Then who?” she asked.

  Her grandmother hesitated before saying, “It was your father."

  "My father?” Deirdre, though relieved beyond measure that the groom was someone other than Clive Chadbourne, was at the same time taken aback by the news. She stared at her grandmother, all agape. “My father has remarried? After all these years? And at his age?"

  "To me, after surviving seventy-five winters, a man of fifty seems the merest stripling.” Her grandmother tightened her grip on Deirdre's hand. “Yes, your father has remarried in what was, he writes, a very simple and a very private ceremony.” Glancing at the letter resting on the table, she added, “His wife, your new stepmother, was a widow, a Mrs. Sibyl Langdon, now Mrs. Sybil Darrington, of course. I do believe your father has mentioned her in several of his other letters. And, from the chit-chat I hear across the whist table, the captivating widow Langdon was an exceedingly good catch."

  "He should have written to me,” Deirdre said as she tried to overcome her hurt. The news had put her decidedly out of humor. Was he hesitant to tell me beforehand, fearing my disapproval? Or was he merely thoughtless?

  "Your father assures me,” her grandmother said, “that he will write to you forthwith, but he wanted me to tell you his good news."

  Did her father really believe she would consider the news good? If so, how little he understood her feelings. Yet how could he be expected to really know her? She had lived here in East Surrey on the edge of Ashdown Forest with her grandmother, her mother's mother, for almost fifteen years, ever since her mother's death following a short fever-plagued illness. To Deirdre, her father had always been a distant, god-like figure who spent most of his time in London, a man who generously gave her all she could possibly need with the notable exception of his love.

  "Your father has more news.” Her grandmother rose, retrieved the letter from the desk, and handed it to Deirdre. “Here, you should read what he has to say."

  Deirdre scanned the first page, punctuated with her father's customary over-abundance of incomplete sentences followed by dashes, turned the sheet over and gasped. “It seems I now have two stepsisters as well as a stepmother.” She peered at the paper as she struggled to decipher her father's crabbed handwriting. “'Phoebe,'” she read aloud, “'an exquisite miss one year older than Dierdre—blond with eyes as blue as her mother's. Alcida—seventeen—so very timid, suffers the misfortune of having been scarred by the pox when she was twelve.’”

  "How nice for you to now have two sisters,” her grandmother said.

  Deirdre slowly shook her head as tears stung her eyes. Did her grandmother actually believe she desired sisters? She wanted nothing more than she already had, she needed no one except her grandmother. And, of course, her father.

  She read a few more lines. “No,” she said vehemently, looking up from the letter, “I will not leave here to journey to London next month to live with this new family of mine. And in my stepmother's house, no less."

  "Reading between the lines,” her grandmother said, “I gather the new Mrs. Darrington brings considerably more to her marriage than two young daughters. You must have realized for some time, Deirdre, that your father has never been a wealthy man. And now, with the war...” Her voice trailed off.

  Deirdre rose, threw the letter to the floor and stalked to the window. “I refuse to go.” With her hands clasped in front of her, she laced and unlaced her fingers. “My place is here with you."

  "Deirdre!"

  The sharpness of her grandmother's voice—not since she was a child had her grandmother spoken to her in such a manner—made Deirdre catch her breath. She swung around, ran to kneel at the old woman's side and rested her head in her lap.

  "Dear Deirdre.” Her grandmother's tone softened as she stroked Deirdre's red hair. “You belong with your father in town, not here in this lonely out of the way place. Besides, your duty is to obey your father, he only seeks your happiness."

  "He wants me bundled off to London because he wishes me married,” Deirdre said, her voice muffled by the folds of her grandmother's gown.

  "Only an unnatural father would wish his daughter to become a spinster and you are, after all, eighteen. Oh, Deirdre, you have such a loving heart, but such a hasty one. How much happier you would be if only you could learn to weigh your words before you speak, and to consider all the consequences before you act."

  Deirdre sighed. She realized her grandmother was right and yet, knowing her own impetuous nature, she despaired of being able to follow her advice. She vowed to strive to improve.

  "I suppose,” she conceded, “that living in town will be exciting and, after a time, one becomes accustomed to it.” Her grandmother hugged her.

  "My dream was so real,” Deirdre said. “I was absolutely certain I saw Clive with his new bride. Yet father makes no mention of him."

  "But he does. You never finished reading what he wrote."

  "He does?” Deirdre eagerly reached out and ret
rieved the letter. Sitting on the carpeted floor, she leaned against her grandmother's chair and read to herself. "Clive Chadbourne will be with you in a few days—he brings surprising and gratifying news—I promised to allow him to tell Deirdre himself—all my fondest hopes are about to be realized."

  Deirdre drew in a deep breath, her heart quickening with joy. She closed her eyes, smiling as she once more pictured her vision of the wedding party, once more smelled the sweet scent of the roses. No longer a spectator, now she imagined herself in Clive's arms, imagined herself listening to his whispered pledges of his everlasting love. She pictured herself clinging to him as he climbed the stone steps to the terrace with her in his arms. There she would raise her veil and, yes, she would kiss him.

  Her impossible dream was about to come true. Nothing could be more delightful.

  How could she endure the suspense of waiting until Clive arrived? The only logical reason for his visit to East Sussex was that, having received her father's permission, he intended to ask for her hand in marriage.

  "Oh, Grandmama,” Deirdre cried, “how wonderfully, wonderfully happy I am!"

  CHAPTER 2

  Clive did not arrive that day nor the next day nor the next. Finally, early in the afternoon of the third day, when Deirdre had all but despaired, his traveling chaise, drawn by four chestnut horses, rumbled up to front steps of the house. Deirdre, who had spent a considerable amount of time watching the driveway from an upstairs window, ran down the stairs to the entry hall where she paused in front of the looking glass to try, with indifferent results, to smooth her rebellious red hair before stepping outside onto the small semi-circular porch at the top of the front steps.

  A footman swung open the carriage door and Clive, in a dark green waistcoat and black trousers, stepped to the ground. He looked exactly as she remembered him, although perhaps even handsomer, half a head taller than herself, his hair black and curling, his eyes dark and intense. Though now in his middle twenties, he retained the exuberance she recalled so well, a vibrant eagerness, as though he found the world a truly delightful place.