ANNIE BURROWS - Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride

‘You have admitted to me that you do not expect to receive any proposals of marriage,’ Captain Fawley ploughed on with brutal candour.

‘And that at the end of the season, because of your straitened circumstances, you will have to seek paid employment. You will be quite miserable.’

Deborah’s heart was pounding hard. She could not remember any man ever insulting her so comprehensively. Even though all he had said was true, it was cruel of him to fling it in her face. How dared he taunt her with her wish to marry, having told her she stood no chance of snaring a man?

‘I do not think I wish to continue with this conversation,’ she said, rising to her feet and turning her back on him.

‘Miss Gillies, do not turn me down before you hear the whole.’

Turn him down? She froze. What was he trying to say?

‘The…the whole?’ Reluctantly, she looked at him over her shoulder.

‘Yes.’ He got to his feet, reached for her upper arm, and spun her to face him. ‘I thought you, of all women, might overcome your revulsion for such a man as I am in return for lifelong security.’

‘You are asking me to marry you?’

Annie Burrowshas been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses, and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’.

Recent novels by Annie Burrows:

HIS CINDERELLA BRIDE

MY LADY INNOCENT

THE EARL’S UNTOUCHED BRIDE

Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Viv

For introducing me to the works of

Georgette Heyer

Chapter One

‘Oh, no,’ Susannah grumbled to her friend, Miss Deborah Gillies, snapping open her fan and raising it to conceal the lower part of her face. ‘Here comes Captain Fawley, hobbling over to ask me to dance again. And I cannot. I simply cannot.’

Deborah compressed her lips to hide her own revulsion—oh, not at Captain Fawley. The poor man could not help the way he looked. He had lost the lower part of one leg, and his left hand in the same explosion which had so badly disfigured his face. His left eyelid would for ever droop into the scarring that covered his whole cheek, twisting his mouth into a permanently cynical expression. No, she could feel nothing but compassion for him.

It was Susannah’s behaviour that upset her.

Captain Fawley bowed over her friend’s hand, his dark eyes raised to hers with dogged determination.

‘Good evening, Miss Hullworthy, Miss Gillies.’ Though he included Deborah in his greeting, he shot her only the briefest glance. ‘I was hoping I might prevail upon you to dance with me this evening.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Susannah, with just the right amount of regret in her voice to sound convincing. ‘I am afraid my dance card is already full. And here comes my partner for the quadrille.’ She looked over Captain Fawley’s shoulder, a smile stretching her lips into a pretty pink bow as Baron Dunning came to claim her hand.

Deborah supposed it was not Susannah’s fault that the rules of conduct required a lady to repress her true feelings under a cloak of civility. But surely it would be kinder to Captain Fawley if she could just tell him how he made her feel. Then he wouldn’t keep on approaching her, and being rebuffed so prettily that he had no idea that the very thought of him touching her made Susannah feel nauseous.

She flicked him a soulful glance as he watched Susannah walk to the dance floor on the arm of her portly young partner. Captain Fawley must have been strikingly handsome once, she sighed wistfully. Dark haired, as well as dark eyed, with features that were still discernibly pleasing, even under that horribly reddened and puckered skin.

Whereas there was nothing handsome about Baron Dunning. He had a weak chin, made more noticeable by a mouth full of prominent teeth, and his skin was a greasy broth of suppurating pustules.

‘Many people suffer from spots,’ Susannah had remonstrated when Deborah had pointed out that Baron Dunning’s complexion was no better than Captain Fawley’s. ‘He cannot help that!’

Besides which, he had a title. All the poor Captain had to offer was his devotion. And Susannah might protest that she would hate to look ridiculous hobbling about the dance floor with a man who had a false leg, but she never worried what it looked like to dance with the doddery Earl of Caxton. The on-dit was that the cadaverous widower was on the lookout for wife number three, and Susannah was plainly ready to stifle her squeamishness for the sake of a coronet.

The impecunious Captain Fawley could expect no such consideration.

‘How could I let him touch me, with that false hand?’ Susannah had whined only the previous night, when they had been preparing for bed at the end of an arduous day of husband hunting. It had occurred to Deborah, as her friend applied pineapple water to her skin, that it was most apt to refer to the early weeks of spring as ‘the Season’. Débutantes stalked their prey as ruthlessly as sportsmen on a grouse shoot, flushing unsuspecting bachelors from their covers with a swirl of silken skirts, then bagging them with a volley fired from a pair of sparkling eyes. Or lured them into traps baited with honeyed smiles and coaxing words.

‘It is very hard to tell it is a false hand, it has been so well made,’ Deborah had pointed out. ‘It looks just like any other gentleman’s hand, covered with an evening glove.’

‘I would know it was a dead thing, resting on my arm.’ Susannah had shuddered. ‘Eeugh!’

As the orchestra began to play, Captain Fawley came back to himself. Turning to Deborah, he inclined his head and held out his arm. His right arm. She had noticed on previous occasions that if he offered a lady his arm, it was never what remained of the left one.

‘Shall we take a turn about the room?’

Deborah smiled, and laid her hand upon his sleeve. As she glanced up, it occurred to her that placing her on his right side also had the effect of presenting the unblemished side of his face to her scrutiny. A pang of sympathy smote her. He was sensitive enough to his appearance, without girls like Susannah rubbing his nose in it. He had even grown his hair longer than was fashionable, sweeping part of his fringe over the left side of his forehead, in an effort to conceal the worst of the scarring.

They set out along the edge of the room, in the area behind the pillars that marked the boundaries of the dance floor. Captain Fawley’s gait was a little uneven, she had to admit in fairness to Susannah. But by no means did he hobble! And though she had never danced with him, she was certain he would look no worse than many of the men here tonight, lumbering about with straining waistcoats and florid faces.

‘I can see you would much rather be on the dance floor,’ said Captain Fawley, noticing the direction of her gaze, ‘than bearing me company. I shall escort you to your mother, and—’

‘Oh, please do not!’

He eyed her curiously.

‘I would m…much rather be promenading, than left to wilt on the sidelines.’

Her dance card, unlike that of her friend, bore very few names. If Captain Fawley abandoned her, it would be humiliatingly obvious that she had no partner.

She felt as though the only time she ever got to dance lately was when one of Susannah’s admirers took pity on her, as Captain Fawley was doing now.

And unlike some of those gentlemen, Captain Fawley was invariably attentive and polite, almost managing to make her believe he was enjoying talking to her.

And what was more, she was sure he would never take part in the kind of conversation she had overheard not half an hour since. Not that she could blame Baron Dunning for comparing her unfavourably with Susannah. Although both of them had dark hair, Deborah’s curls would have gone limp by the end of the evening. Her eyes, though as brown, were more often lowered bashfully than sparkling with wit. Her complexion, thanks to an inflammation of the lungs she had suffered over the winter months, might, she accepted, by candle-light look somewhat sallow. And when she stood next to the shorter, shapelier Susannah, she supposed she could see why Mr Jay had scathingly likened her to a beanpole.

Not that knowing they had said nothing untrue made their comments any less hurtful, which was why she felt so grateful that Captain Fawley was deigning to spend these few moments with her.

When she thought of the adventures he must have had, in his soldiering days, she was amazed he could talk to her so kindly about the trivial concerns of a plain, provincial miss like her.

He gave her his wry, lopsided smile, which somehow always managed to make her own lips want to rise in imitation.

‘Then let us go and sample the refreshments,’ he suggested, turning her towards a door at the far side of the room from where the orchestra was playing.

‘Thank you, I should like that.’

She hoped very much that he would linger while she drank a glass of lemonade. Conversation would be limited, for after her initial burst of pleasure in securing his attention, she would doubtlessly become tongue-tied. He had experienced so much, when she had scarcely set foot outside her father’s parish before this trip to London. Not that he had personally related how he had fought his way across the Peninsula before suffering the horrific injuries at Salamanca that had left him hovering between life and death for months. No, that information had been gleaned from her mother’s friends, who made it their business to know everything about everyone.

They had shaken their heads, expressing pity as they related what they knew of his history, but she could only admire the determination with which he had clawed his way back to his present state. He did everything an able-bodied man did, though it must take him twice the effort. Why, he had even learned to ride a horse. She had glimpsed him on a couple of occasions, cantering through the park in the early morning, before many other people were about. He seemed to her to be so much more manly than the fashionable fops who lounged their languid way through London’s drawing rooms. He had overcome whatever life had thrown at him, which you could see, just by looking at him, had been a great deal.

She felt that first betraying blush sweep up her cheeks, which always assailed her at about this point in their meetings. For what could she say that might be of interest to a man like him, a man who had really lived? Though she knew that, whatever she said, he would never give her one of those condescending looks, which so many eligible bachelors seemed to have got down to a fine art. He was so kind, so magnanimous, so…

‘Tell me,’ he said, as they sauntered towards the table on which a large punch bowl sat, ‘just what a man has to do to secure a dance with your friend?’