An Infamous Marriage Read online

  An Infamous Marriage

  By Susanna Fraser

  Northumberland, 1815

  At long last, Britain is at peace, and General Jack Armstrong is coming home to the wife he barely knows. Wed for mutual convenience, their union unconsummated, the couple has exchanged only cold, dutiful letters. With no more wars to fight, Jack is ready to attempt a peace treaty of his own.

  Elizabeth Armstrong is on the warpath. She never expected fidelity from the husband she knew for only a week, but his scandalous exploits have made her the object of pity for years. Now that he’s back, she has no intention of sharing her bed with him—or providing him with an heir—unless he can earn her forgiveness. No matter what feelings he ignites within her...

  Jack is not expecting a spirited, confident woman in place of the meek girl he left behind. As his desire intensifies, he wants much more than a marriage in name only. But winning his wife’s love may be the greatest battle he’s faced yet.

  88,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  Exciting things happen in November. It’s the month we first announced the creation of Carina Press, the month of my Harlequin employment anniversary and it’s the month when we in the U.S. get gorge-yourself-on-bad-carbs-and-turkey day (otherwise known as Thanksgiving). We also get Black Friday (I think they call it that because of the color of your bruises after you’ve been run over by crazy shoppers).

  This November, we’re excited to release our first Carina Press book in trade print format. The Theory of Attraction, an erotic BDSM romance collection featuring novellas from Delphine Dryden, Christine d’Abo and Jodie Griffin, is on shelves and available for order online.

  We also have fourteen new stories in digital for you to enjoy post-turkey coma, in that long, long line outside the mall on Black Friday or, if neither of those is your thing, to enjoy just because you like a good book! Try to avoid the crime and violence of some of those crazy holiday shoppers and enjoy some on-page suspense instead. Marie Force is back with her popular Fatal series and ongoing protagonists Nick and Sam, in her next romantic suspense, Fatal Deception. Also returning is author Shirley Wells with Dying Art, the next Dylan Scott mystery.

  I’m happy to introduce debut author Jax Garren’s new trilogy, which kicks off this month with How Beauty Met the Beast. This novella grabbed my attention when I read it on submission, with off-the-charts sexual tension, a wonderful, character-driven futuristic world, a smart, sassy heroine and a tortured, scarred hero who yearns for nothing more than to keep the woman he’s secretly falling in love with safe.

  Looking for something out-of-this-world to take you away from the pre-holiday madness? J.L. Hilton offers up her next cyberpunk science-fiction romance, Stellarnet Prince, continuing the adventures of futuristic blogger extraordinaire Genny. Meanwhile, Cáit Donnelly’s Now You See It gives a paranormal edge to a thrilling romantic suspense, while erotic fantasy romance Dark Dealings by Kim Knox is guaranteed to give you that “take me away” feeling.

  Joining Kim with erotic romance releases this month are Jodie Griffin with her next Bondage & Breakfast novella, Forbidden Desires, and Lynda Aicher’s first of a BDSM trilogy, Bonds of Trust. All three books in this trilogy are both smokin’ hot, while delivering a wonderful, captivating story.

  We have two authors with male/male releases this month, including L.B. Gregg’s contemporary romance Men of Smithfield: Adam and Holden. Also in the male/male niche, author Libby Drew has her first Carina Press release, paranormal male/male romance 40 Souls to Keep.

  Susanna Fraser’s An Infamous Marriage is our lone historical romance offering this month, but one that won’t disappoint. Anchoring us in the here and now are several contemporary romance titles. Jeanette Murray’s No Mistletoe Required aims to get you into a holiday mood and December Gephart bursts onto the publishing scene with her debut, the witty, fun and romantic Undercover Professor.

  And don’t miss the upcoming conclusion of Shannon Stacey’s second Kowalski family trilogy, All He Ever Dreamed.

  Wherever your reading pleasure takes you, enjoy this month’s variety of releases as we gear up for the holiday season.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  In loving memory of Lee and Scott,

  old friends gone too soon.

  Acknowledgements

  To Chris Compton for advice on the foaling scene and to Jim and Nathan Stone for tips on speaking to and of lieutenant-colonels and major-generals. Any errors are my own.

  My critique partners, the ladies of the Demimonde—Alyssa Everett, Rose Lerner, Karen Dobbins and Vonnie Hughes—continue to provide constant advice and wisdom. Thanks are also due to Melissa Johnson, my wonderful editor.

  And, as always, the biggest thanks go to my husband and daughter for their patience, encouragement and love.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Aboard the H.M.S. Antigone, the North Atlantic,

  January 1815

  “To peace!”

  Dutifully Jack lifted his glass. “To peace,” he echoed, along with the rest of the officers dining at Captain Tizley’s table. A dozen men feasted and drank together in the narrow, low-ceilinged room, but Jack alone wore army red amid a sea of naval blue. The captain’s cook had outdone himself in honor of the evening’s celebration. The last survivor of the ship’s pigs had been sacrificed and devoured as a succulent roast, and now a spotted dog and a jam roly-poly graced the table in a double measure of pudding.

  How many of us truly want peace? Jack hid a sigh as he downed what he believed was his seventh glass of wine. He couldn’t say he did. He had begun this journey to England hoping not for peace or even a lengthy respite at home, but to argue for a better strategy to take back to Canada with him. He thought he knew how to regain control of the Great Lakes, and he believed he could make arguments for the utility of an Indian buffer state that would sway even the most hard-hearted and pragmatic politicians into doing right by their native allies for a change.

  But today they had met a westward-bound ship carrying word of a treaty with the Americans, and all his scheming was at an end. Peace at last. Peace with America, as they had made peace with France last year when Bonaparte finally gave up and abdicated. Peace! Jack wasn’t ready for it. He had been too long convalescing from the wounds he’d received at Queenston Heights. He needed another chance to prove his courage and talent, that he actually deserved the knighthood and promotion to major-general he’d been awarded while he lay in hospital.

  “What will you do with this peace, Sir Jo
hn?” Captain Tizley raised his brows in inquiry.

  Jack smiled. “I must see what Horse Guards wants of me. Perhaps they shall send me back to Canada.” He hoped so. He’d lived most of his adult life there, and when he thought of home, he pictured its woods and wildernesses, not the Northumberland village of his childhood. Whatever the terms of this peace with the Americans, Canada would still need to be garrisoned, and who better for the command than a man who knew and loved the place as he did?

  “Have you no desire whatsoever to return to England and a settled life, then?” the captain asked.

  Jack certainly didn’t want to go back to Selyhaugh. Everything he had ever loved about his native village had died first with his best friend and then his mother. All he had left was a wife he hadn’t wanted even when he spoke his vows. “I’ve never had a settled life,” he said. “Have you, Captain?”

  “No, sir. But if I should ever make admiral, I might begin to desire one. A country estate, a place in society, a family of my own.”

  It sounded seductive in the abstract, Jack admitted. Despite his long years away, he still felt the weight of his lineage. His mother would have wanted grandchildren to live on the family land. His uncle would have raged to think that after all his efforts to get Jack established in the army and raised to high rank and dignity, his wayward nephew might willfully fail to father a son to carry on the warlike Armstrong traditions. But Jack had been avoiding Elizabeth for too many years to feel sanguine about the prospect.

  “You’ll be all the rage in London, sir,” said Devenish, the Antigone’s shockingly young and cheerful first lieutenant. “A war hero, and I daresay the only gentleman on the Marriage Mart who can claim to have lived among red Indians... The debutantes will be lining up.”

  Would that it were true. “Alas, it cannot be,” Jack said lightly. “I fear I am already wed.”

  “Why, you’ve never mentioned a wife,” Devenish blurted, then had the grace to look abashed. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  “Not at all.” It was no more than the truth. Jack rarely spoke of Elizabeth, nor thought of her more than he had to. There had certainly been no cause to talk of her with these newly made naval acquaintances. “We lived a quiet life in Northumberland,” he said, honestly enough, “and Lady Armstrong has chosen to remain there all this while.” Which was also true.

  He did not confess that their only communication for the past five years had been her dutiful letters accounting for how she managed his lands and property. When he’d received them, months later, he would write back, approving her measures—Elizabeth was nothing if not frugal and steady, he had to give her credit for that—and feeling relieved that another season or two must pass before he had to force himself through the whole farcical exercise again.

  Rather than endure any further impertinent questions from young naval puppies, he gestured to the waiting servant to pour another round. “A glass of wine with you, Mr. Devenish.”

  “Yes, sir.” The young officer grinned and lifted his glass. “To wives and sweethearts.”

  “May they never meet,” several voices chorused from around the table.

  Jack hid a sigh. It was absurd to be afraid to face his own wife, when he’d never flinched from the perils of musket, cannon and sword on the battlefield. He couldn’t avoid her forever. Deep down, he did want a son to follow after him. He owed that much to his family and his name. So his wife was a dull, cold mouse of creature. What of it? He would close his eyes, think of Sarah or Marie-Rose or Hannah, and get Elizabeth with child. With any luck she’d bear a son on the first attempt and they could go back to avoiding each other. He’d wager Elizabeth would be as glad to see the back of him as he would to be quit of her.

  He’d been a fool to marry her on such a slight acquaintance. A deathbed promise was no way to choose a wife, and he had been ten thousand kinds of a fool to agree to it. Yet it had seemed such an excellent notion at the time...

  Chapter One

  Selyhaugh, Northumberland, five years earlier

  Never before had Jack been so glad to escape from his mother’s presence, not even in the aftermath of the worst scrapes he’d got himself into as a boy. She was far more ill and forgetful than he’d been led to expect by Giles’s and Elting’s letters—though in fairness to his childhood friend and the village apothecary, they’d written them almost a year ago. It had taken much too long for the messages to reach him. He’d been living in the Indiana Territory among the Shawnee, disguised as a fur trader, attempting to court the Indians to the British side in the event of another war with the Americans. Slipping back over the border into Canada, reporting in to General Brock and securing passage back to England hadn’t been the work of an instant either.

  He wished he’d been nearer—if his regiment had been on the Iberian Peninsula with Lord Wellington, he could’ve been at his mother’s side within two months of the apoplexy that had set in motion her mind’s decay. She hadn’t been so far gone at first, the servants told him. Eight or even six months ago she still would’ve recognized him, and he would’ve been able to bid her farewell while she remained almost herself.

  Yet he couldn’t manage to wish himself out of the army. He supposed a better son would have stayed home to farm the land and breed horses as his father had before him. But by the time his older brother died and left him sole heir to Westerby Grange, he’d set his heart and soul on the army career Uncle Richard had designed him for from boyhood.

  The army, after all, provided him an escape. He’d never wanted to live out his life in Selyhaugh. And now, as much as Mama might need him, he couldn’t stay long. He had a fortnight’s leave remaining to set her affairs in order and arrange proper measures for her care before he must return to Canada.

  After a single day in Mama’s presence, he invented an excuse to escape for a few hours. At first she’d mistaken him for Uncle Richard, whom she’d always disliked, and then, painfully, for his own father, whom she’d adored. Sometimes she remembered she had a son named Jack, but that Jack was an infant in her mind, or at best a schoolboy. As it was, his baffling presence only seemed to agitate her, so he persuaded himself it was for her good as much as his when he left the house, had Penelope, his dapple gray hunter, saddled and took her out for a gallop.

  Once he and the mare had burned off their wild, fresh edge in a glorious run across the fields, he slowed her to a decorous canter and turned her toward Selyhaugh proper. He decided to call on Giles and his new bride. Perhaps he should’ve sent word ahead, but surely even as a newlywed, Giles wouldn’t expect him to stand on ceremony.

  His friend’s marriage had taken Jack by surprise, though he supposed it shouldn’t have done so. They were thirty now, more than old enough to embrace the wedded state. But Giles was far poorer than Jack. For years he’d scraped his living as a tutor in York, and now he was curate of the Selyhaugh parish church. How could he afford to keep a wife?

  But marry he had. Jack had sent letters to both Giles and Elting as soon as he arrived in London to assure them he would ride north as soon as he’d met with the commanders at Horse Guards on General Brock’s behalf. Giles had written back by return post, lamenting that if only the winds had sped Jack’s crossing of the Atlantic by even a week, he would’ve been in time for Giles’s wedding.

  You must call on us as soon as your duties to your mother allow, he had written. I can hardly wait for you to meet Elizabeth. She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld when she smiles, and she has the most wondrous eyes.

  The company of an old friend and a beautiful woman to admire, however chastely, would be a welcome respite from the ordeal this visit home had been so far. He reined Penelope to a halt in front of the rented cottage Giles had described, a tiny, cozy place conveniently near the ancient village church. Jack frowned as he dismounted and tethered Penelope to the gatepost. The cottage seemed too still, somehow—empty and dead, with nothing of the honeymoon about it. He shook his head and gave the mare a parting pat. He was
being fanciful and absurd. It was February, and the cottage’s shutters needed a fresh coat of paint, that was all. What did he expect, birdsong and blooming flowers?

  Hat tucked under one arm, he rapped on the front door. After a long pause, long enough that Jack almost concluded the house had looked dead to him because it was empty, the door swung open.

  A thin, ordinary-looking woman of about five-and-twenty blinked up at him out of bloodshot, muddy brown eyes. Jack blinked back in confusion. Was this the mistress or the maid-of-all-work? She had the air of a gentlewoman, but this wasn’t the beauteous, fine-eyed new Mrs. Hamilton Giles’s letter had led him to expect.

  “Good day, ma’am,” he ventured as the silence began to stretch between them. “I understand that this is Giles Hamilton’s house?”

  She bit her lip—her lips looked chapped, as though she was in the habit of worrying at them. “It is,” she said shortly. “I am his wife.”

  Something was wrong here, but Jack fell back on commonplaces. “Then I’m delighted to meet you. I’m Jack Armstrong. Perhaps he’s spoken of me? I wrote him about a week ago to say I was coming north. I know I should’ve sent word first, but I wanted to call right away.”

  She swallowed and attempted a patently false smile. “That’s quite all right, Colonel Armstrong, but I—I’m afraid Giles is ill.”

  That explained the reddened eyes and obvious misery, at least. Poor girl, to find herself suddenly transformed from bride to nurse. He smiled reassurance. Though nothing could cure his mother, surely he could help Giles. “I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am. I’ll not disturb you any longer. I should be in Selyhaugh for at least a sennight, so perhaps I may call again once he’s feeling more the thing? In the meantime, I’d be glad to send anyone or anything from the Grange that may be of assistance to you. I believe Mrs. Purvis is a skilled nurse, and there should be some good apples in the cellar yet.”

  “I think he’s dying,” Mrs. Hamilton blurted.

  For a moment, Jack couldn’t speak. “Surely not,” he heard himself say. Giles dying? It couldn’t be. He had always been healthy, and that last letter of his had brimmed with life and happiness.