The Accidental Bride

Chapter 1

Woodstock, Oxford, January, 1646

Lady Phoebe Carlton lay very still listening to her bed-mate’s even breathing. Olivia was a very light sleeper and woke at the slightest sound. And tonight, Olivia mustn’t know what Phoebe was about. They never had secrets from each, other and were as close if not closer than sisters. But Phoebe couldn’t afford for her dearest friend to know about her present enterprise. Phoebe pushed aside the coverlet and slipped to the floor. Olivia stirred and turned over. Phoebe froze. The fire in the grate was almost out, and it was so cold in the chamber that her breath formed a pale fog in the dim light from the guttering candle on the mantel. Olivia was afraid of the dark and they always kept a candle burning until she was asleep.

Olivia’s even breathing resumed and Phoebe tiptoed across the chamber to the armoire. She had left it partly open so it wouldn’t squeak. She took out the bundle of clothes and the small cloakbag and crept on her freezing bare feet to the door. She lifted the latch and opened it just wide enough for her to slide sideways through and into the dark passage beyond.

Shivering, she scrambled into her clothes, pulling them on over her nightshirt. There were no candles in the sconces in the passage and it was pitch dark, but Phoebe found the darkness comforting. If she could see no one, then no one could see her.

The house was silent but for the usual nighttime creaks of old wood settling. She dragged on her woolen stockings and, carrying her boots and the cloakbag, crept down the corridor towards the wide staircase leading down to the great hall.

The hall was in shadow, lit only by the still-glowing embers in the vast fireplace at the far end. The great roof beams were a dark and heavy presence above her head as she tiptoed in her stockinged feet down the stairs. It was a mad, crazy thing she was doing, but Phoebe could see no alternative. She would not be sold into marriage, sold like a prize pig at the fair, to a man who had no real interest in her, except as a breeding cow.

Phoebe grimaced at her mixed metaphors, but they both nevertheless struck her as accurate descriptions of her situation. She wasn’t living in the Middle Ages. It should not be possible to compel someone into a distasteful marriage, and yet, if she didn’t take drastic action, that was exactly what was going to happen. Her father refused to listen to reason; he saw only his own advantage and had every intention of disposing of his only remaining daughter to suit himself.

Phoebe muttered under her breath as she crossed the hall, the cold from the flagstones striking up through her stockings. Reminding herself of her father’s intractable selfishness buoyed her up. She was terrified of what she was about to do. It was absolute madness to attempt such a flight, but she would not marry a man who barely noticed her existence.

The great oak door was bolted and barred. She set down her boots and cloakbag and lifted the iron bar. It was heavy but she managed to set it back into the brackets at the side of the door. She reached up and drew the first bolt, then bent to draw the second at the base of the door. She was breathing quickly and, despite the cold, beads of sweat gathered between her breasts. She was aware of nothing but the door, its massive solidity in front of her filling her vision, both interior and exterior.

Slowly she pulled the door open. A blast of frigid air struck her like a blow. She took a deep breath…

And then the door was suddenly banged closed again. An arm had reached over her shoulder; a flat hand rested against the doorjamb. Phoebe stared at the hand… at the arm… in total stupefaction. Where had it come from? She felt the warmth of the body at her back, a large presence that was blocking her retreat just as the now closed door prevented her advance.

She turned her head, raised her eyes, and met the puzzled and distinctly irritated gaze of her intended bridegroom.

Cato, Marquis of Granville, regarded her in silence for a minute. When he spoke, it was an almost shocking sound after the dark silence. “What in God’s name are you doing, Phoebe?”

His voice, rich and tawny, as always these days sent a little shiver down her spine. For a moment she was at a loss for words and stood staring, slack-jawed and dumb as any village idiot.

“I was going for a walk, sir,” she said faintly, absurd though it was.

Cato looked at her incredulously. “At three o’clock in the morning? Don’t be ridiculous.” His gaze sharpened, the brown eyes, so dark as to be almost black in the shadowy dimness of the hall, narrowed. He glanced down at the cloakbag and her boots, standing neatly side by side.

“A walk, eh?” he queried with undisguised sarcasm. “In your stockinged feet, no less.” He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her aside, then shot the bolts on the door again and dropped the bar back in place. It fell with a heavy clang that sounded to Phoebe in her present melodramatic mood like a veritable death knell.

He bent to pick up the cloakbag and, with a curt “Come,” moved away towards the door at the rear of the hall that opened onto his study.

Phoebe glanced at her boots, then shrugged with dull resignation and left them where they were. She followed the marquis’s broad back, noticing despite herself how the rich velvet of his nightrobe caressed his wide, powerful shoulders and fell to his booted ankles in elegant black folds. Had he been about to go up to bed? How could she possibly have been so stupid as not to have noticed the yellow line of candlelight beneath his door? But it hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would still be up and about at this ungodly hour.

Cato stalked into his study and dropped the cloakbag on the table with a gesture that struck Phoebe as contemptuous. Then he turned back to her, the fur-trimmed robe swinging around his ankles. “Close the door. There’s no reason why anyone else should be forced into this vigil.”

Phoebe closed the door and stood with her back against it. Cato’s study was warm, the fire well built and blazing, but there was little warmth in the marquis’s gaze as he regarded her in frowning silence. Then he turned back to the bag on the table.

“So,” he began in a conversational tone, “you were going for a walk, were you?” He unclasped the bag and drew out Phoebe’s best cloak. He laid it over a chair and continued to remove the contents of the bag one by one. His eyes beneath sardonically raised brows never left her face as he shook out her clean linen, her shifts and stockings and chemises, laying them with exaggerated care over the chair. Lastly he placed her hairbrushes on the table, together with the little packet of hairpins and ribbons.

“Strange baggage to accompany a walk,” he observed. “But then, anyone choosing to go for a walk at three in the morning in the middle of January is probably capable of any oddity, wouldn’t you think?”

Phoebe wanted to throw something at him. Instead she went over to the table and began stolidly to replace the pathetic assortment of her worldly goods in the bag. “I’ll go back to bed now,” she said colorlessly.

“Not quite yet.” Cato put a hand on her arm. “I’m afraid you owe me an explanation. For the last two years you’ve been living, I assume contentedly, under my roof. And now it appears you’re intending to flit away by moonlight without a word to anyone… Or is Olivia a part of this?” His voice had sharpened.

“Olivia doesn’t know anything, my lord,” Phoebe stated. “This is not her fault.”

Olivia’s father merely nodded. “So, an explanation, if you please.”

How could he not know? How could she possibly be so drawn to this man… find him so impossibly attractive… when as far as he was concerned she was of no more importance than an ant… merely a convenient means to an end. He hadn’t looked at her properly once in the two years she’d been living under his roof. She was certain the idea for this marriage had come from her father, and Cato had simply. seen the advantages.

His wife, Diana, Phoebe’s sister, had died eight months earlier. It was common practice for a widower to marry his sister-in-law. It kept dowries in the family and maintained the original alliance between the two families. Of course it was to Cato’s advantage. Of course he’d agreed.

No one had consulted Phoebe. They hadn’t thought it necessary. There had not been even the semblance of courtship…

Cato continued to frown at her. Absently he noticed that the buttons of her jacket were done up wrongly, as if she’d dressed in haste and in the dark. Her thick, light brown hair, incompetently dragged into a knot on top of her head, was flying loose in every direction. The clasp of her cloak was hanging by a thread. She was very untidy, he caught himself thinking. He realized that he’d noticed it often before. He remembered now that Diana had complained about it constantly.

“Phoebe…” he prompted with an edge of impatience.

Phoebe took a deep breath and said in a rush, “I do not wish to be married, sir. I’ve never wished to be married. I won’t be married.”

It seemed that she had silenced the marquis. His frown deepened. He ran a hand through his close-cropped thatch of dark brown hair, back from the pronounced widow’s peak to his nape. It was a gesture with which Phoebe was achingly familiar. It was something he did whenever he was deep in thought, distracted by some detail or contemplating some plan of action. And these days it never failed to turn her knees to water.

Cato turned and went over to a massive mahogany sideboard. He poured wine from a silver decanter into a pewter cup, took a thoughtful sip, and then turned back to Phoebe.

“Let me understand this. Do you not wish to marry me in particular… or do you have a generalized dislike of the marital state?” His voice had lost its edge and sounded merely curious.

If I thought there was the slightest chance you might pay me as much attention as you pay your horses, or find me as interesting as politics and this godforsaken war, I would probably marry you like a shot, Phoebe thought bitterly. All her often touted opinions on the myriad disadvantages of marriage for an intelligent woman of independent thought would have gone for nothing if the marquis had shown so much as a spasm of interest in her as a person instead of as a convenient means to an end. As it was…

She stated flatly, “I’m not interested in marrying anyone, Lord Granville. I don’t see the advantages in it… or at least not for me.”

It was such an extraordinary, ridiculous statement that Cato laughed. “My dear girl, you cannot live without a husband. Who’s to put a roof over your head? Food in your belly? Clothes on your back?”

The laughter faded from his eyes as he saw her wide, generous mouth take a stubborn turn. He said brusquely, “I doubt your father will continue to support an undutiful and ungrateful daughter.”

“Would you refuse to support Olivia in such a situation?” Phoebe demanded.

Cato responded curtly, “That is not to the point.”

It was to the point, since Olivia had even less intention than Phoebe of submitting to the dictates of a husband, but Phoebe held her tongue. It was not for her to say.

“So rather than find yourself the marchioness of Granville, living in comfort and security, you choose to fly off into the night, into a war-torn countryside infested with roaming soldiers who would rape and murder you as soon as look at you?” The sardonic note was back in his voice. He took another sip of wine and regarded her over the lip of his cup.

Phoebe, never one to beat about the bush, asked bluntly, “Lord Granville, would you please tell my father that you don’t wish to marry me after all?”

“No!” Cato declared with a degree of force. “I will tell him no such thing. If you held me in distaste, then I would do so, but since your reasons for disliking this marriage are utterly without merit… the mere whims of a foolish girl… I will do no such thing.”

“I am not foolish,” Phoebe said in a low voice. “I am surely entitled to my opinions, sir.”

“Sensible opinions, yes,” he snapped. Then his expression softened somewhat. Although she was the same age as her sister Diana had been at her marriage, Phoebe was somehow less protected, he thought. She had fewer defenses. Diana had never exhibited the slightest vulnerability. She had glided through life, as beautiful and perhaps as brittle as the finest porcelain. Graceful and regal as any swan. Cato didn’t think she had ever questioned herself, or her entitlement. She knew who she was and what she was.

Diana’s rounded, tangled little sister was a bird of a rather different feather, he thought. A rather ragged robin. The comparison surprised him into a fleeting smile.

Phoebe caught the flicker of the smile. It was surprising coming after that uncompromising statement. But then it disappeared and she thought she’d been mistaken.

“Go back to bed,” Cato said. He handed her the cloakbag. “I’ll not mention this to your father.”

That was a concession. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to thank the marquis. The fact that he had the power to make her life miserable and chose not to exercise it didn’t strike her as a matter for congratulation. She sketched a curtsy and left his study, making her way back to bed.

She undressed in the passage again, so as not to awaken Olivia. If Olivia awoke, Phoebe would have to tell her everything. And she had no idea how to explain this bolt from the blue that had felled her just before Christmas.

She’d been sitting in the apple loft, overlooking the stable yard, wrestling with a recalcitrant stanza of a poem she was writing, when Cato had ridden in with a troop of Roundhead cavalry. For two years Phoebe had seen the marquis of Granville go about his daily business and he’d barely impinged on her consciousness. And she’d known she hadn’t impinged on his. But that crisp December day something very strange had happened.

Once more in her shift, Phoebe crept into bed beside Olivia. Her side of the bed was cold now, and she inched closer to Olivia. She was wide-awake and lay looking up at the dark shape of the tapestry tester, idly picturing the bucolic scene of a May Day celebration that was depicted above her.

But her mind wouldn’t let go of the memory of that moment before Christmas when she’d fallen in love… or lust… or whatever this hideous inconvenience was… with Cato, Marquis of Granville.

She’d watched him ride into the yard on his bay charger-something she’d seen many times. He’d been at the head of the troop, but when he’d drawn rein, Giles Crampton, his lieutenant, had come up beside him. Cato had leaned sideways to talk to him.

He was bareheaded and Phoebe had noticed how in the sunlight his dark brown hair had a flicker of gold running through it. He’d moved a gauntleted hand in a gesture to Giles, and Phoebe’s heart had seemed to turn over. This kind of thing happened in poetry all the time. But, poet though she was, Phoebe was rarely plagued by an excess of sentiment, and she had never imagined that verse was a veritable expression of reality.

And yet she’d sat in the apple loft, her quill dripping ink on her precious vellum, her apple halfway to her mouth, while the entire surface of her skin had grown hotter and hotter.

He’d dismounted and she’d gazed, transfixed, at the power, behind his agile movements. She’d gazed at his profile., noticing for the first time the slight bump at the bridge of his long nose, the square jut of his chin, the fine, straight line of his mouth.

Phoebe grimaced fiercely in the darkness. It should have gone away… should have been a moment of angelic lunacy. But it hadn’t gone away. She heard his voice, his foot on the stair, and a deep throb started in her belly. When he walked into a room, she had to leave or sit down before her knees betrayed her.

It was absurd. Yet she could do nothing about it. For a rational being, it was the ultimate injustice. And then two days ago her father had informed her that she was to replace her dead sister as Lord Granville’s wife. For a moment the world had spun on its axis. The glorious prospect of achieving her heart’s desire lay before her. Love and lust with the man whose simple presence was enough to set her heart beating like a drum.

The marquis had been standing beside her father.

He had nodded to her.

Lord Granville had said nothing to her. Not one single word. He had simply nodded to her when her father had completed his announcement. After the announcement had come a brief catalogue of details relating to her dowry and the marriage settlements. And Cato had listened impassively. It was clear he’d heard it all before. Indeed, Phoebe had had the impression that he was either bored or pressed for time. But then he was always pressed for time. If he wasn’t conducting some siege of a royalist stronghold somewhere in the Thames valley, he was meeting with Cromwell and the other generals of the New Model Army, planning strategy in their headquarters outside Oxford.

Phoebe and Olivia rarely saw him. They lived their own lives in the comfortable manor house that Cato had acquired in Woodstock, eight miles from Oxford, when the theatre of war had moved from the north of England to the south and west. He had not wanted to leave his family unprotected in Yorkshire and had brought them with him. Diana’s death had made little or no difference to his life, it seemed to Phoebe.

It had, however, made a significant difference to Phoebe’s and Olivia’s. Freed of Diana’s tyranny, they’d been able to pursue their own interests without hindrance, and until two days ago… or rather until just before Christmas, Phoebe amended… nothing had occurred to disturb their peace.

Now she was condemned to marry a man who would as soon marry a healthy sow if she came with the right dowry and the right breeding potential. Not even Dante’s inferno had created such a fiendish torment. She was to be compelled to spend the rest of her life with a man whom she loved and lusted after to the point of obsession, and who barely acknowledged her existence.

And the unkindest cut of all-there was no one in whom she could confide. It was impossible to explain any of it to Olivia. There were no words… or at least none that Phoebe could think of.

Portia would understand, but Portia was in Yorkshire. Ecstatically happy with Rufus Decatur. And if Cato Granville hadn’t been up and about at three in the morning, Phoebe would be on her way to Yorkshire.

With something resembling a groan, Phoebe flung herself onto her side and closed her eyes.

Downstairs, Cato snuffed the candles in his study, all but a carrying candle, and bent to poke a slipping log to the rear of the grate. He straightened and stood absently staring down at the fire. The full impact of Phoebe’s crazy intention was only just hitting him. What kind of woman would hurl herself out into the freezing night, without the slightest regard for the obvious dangers? Where had she been going, for God’s sake?

And for what a reason! A young woman of Phoebe’s wealth-and lineage not wishing to marry… actually prepared to reject the suit of a marquis! The girl had windmills in her head.

He could perhaps understand it if her father was compelling her into marriage with some monster. If he was proposing to wed her to some repulsive ancient…

Surely Phoebe couldn’t see him in such a light?

The thought brought his head up. Of course that was an absurdity. He was in his prime, a man of five and thirty. True, he’d had ill luck with his wives-or they had had ill luck with their husband, he amended wryly. While it was hardly unusual for a man to have lost three wives before his thirty-fourth summer, it could perhaps strike an ominous note for an impressionable young woman preparing to become the fourth.

But Phoebe had claimed to have no personal objections to him, only to the state of matrimony. And that, of course, was ridiculous.

So was she perhaps unstable? Maybe he should think again. An hysterical wife given to irrational impulses was hardly a comfortable prospect. What kind of mother would she make?

And that, after all, was the crux of the matter. He needed an heir of his own blood. Daughters were all very well, but they could not inherit the title or the estates.

If he did not produce a male heir, then the Granville estates would pass to his stepson, his first wife’s child, whom he’d adopted as an infant because it had seemed the generous thing to do. It had never occurred to Cato in his own exuberant youth that he would fail to produce a son of his own loins to inherit his family name. By adopting the child, he had thought he was merely ensuring the boy’s future.

A foolhardy gesture it had turned out to be.

Cato’s mouth thinned as he thought of his first wife’s child. He would not trust Brian Morse further than he could throw him. He was plausible, charming, but his small eyes were shifty, his tongue too smooth for truth. There was something about him that set Cato’s teeth on edge, and had done since the boy was little more than a child. And for the crowning touch, Brian Morse was on the wrong side in the civil war raging through the land. He supported the king.

Cato had long decided that the king must bow to the dictates of his subjects. He could no longer be permitted to lay waste the country’s resources for his own ends. He could no longer be permitted to ignore the will of the people. King Charles must be compelled to enact the reforms that Parliament had laid before him. Sooner than do that, the king had gone to war with his people. And even those who, like Cato, were reluctant to take up arms against their sovereign had met his challenge.

The king’s cause was all but lost, in Cato’s informed opinion. The Parliamentarians had reformed their armies under Oliver Cromwell, and the New Model Army, disciplined and well paid unlike its royalist opponents, was sweeping victoriously through the country.

Which brought Cato back to Brian Morse.

In these dangerous times it would take very little-a skirmish, a stray musket ball, a sweeping sword cut, a fall from his horse-to leave Brian Morse as head of the Granville clan. So, Cato would marry Phoebe. She was at hand and he was in a hurry. For all practical purposes the alliance could not be bettered.

At eighteen the girl was still young enough to be influenced by her husband. He would be able to control any skittish tendencies.

He pursed his lips, considering Phoebe with cool dispassion. She had a robust air, a sturdy figure with generous hips. A good childbearing figure. Much stronger, much less fragile seeming than her sister. She looked like a woman who would bear sons.

No, she would make him a good wife. He would make, sure of it. Cato went to the door, his carrying candle throwing a soft light ahead of him.

Phoebe was awakened at first light by Olivia’s hand on her shoulder. “Phoebe, why are your clothes all over the floor?”

“Wh… what?” Phoebe struggled onto an elbow. She blinked blearily at Olivia. She felt horrible, as if she hadn’t slept a wink. “What’s the time? It’s the middle of the night!” she protested. It certainly felt like the middle of the night.

“No, it’s not. It’s nearly six o’clock,” Olivia stated. Her black eyes were sharply appraising in the pale oval of her face. She took a deep breath, concentrating on controlling the stammer that had plagued her from childhood.

“Your clothes. They’re in the middle of the floor. They weren’t when we went to b-bed.”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk,” Phoebe said.

“Out of the house!” Olivia stared in patent disbelief.

Phoebe shook her head. “No… I was going to but then it seemed too cold and dark, so I came back to bed again.” Which was not exactly a lie, she thought.

Olivia was not convinced. “You’re fibbing,” she declared.

Phoebe flopped back on the pillows again. Her eyes felt gritty, filled with sand, and she rubbed them with the heels of her palms.

Olivia sat up, hugging her knees to her narrow chest. She frowned fiercely, her thick dark brows meeting over the bridge of the long Granville nose. “I suppose you really don’t wish to marry my father,” she said matter-of-factly.

If only it were that simple! But Phoebe couldn’t see how to explain the complexities of her present dilemma to Cato’s daughter. “I don’t wish to get married at all. You know that,” she replied. “We agreed we wouldn’t ever marry… that day in the boathouse, with Portia.”

“I know, b-but that was a long time ago,” Olivia said. “Things change. Look at Portia. Would you ever have believed Portia, of all of us, would have married?”

“Portia’s a law unto herself,” Phoebe said. “She married because she chose to. I’m being made to.”

Olivia contemplated this melancholy truth. “I know,” she said simply. “B-but at least it means we’ll always be able to live together.”

“Until you get married,” Phoebe pointed out.

“I’m not going to,” Olivia stated flatly.

“That’s what we all said,” Phoebe reminded her again. “If it can happen to Portia and me, what makes you think you’ll be able to hold out?”

Olivia’s fine mouth took an obstinate turn. Her pale cheeks became a little flushed. “No one will be able to force me to marry!” she said with low-voiced intensity.

“Don’t you believe it,” Phoebe said glumly, dragging herself up against the pillows. “What say do women have in these matters? No one asked me for my opinion; quite the opposite. My father and yours just told me it was going to happen. I could have screamed and torn out my hair, but it would have made no difference. It’s the way things are, and it’ll be just as bad after I’m married. Probably worse.”

She wrinkled her snub nose. “To add insult to injury, your father can’t possibly really wish to marry me. How could he?” She grabbed at her waist with a grimace. “Look at all this flesh! Diana was so slender and elegant and I’m as round as a sugar bun!”

“You’re curvy and womanly,” Olivia said, as always stubbornly defending her friend, even against herself. “That’s what Portia said.”

“Your father just wants a son, and I’m a convenient vehicle,” Phoebe said bluntly.

Olivia regarded her in silence. She could think of no way to refute this very obvious truth. "You might like having a child,” she suggested after a minute.

“It’s not going to happen in a hurry.”

She sounded remarkably definite to Olivia. “How d’you know?” she inquired, her eyes curious.

Phoebe stared into the middle distance. “There are ways to stop it happening.”

“How?” Olivia gazed at her in wide-eyed fascination.

“You know my friend Meg?”

Olivia nodded eagerly. Meg was a herbalist and had a certain reputation for benign witchcraft in the village.

“Well, she’s told me how to do it,” Phoebe said. “There are certain herbs that can prevent conception. She says it’s not foolproof, but usually it works.”

“But why don’t you wish to give my father a child?”

Phoebe looked into the distance again. “I just told you that he’s marrying me because I’m convenient. An accidental convenience. Until he stops seeing me in that light… really stops seeing me in that light… then I’ll not conceive.”

She looked straight at Olivia now and there was a grimly determined set to her mouth. “Once I give him what he wants, he’ll never need to try to understand me, or see me for who I am. D’you see that, Olivia?”

“Yes, of c-course I do.”

“I would be a partner in his life,” Phoebe continued. “Not a dependent with limited uses.”

“Married women are always dependent,” Olivia stated. “They can’t help but be… well, except for Portia,” she added.

“What Portia can do, I can do,” Phoebe said.

“But once you give my father an heir, I don’t expect he’ll trouble you much. He’s always so busy…” Olivia’s voice trailed off. She was not offering much in the way of comfort to her friend, who was facing the one situation they had always agreed to avoid. A situation that Olivia herself couldn’t bear to contemplate.

“Not so busy that he won’t expect me to honor and obey implicitly in exchange for a roof over my head and clothes on my back,” Phoebe said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “He said as much. Wives aren’t people, they’re chattels.”

Olivia shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There isn’t anything,” Phoebe declared. “I’m stuck with it. Unless I can do something about it. So I’m going to try.”