The Right Bride?. Jessica Steele

him birth, and now I’m being sidelined. It’s a ludicrous situation to be in.

      Most of her friends were young marrieds, struggling to cope with child-rearing alongside the demands of their careers. They must think that, apart from the tragedy of being widowed at twenty-one, she’d pretty much fallen on her feet.

      After all, she had a large house to live in, a staff to run it, and no money or childcare problems.

      Besides, some of them clearly thought that the premature end of her marriage was a blessing in disguise too, although they never said so openly.

      And if they did, Allie thought, sighing, could I really deny it?

      She walked slowly across the hall and, drawing a deep breath, entered the dining room. Grace Marchington was seated at the head of the table—although ‘enthroned’ might be a better description, Allie thought as she fielded the disparaging glance aimed at her denim skirt and white cheesecloth blouse, closely followed, as usual, by the glance at the watch—just pointed enough to be noticeable.

      ‘Good morning, Alice. Did you sleep well?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but picked up the small brass bell beside her place and rang it sharply. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Windom to bring some fresh toast.’

      Allie took her seat and poured herself some coffee. ‘I’m sorry if I’m late. I popped in to see Tom on my way down.’

      ‘Not a terribly convenient time, my dear, as I think Nanny has mentioned to you.’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ Allie said. ‘She has.’ She fortified herself with some coffee. ‘So, perhaps she could suggest when it would be more appropriate for me to visit my own son. Because somehow I always seem to get it wrong.’

      Lady Marchington replaced her cup in its saucer in a measured way. ‘I’m not sure I understand you, Alice.’

      Allie took a breath. ‘I’d like to see Tom first thing in the morning without it being regarded as an unreasonable request. In fact, I’d love to be there when he wakes up, so that I can sort out his clothes and bath him, and then give him his breakfast. That’s surely not too much to ask.’

      ‘Are you implying that Nanny is incapable in some way of supplying Tom’s needs? May I remind you that she was entrusted with the care of Hugo as soon as he was born.’

      ‘I do realise that, yes,’ Allie said wearily. I’ve never been allowed to forget it.

      ‘And I’m sure you also recall that there was a time, after Tom’s birth, when Nanny’s presence became indispensable?’

       The dagger between the ribs…

      ‘Yes, I had postnatal depression for a while.’ Allie kept her tone even. ‘But I got over it.’

      ‘Did you, my dear? Sometimes I wonder.’ Her mother-in-law gave her a sad smile. ‘Of course, you are still grieving for our beloved boy, which may account for the mood swings I sometimes detect. But I’m sure Dr Lennard would be happy to recommend someone—a specialist who could help you over this difficult period in your life.’

      Allie’s lips tightened. ‘You think that wanting to look after my small child means I need a psychiatrist?’

      Lady Marchington looked almost shocked. ‘There are many different levels of therapy, Alice. And it was only a suggestion, after all.’

      As if signifying that the matter was closed, she turned her attention to the pile of post which had been placed beside her, as it was every morning. And, as she did so, Allie suddenly spotted the pale blue envelope with the French stamp, halfway down, and stifled a small gasp.

      A letter from Tante Madelon, she thought, and felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Was that the real reason for last night’s dream, and not the storm at all? Why she’d heard all over again the sibilant rush of the incoming tide and the thunder of the pursuing hoofbeats? Because somehow she’d sensed that all the memories of Brittany she’d tried so hard to bury were about to be revived?

      Her heart was thumping against her ribs, but she knew there was no point in claiming the letter. That wasn’t the way the system worked. All the mail delivered to the Hall came to Grace first, to be scrutinised before it was handed out to staff and family alike.

      And if she thought you were taking an undue interest in any item, she was quite capable of taking the day’s post to her private sitting room and letting you seethe quietly for half a day, or even twenty-four hours, before handing it over with the mellifluous words, ‘I think this must be for you.’

      ‘It’s madness,’ Allie had once told Hugo heatedly. ‘Your mother is the ultimate control freak. Why don’t you say something?’

      But he’d only looked at her, brows raised in haughty surprise. ‘Mother’s always dealt with the mail. My father preferred it, and I don’t see it as a problem.’

      But then Hugo had seen very little as a problem, apart from the utter necessity of providing a son and heir for his beloved estate. That, in the end, had been the driving force—the obsession in his ruined life. Two ruined lives, if she counted her own, and she tried hard not to do that. Bitterness, after all, was futile, and damaged no one but herself. Regret, too, altered nothing.

      But was she still mourning her late husband, as her mother-in-law had suggested? In her innermost heart, she doubted that. The suddenness of his death had certainly been an acute shock, but she suspected her reaction was largely triggered by guilt because she’d never really loved him.

      For a long time she’d felt numb—too emotionally paralysed even to feel relief that the nightmare of their marriage had ended—but that had been over and done with long ago.

      Slowly and carefully, she’d begun to find herself again, and somehow she had to move on from that—to regain the here and now, and stop allowing Grace to treat her as some kind of cipher—even if it did end with blood on the carpet.

      How to go about it, of course, was not so clear, she told herself ironically. Because her mother-in-law seemed to hold all the winning cards.

      In those tragic crowded weeks after Hugo had died with such shocking suddenness and Tom had been born, Allie herself had temporarily descended into some bleak, dark limbo.

      It was then that Grace Marchington had effortlessly reassumed the role of mistress of the house. In fact, Allie could see, looking back, that she’d never really been away.

      I was just the temporary usurper who gave Hugo the son he’d craved, she thought. And after that I was supposed to retire into well-deserved obscurity, while Grace and Nanny pursued the task of turning Tom into a tintype of Marchington Man.

      But that’s not going to happen, because I won’t let it.

      She realised, however, that she needed to conserve her energies for the battles she had to win—and Grace being anally retentive over a bunch of letters was not the most important. A minor irritation at best.

      So, for the time being, she sat and ate the toast that Mrs Windom had brought, and never gave a second glance at the mail that Grace was examining with such torturous slowness. It might only be a small victory, but it counted.

      She looked instead at the picture on the wall in front of her. It was a portrait of Hugo that his mother had commissioned for his twenty-fifth birthday, two years before the accident. Lady Marchington had not been altogether satisfied with the result, saying it was a poor likeness. But Allie wasn’t so sure about that. The artist had given Hugo credit for his undoubted good looks, but also hinted at a slight fleshiness about the jaw, and a peevish line to the mouth. Nor had he made any attempt to conceal that the crisply cut dark hair was already beginning to recede.

      It was Hugo, she thought, as he would have become if his life had taken a different path. If there’d been more time…

      And suddenly superimposed on it, she realised, her heart bumping, was another face—thinner, swarthier, with a beak of a nose and heavy-lidded eyes, as blue and cold as