The Right Bride?. Jessica Steele

ago, and was now a complex of gîtes. Even then, she had rejected each and every offer of hospitality from Madelon Colville, but she’d objected almost hysterically when Allie had suggested she should visit her great-aunt by herself.

      ‘Are you mad?’ she’d stormed. ‘What will Hugo think?’

      Allie lifted her chin. ‘Does that matter?’

      ‘Oh, don’t talk like a fool.’ Fay glared at her. ‘You don’t seem to have a clue how to keep a young man interested.’

      ‘Perhaps because I suspect it’s only a passing interest,’ Allie told her coolly.

      ‘Nonsense. He’s taken you down to the Hall, hasn’t he? Introduced you to his mother?’

      ‘Yes,’ Allie agreed reluctantly.

      ‘Well, the invitation must be a sign that she approves of Hugo’s choice.’

      ‘And what about my own views on Hugo’s choice? Supposing I don’t approve?’

      ‘That,’ her mother said sharply, ‘is not funny.’

      But I, thought Allie, wasn’t joking.

      Her attitude to Hugo Marchington had always been ambivalent. At first she’d been convinced she was falling in love, carried away by the sheer glamour of him. She’d frankly enjoyed dining in top restaurants, being whisked off to polo matches, race meetings, regattas, and all the other leading events in the social calendar.

      But, as weeks had become months, she’d realised that she simply did not know her own mind. And if he was indeed planning to ask her to become engaged to him, as she’d suspected, she had no real idea of what answer to give him. Which, by then, she should have done.

      Naturally, she’d been flattered. Who wouldn’t have been? In previous eras Hugo would have been considered the catch of the county, because he was rich, handsome, and he could be charming.

      Yes, she thought. That was the sticking point. Could be—but wasn’t always. In fact he’d sometimes revealed the makings of a nasty temper, although he had invariably been contrite afterwards.

      And, in spite of all the assiduous attention he’d paid her, she hadn’t been altogether convinced that his heart was in it. He might, in fact, have been behaving as he was expected to do.

      At the beginning of their relationship he’d made a couple of serious attempts at seduction, which Allie had fended off just as seriously. He hadn’t repelled her physically—but nor had he stirred her blood to the point of surrender. His kisses had never made her long for more. But she’d been aware that could have been due to an element of emotional reserve within herself, which, in turn, gave her an aura of coolness that some men might find a challenge.

      At any rate, she’d known that giving herself in the ultimate intimacy would have implied a level of commitment that she had simply not been prepared for. Or not with Hugo Marchington—not yet. Although she had supposed that might change eventually.

      In view of her lukewarm attitude, she’d been genuinely surprised when, instead of writing her off as a lost cause sexually, and looking for a more willing partner, he’d continued to ask her out.

      I wonder, she’d thought, if his mother’s told him it’s time he settled down, and I’m handy and reasonably presentable, but not so devastating that I’ll ever outshine him.

      Having met Lady Marchington, she had quite believed it. She had also believed that she genuinely ticked enough of the right boxes to be acceptable. And her mother’s Knightsbridge address would have raised no eyebrows either.

      All the same, in her lunch hours at the private library where she’d worked as an assistant, she had found herself scanning the job columns for work that would take her away from London.

      Maybe I should have obeyed my instincts and moved. Even gone back to college, perhaps, and improved my qualifications. And somehow persuaded my mother that it would be a good thing.

      But if I had there would have been no Tom, and, in spite of everything, the thought of him not being here—never having been born—is too awful to contemplate.

      Allie brought her restless wanderings to a halt, and gazed around her, assimilating once again the full baroque splendours of the Fountain Court.

      I love it, she told herself wryly. But I don’t belong here. I never did. The Hall is not my home, but it has to be Tom’s. Some good has to come out of all this unhappiness.

      He belongs here. I made that decision, and I have to remain for his sake. But I have to find something to do with my own life. I’m edgy all the time because I feel confined at the Hall—claustrophobic. I have no actual role to play, so I spend my days just—hanging around. It’s boring, and it’s not healthy either.

      And I won’t think of the life I might have had if I’d done as Tante Madelon begged and stayed in Brittany, because that was never an actual possibility—always just a dream. And a dangerous dream at that.

      Because, once again, she realised, there was a sound echoing in her head—the sure, steady beat of a horse’s hooves coming behind her, just as she’d heard them so many times over the past months, sleeping and waking. Following her—getting closer all the time.

      She said aloud, ‘It’s just my imagination playing tricks, nothing else. Imagination—and more guilt.’

      She went slowly back to her bench, her great-aunt’s letter like a lead weight in her pocket, and sat down. Although all she really wanted to do was put her hands over her ears and run.

      But I’ve already done that—twice, she thought, her throat closing. And now, God help me, I have to live with the consequences.

      All of them…

      And if that means facing up to my memories, and exorcising them for ever, then so be it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      SHE’D fainted, she remembered, sliding from her chair at the breakfast table one morning under Grace’s astonished eye. That was how it had all begun. And it hadn’t been the family’s usual doctor who’d answered the summons to attend her ladyship, but a locum, young, brisk, and totally unimpressed by his surroundings.

      He’d insisted on seeing Allie alone, questioning her with real kindness, and eventually she’d realised he was suggesting she might be pregnant. And suddenly she’d found herself crying, and unable to stop, as she told him how utterly impossible that was, or ever could be. And of the constant pressure she’d been under during her four months of soulless marriage, both from Hugo and his mother, to somehow bring about a miracle and give him the child he craved.

      ‘He doesn’t believe any of the consultants.’ Her voice had choked on a sob. ‘He says it’s my fault. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what he expects me to do.’

      Confronting Hugo and Grace, the doctor had announced that Lady Marchington had been under a great deal of stress since the wedding, and was in dire need of a complete break, well away from the Hall and its environs.

      ‘A holiday,’ Grace had pondered aloud. ‘Somewhere in the sun, perhaps, where they have good facilities for wheelchairs.’ She gave the interloper an icy smile. ‘It is, after all, my son who has suffered the real trauma here.’

      ‘I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear.’ The doctor was a stocky man, with sandy hair and a pugnacious expression with a built-in ice deflector. ‘Lady Marchington actually needs to get away from all that. Build up her resources. Surely she has friends or family she could go to—somewhere she could relax in undemanding company for a while?’

      ‘I have a very dear great-aunt in Brittany,’ Allie said quietly, looking back at him, aware of Grace’s barely suppressed fury at the word ‘undemanding’. She drew a breath. ‘She would have me to stay with her, I know.’

      ‘Ideal.’ He nodded. ‘Walks on the beach,