Your faithful servant,
Sergeant Blackthorne
Bombay, India, 30 August, 1842
My dear Lady Cecilia,
Do not think me presumptuous, but after corresponding regularly for over a year, the absence of a letter from you leaves me puzzled and apprehensive, especially after you shared your concerns about your future. Please write when you are able. Surely you are in the midst of your reintroduction to Society.
Your faithful servant,
Sergeant Blackthorne
Appertan Hall, 19 October, 1842
Dear Sergeant Blackthorne,
Please forgive my lack of correspondence. You have written to me faithfully, and I have allowed my own concerns to override my behavior as your friend. I have sad news to report. No sooner did I emerge from mourning, than did my dearest friend Hannah tragically drown. I have been comforting her younger sister, Penelope, as well as her parents, even though my own brother requires more and more of my attention. I am feeling constrained by my guardian, who will not grant me access to my own inheritance until I turn twenty-five.
Unless I marry. Sergeant, you will surely think my next words mad, but please listen to my reasoning. Would you consider marrying me? Neither of us has anyone we are promised to, and every young man of my acquaintance is so shallow and immature compared to you. I know you plan to remain in the Dragoon Guards for life, and I would be perfectly content with that. We could marry by proxy, as has sometimes happened when military men are stationed out of the country. I will remain here, helping my brother with the Appertan estates, while you remain in India. If this favor is beyond your ability to grant, I understand, and know that I will continue to be your faithful correspondent—
Cecilia
Chapter 1
Middlesex, England 1843
At the pounding on the front door, Lady Cecilia looked up from the letter she’d been writing at the little desk in the drawing room at Appertan Hall. The afternoon was so overcast as to seem like dusk, and a lightning flash illuminated the curtains while giving off a crack of noise. Who would be out and about on such a day?
She briskly got to her feet and strode toward the cavernous entrance hall of the castle, reaching it at the same moment her white-haired butler, Talbot, opened one of the massive double doors. A broad man stood silhouetted briefly by another flash of lightning, and she couldn’t see his face. A blast of mist blew in around him, and she smelled the rain.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Talbot said in a dignified voice, even though he had to raise it to be heard above the storm.
The man leaned heavily on a cane and nodded to Talbot. “Good afternoon.”
There was something about his deep voice that seemed ... different, that made her more alert.
“I need to see your mistress,” he continued.
“May I ask who is calling?” Talbot said with reserve, as if he would be the stranger’s gatekeeper and judge.
“Sergeant Blackthorne. She will know the name of her husband,” he added.
Cecilia covered her mouth, feeling a surge of shock and disbelief. Sergeant Blackthorne? Here in Middlesex? He had assured her he never planned to leave his regiment in India, and she’d assumed she might never meet him.
He took a step across the threshold, and she saw the broad, strong hands of a young man, the unbowed shoulders. Her late father’s supposedly closest friend could not be more than ten years her elder. How was it possible that she’d made such a wrong assumption about his age? She’d married him by proxy six months before, thinking she was making a perfectly rational decision about a husband she’d never wanted.
She must have made some sort of sound, for both men turned to look at her. Talbot said nothing, surely realizing the next decision was hers.
“Please do come in, Sergeant Blackthorne,” she said with more calm than she felt.
He swept off his hat and limped inside, and she wasn’t surprised when he stared at her for long moments. She knew she was pleasant to look at, but his regard seemed more intense than any she’d ever felt before.
“Shall I send a footman for your bags, sir?” Talbot asked.
“And a groom for my horse.”
“Of course, sir.”
