Page 1 of A Stranger’s Promise

Chapter One

London, February 1814

“Scandalous.” Captain Edwards sniffed in disdain. Charlotte tried not to wince when he turned his icy gaze from the store window to her. “No wife of mine would even look at such a gown.” His bearded jaw clenched, he added in an even stronger censorious tone, “Frankly, Charlotte, I am disappointed.”

We aren’t married—yet, Charlotte retorted in her mind, and caught herself mid-roll of her eyes.

She pushed her prim straw bonnet back from her face and turned back to the shop window for another look.The gown floated there like a dream come true. Cut in the latest fashion and trimmed with embroidered rosebuds, lace, and tiny seed pearls, its sweeping, crimson silk skirt fell in a tumble of soft, sensuous folds. The dressmaker had even angled several mirrors around the masterpiece to highlight the different views.

Charlotte grinned. If she squinted her eyes and tilted her head just a little to the left, she could almost imagine herself wearing the confection. In her mind’s eye, an obliging shaft of winter sunlight caught the playful spark in her eyes along with the brilliant gold of her unruly brown curls, a contrast against the cream taffeta as she whirled in the dress.

Her future husband’s heavy hand fell upon her shoulder. She jarred back into the moment and caught his reflection in the window. A toned and muscular tower of a man, resplendent in a Queen’s fine scarlet coat with its gold braid and polished brass buttons. A gallantly handsome figure, to be sure—at first glance, anyway. A deeper inspection revealed chilling blue eyes and the vein on his forehead pulsed in disapproval, a vein that betrayed an ever-present simmering rage.

“I insist we leave, Charlotte.” He grasped her arm. “A virtuous woman would never soil her father’s good name—nor mine—by wearing such an abomination.”

Charlotte suppressed a snort. “I merely thought it pretty, Captain Edwards.”

“As my future wife, I insist you think no such thing.” He looped his arm through hers and pulled her away from the shop window.

This time, she did roll her eyes. Heavens, did the man seek to control her thoughts? She snorted.

Captain Edwards paused midstride and peered down at her through narrowed eyes. “Are you mocking me?”

Charlotte thinned her lips in a grim line. She’d witnessed the Captain’s temper often enough to regret her acceptance of his marriage proposal—a proposal her father had pressured her to accept at the tender age of sixteen. Her father, a major in the Queen’s army, found Captain Edwards quite the catch. Not only was he a decorated captain, but a distant cousin to a baronet. Later, she learned her father owed the man a great deal of money. The discovery gave her courage. She’d begged her father to allow her to end the engagement, but he thought it far too late, and reminded her that he valued loyalty and faithfulness above all else—after the balance of his bank account, of course.

Still, she tried to change his mind, but whenever she broached the matter, he invariably replied, “It is you who must change, Charlotte. You are proud and willful. Be grateful the man still wants you. Heed his guidance. Marriage isn’t pleasure. Marriage is work. When you’re older, you’ll understand. Now, enough of this foolishness.”

Well, now she was older and she understood very well. Her father sought only to protect his own interests—not hers.

“I am speaking to you, Charlotte.” Captain Edwards gave her arm a rough shake. “I repeat, are you mocking me?”

Charlotte blinked. She cleared her throat, then answered in the most placating of tones, “No, sir.”

He searched her face, clearly—and rightly—suspicious of her sincerity before nodding in satisfaction. Anchoring her arm tightly under his, he resumed their walk down the icy, snow-covered street.

“I know you think me harsh, Charlotte,” he said. “But I’ve only your best interests at heart. Be grateful I am here to guide you. Because of me, you have blossomed into a virtuous woman, a woman worthy of becoming my wife. You’ve changed so much from when I met you as an undisciplined young girl of fifteen.”

Charlotte looked away, in an effort to keep her anger in check. If only she hadn’t met him that summer six years ago, that dreadful day when he’d first stepped foot in her father’s home. She’d been far too young and impressionable to see what he truly was: an insufferable, judgmental boor of a prig—and a prig with a raging temper at that.

“Now, you are of an age where one expects you to have overcome your flaws,” he droned on, puffing his chest pompously with each judging word. “The unhappy catastrophe of your mother’s death as a child resulted in your lack of a proper upbringing, but…”

Charlotte let his voice fade into the background and took a deep lungful of the crisp, clean winter air. She’d heard this speech countless times. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her newborn daughter with only a name and a leather-bound cookery book. And with her father stationed in far-off India, Charlotte and cookbook passed between various family members for a time. She’d finally found a happy home with an elderly, distant relative, a retired Navy man who taught her Greek philosophy and the fine art of swearing. She’d been delightfully happy. Then he passed away and shortly after, her father returned from abroad.

“A humble, subservient wife, Charlotte,” the pompous man at her side continued. “One who wears only modest attire. You must be the very model of propriety…”

A dark cloud passed over the sun. Stifling a yawn, Charlotte stared at the sudden snowflakes swirling down from above and tracked their descent from the sky as they flurried around the streetlamps along the lane. If only she could be as free to simply float away.

“Respect, duty, and honor,” Captain Edwards kept on. “Discipline and fortitude. A woman to remain by my side through life’s fortunes and misfortunes. Do you not agree that these are the obligations of a proper wife, Charlotte?”

“Yes, sir,” she mumbled dutifully.

A break in the buildings ahead offered a sudden tantalizing glimpse of the Frost Fair spread out on the frozen Thames below. She’d read about it in the papers, but in person, it was fabulous, a living painting of women in brightly beribboned, feathered bonnets, men in velvet top hats, and children skating on the ice, toffee apples in hand. Painters lined the river banks, squinted in the darkening afternoon with brushes in hand as they captured the gaiety of the wondrous occasion on their canvases. Men on stilts threaded through the crowds gathered to watch the puppet shows and gape at the elephant by Black Friar’s Bridge, used periodically to test the strength of the ice.

Suddenly, Captain Edwards cupped her chin and forced her eyes up to his. “What do you say to that?” he asked in a deep voice.

Charlotte blinked, startled by the unexpectedness of his move. He usually railed on for a good half hour or so. She twisted her lips and tried in vain to recall his words. “Da—uh…dare I agree, sir?” She caught herself at the last second and swiftly changed damnation into dare.

His blue eyes remained aloof, cool, and critical. She bit her lip, in hopes her reply a sufficient one to whatever he’d asked.