Free A Timeless Romance Anthology: European Collection by Annette Lyon, G. G. Vandagriff, Michele Paige Holmes, Sarah M. Eden, Heather B. Moore, Nancy Campbell Allen

had been hoping for Grillon’s Hotel. What bride wishes to stay with her family when she is only just married?

Chapter Three
     
    Melissa woke to find her husband no longer beside her in bed. Stilling her disappointment, she rang for her maid, quickly washed, and was helped into her turquoise striped muslin. She told Stella to style her thick blonde hair quickly in a simple chignon. Melissa yearned to see Thomas.
    However, when she arrived at the breakfast table, she found only a note and a key awaiting her.
     
    Dear One,
    I had to go out to discharge some long overdue business. I shall doubtless be gone most of the day. Perhaps you and your mama would care to go over Oaksey House in my absence and determine what you would like to do to refurbish it. You may do whatever you like, with the exception of decorating in either chartreuse or puce. I shall not be home for dinner, if you could kindly inform your mama.
    Yours,
    O.
     
    What a very unloverlike letter! And what business could he have in such a rush? Why would he not be home for dinner? Melissa did not want to view Oaksey House for the first time without him. Decisions about the house should be made together. Not with her mama.
    Melissa’s brother, Lord Donald, entered the breakfast room and went to the sideboard. “What?” he said. “Is Oaksey a slug-a-bed?”
    “No,” Melissa said.
    “Gone out and left you miffed, has he?”
    Donald’s most irritating flaw was his cheerfulness.
    “He has business,” Melissa said.
    “I am certain he does. He has been pockets-to-let this age.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Debts, my dear sister. Surely you knew. He’s in debt to everyone. Apparently, that estate of his eats money.”
    Melissa closed her eyes and bit her tongue. “You exaggerate. You always do.”
    “Not this time. When I told Oaksey about your dowry...”
    “What!” Melissa exclaimed. “When you did what?”
    Her brother shrugged. “I was by way of helping out. Knew you didn’t want to marry Trowbridge. Thought of Oaksey. Knew he’d go for it in an instant.”
    “Because... because of my dowry? How could you, Donald?”
    Melissa rose and dashed from the room, her heart lanced with pain. Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. She concentrated on attaining the one place she could escape discovery.
    Clattering up the stairs to the third floor, she flew through the doors to the nursery. Sunshine flooded the rooms, which smelled of disinfectant and floor polish. At this moment, she welcomed the bracing smell. She closed the doors, wishing she could slam them without drawing notice to herself, and flung open the window leading onto the roof. Stepping out, Melissa watched her feet as she walked close to the nursery chimney.
    Just as when she had been punished as a child, she hugged the cold stone to keep from falling off the slates. How could she have been so deceived as to think the man she married loved her?
    His proposal to elope had come at the perfect time, so she had swept away all doubts about its obvious prematurity. Crying bitter tears, she wondered if she should have married Trowbridge instead. He had compromised her. Not intentionally, of course. He had needed her help, and she had given it willingly.
    But how could she ever have married Frank when he loved Sophie deeply? So desperately that he convinced them both not to care about the consequences when he asked Melissa to show him how to break into Sophie’s house in the middle of the night. He had been aflame with his need to see her when she was deathly ill. Returning to the ball after their visit with her, Melissa and Frank had been discovered leaving the carriage together. Papa had declared her ruined. Of course, she was not ruined, and Papa’s actions had only made the scandal worse.
    He had wanted Frank for her the moment he met him. They had played right into his hands with their thoughtless behavior.
    But she and Frank would have been dreadfully unhappy married to one another.