Scandalously Wed to the Captain Read online

  Bound to a stranger

  ...in a secret ceremony!

  With her finances, reputation and heart all broken by a family scandal, Grace Linwood seeks employment. But the lady she’s companion to isn’t long for this world. She’s intent on seeing Grace protected and quickly wed to her son, curt and closed-off Captain Spencer Dauntsey. With little choice, all Grace can say is “I do”...but who is the man she has just married?

  “What do you say? Ought we give in to my mother’s tyranny and grant her this final request?”

  His tone was as detached as he could manage, although the intense emotion that his own words sent lancing to his gut almost choked him. Her final request. After everything else was stripped away, that was the bare fact: Dorothea was dying, fading before his very eyes, and this was the last thing he could ever do for the woman who had been his last reason for living. There was no humor to be found at her meddling, only the unfillable gap her death would leave in his heart and his soul, a space that even with her final breaths she tried so ardently to mend for him. She had seen that same kindness in Grace—could it be they would truly save each other from their miserable fates?

  It was only when his chest gave a wrench Spencer realized he had been holding his breath as he waited for Grace to reply. Her long lashes shielded her from looking directly at him, but nothing could hide the tremble of her lips as she spoke the only word necessary to send his heart slamming into his ribs.

  “Yes.”

  Author Note

  I’d had the vague outline of a plot simmering for a while before I started writing Scandalously Wed to the Captain, although—as is often the way—the initial idea developed over time in directions I hadn’t expected. One of those offshoots came after I stumbled across the history of London’s Fleet Prison in the course of my research—it was so interesting there was no way it wasn’t featuring in the book.

  First built in 1197, Fleet was notorious for its poor conditions and often rough treatment of its unfortunate inhabitants. To find oneself housed within its grim walls would spell the end of a good reputation in society, as our heroine Grace Linwood finds when her father is imprisoned, leaving her with no choice but to bear the shame. For a young woman in nineteenth-century England, losing her social standing could mean the death of future marriage prospects and a lifetime of relying on her family to support her; no wonder avoiding scandal was so important.

  The captain in the title, Spencer Dauntsey, is equally compromised, but far less inclined to care. Haunted by shadows of his past, he is a man in dire need of help from his unexpected new wife, who soon finds she has much to contend with... I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know Grace and Spencer, and find the glimpse into the world of Regency crime and punishment as interesting as I did!

  Joanna Johnson

  Scandalously Wed to the Captain

  Joanna Johnson lives in a pretty Wiltshire village with her husband and as many books as she can sneak into the house. Being part of the Harlequin Historical family is a dream come true. She has always loved writing, starting at five years old with a series about a cat imaginatively named Cat, and she keeps a notebook in every handbag—just in case. In her spare time she likes finding new places to have a cream tea, stroking scruffy dogs and trying to remember where she left her glasses.

  Books by Joanna Johnson

  Harlequin Historical

  The Marriage Rescue

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  For my husband, family and friends—thank you for all the help and support along the way.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Excerpt from Their Mistletoe Reunion by Christine Merrill

  Chapter One

  Grace Linwood stared out at the flat haze of the horizon until she could no longer tell if the tang of salt on her tongue was from the sea spray or her own tears.

  How long she’d stood on the rain-lashed Cobb she couldn’t say; only that when Henry Earls had pushed a piece of paper into her hand he had worn a halo of January sunlight and now that same sun was setting over the sea somewhere far beyond her reach.

  The cries of gulls wheeling overhead mixed with the whistle of wind in her ears, its invisible hands lifting her cloak to snap behind her as though it were alive. Tiny needles of rain pricked at her cold cheeks, at the hands that held a letter between nerveless fingers, but Grace was numb to everything but the lead weight of despair that had settled behind her breastbone.

  In light of your father’s recent incarceration I must rescind my offer of marriage. The unfortunate reversal in your position and fortune render me unable to continue our engagement and I am certain you will be good enough to release me from any obligation towards you.

  A hot tide of tears rose up, stinging her eyes alongside the salt spray thrown into her face. If only they would stop coming. Surely there couldn’t be many left to fall, but each time she recalled Henry’s callous words pain twisted like a knife in her guts and a fresh stream fell to mingle with the rain.

  Perhaps some part of her should have questioned why such a man would notice her, pursue her above all the other young ladies of Lyme Regis, who danced and sang and flirted as brazenly as they dared, bright eyes fixed on whichever fortunate gentleman sparked their interest.

  I was never one of their number.

  Too bookish, too quiet, too plain—it had seemed a miracle when Henry singled her out less than a year previously, asking her to partner him in a quadrille, and the strange thrill that had torn a gasp from her lips at the first touch of his hand on hers was something she would never forget. Staring out across the barren sea, Grace felt those same lips twist into a grimace of pain no words could hope to capture as she recalled another unforgettable moment: how he had left her that afternoon, turning and walking away from her for ever without so much as a backward glance at the woman whose heart he had just ripped from her chest. There could surely be no better proof his interest had only ever stretched as far as her connections and fortune, and now she had neither there was nothing left for him to covet.

  The approach of a pair of older women hurrying along behind her, heads tucked down and cloaks clutched tightly to them, almost made Grace turn. Instead, she stepped closer to the Cobb’s slippery edge as she heard their voices lower into rapid whispers as they passed by her without so much as a nod, the words barely audible above the keen of the wind, but their tone of malice unmistakable.

  ‘...surprised she dare stir out of doors...a shameful business...’

  ‘They claim he was wrongfully accused! They’ll have to give up that fine house, and with so many daughters...’

  ‘Bankrupt, I heard. Can’t imagine her young man will stay much longer, or that any other is like to make advances now.’

  Grace flinched as each barbed word pricked her with their poison. It was hard enough that everything they said was true without the bleak reality of her situation thrown into her face: with no money, no good name and the shame of an incarcerated father—wrongfully or otherwise—neither Grace nor her three younger sisters could hope for any man half as eligible as Henry to so much as glance in their d
irection ever again, let alone allow himself to be shackled to a wife so humbled to dust.

  She drew her hand across her eyes, feeling the wet tracks that streaked her cheeks, and took a deep breath like fire in her lungs.

  ‘Enough. Enough of this now.’

  Crying would do nothing. No words would bring Henry back to her arms, nor any river of tears make him change his mind. Nothing could undo Papa’s mistake, his willingness to see the best in others the sorry cause of his family’s disgrace. Mama’s face was already drawn with worry, deep lines creasing the formerly smooth plane of her forehead below blonde curls that matched Grace’s own; she wouldn’t add to her mother’s burden by arriving home with trembling lips and eyes made red by weeping.

  The thought of Mama’s tired face sent a fresh shard lancing through Grace’s insides and she pressed a cold hand to the place where her unhappiness lay like a rock in her stomach.

  It wasn’t just my future that was tied to Henry’s love of me—or lack of it.

  Freed from the expense of maintaining all four daughters, Mama might have been able to scrape together enough money to allow them to remain in their home. This was now surely but a fantasy and Grace felt herself sag in mute despair.

  She closed her eyes, screwing them shut against the grey creep of dusk. The roar of the waves and plaintive cries of gulls called to her, curiously melancholy and mingling with her grief. She should leave this rain-sodden place and go home to face her poor mother’s disappointment, she knew, but something inside her held her fast to the spot on which she had last seen Henry, where she had realised her only chance at happiness had slipped from her grasp like sand through her fingers.

  The wind had picked up, its strength increasing with the final disappearance of the sun’s feeble rays. It whipped about Grace like a pack of savage wolves, plucking at the ribbons on her bonnet and flattening her skirts against the chill flesh of her legs. With her eyes still tight shut and her mind reeling with anguish, perhaps it was inevitable that a particularly strong gust caught her off guard—all Grace knew was that one moment she was standing buffeted by the harsh coastal air, the next that her cloak had swirled round to unbalance her and then the world was tilting, the wet ground sliding beneath her feet.

  Far too late she realised how close she stood to the edge. Her eyes flew wide as she grasped for something to save her, anything but the sickeningly empty air that surrounded her on all sides. Henry’s letter slid from her outstretched hand, fluttering away like a small white bird to drift out across the sea—but there was nothing Grace could do as she felt her balance shift to follow it, her heart leaping up into her throat in a silent cry of terror as she began, for what felt like a tortuously slow eternity, to fall.

  ‘Watch out!’

  Grace’s head snapped back so abruptly her neck screamed in pain, the movement forcing a cry from her gaping mouth. The tumbling waves surged below her, spray reaching for her with freezing fingers, but they came no closer and when her senses jolted back into order she became aware of a vice-like grip encircling the top of her arm, the strength of one large hand the only thing restraining her from a drop that with a sudden wave of nausea she realised could have killed her.

  Her unseen saviour jerked her back from the Cobb’s edge with a rough movement that made her wince. Still reeling, she turned to face him on shaking legs, her breath coming hard in short, painful pants as she struggled to control the frenzied racing of her heart. It took a moment for her to register the identity of the man whose countenance she peered up into, who returned her look with a scowl, but when her whirling mind finally managed to place his familiar features it was with a sharp punch of shock that she recalled his name.

  Captain Spencer Dauntsey?

  All the fright of a split second before faded into the background as she stared up into that face with frozen disbelief, weeks and months scrolling backwards in her memory until clicking to a halt on the last day she had seen him. Because it had to be him: eight years might have passed since she had watched in dismay as the identical, newly fatherless Dauntsey twins swung up on to their horses and turned for the long road to York, but there could be no mistaking that dark hair or the masculine cleft in a well-shaped chin. Only Spencer’s nose ever made it possible to tell which brother was which; healed badly after a break, its crooked line had always struck Grace as strangely attractive. The irregularity gave him—in her eyes at least—an advantage over William, whose pristine profile somehow hadn’t made her younger heart beat faster beneath skinny ribs in quite the same way. It had been a sad day for Grace’s mother when Mrs Dauntsey left Lyme Regis following the death of her husband and headed north with her sons to settle near their first posting, as well as spelling the end of Grace’s wistful fancies. The pair of matriarchs had kept up a warm correspondence afterwards, trading news of the twins’ military progress and other triumphs, although for the past two years Mrs Linwood’s letters had been unable to find their recipient and all attempts at tracing the Dauntseys had failed. In the absence of anything else to do Mrs Linwood hoped her old friend was well, wherever she was, and her two fine sons likewise...which had been Grace’s hope, too, until evidence that was not the case stood in front of her, glowering and showing not the faintest glimmer of recognition for the girl he had last seen as a blushing child of thirteen, now before him a grown woman of twenty-one.

  ‘What the devil were you thinking?’ Her grudging rescuer glared down at her, a pair of dark eyebrows drawn tightly together above warm brown eyes—the colour of which was presently the only pleasant thing about them, so filled were they with unconcealed ire that it made Grace blink. ‘To be so foolish as to stray that close to the edge in this weather? Don’t you know the sea is particularly vicious in winter?’

  Grace looked up at him, still not yet able to form a suitable response to his bewildering anger.

  What is he doing here? When did he arrive?

  It seemed so unbelievable that she hadn’t heard even as much as a whisper to suggest the Dauntseys had returned to town after such a long time. She could hardly credit it, although a half second later she realised the unpleasant truth.

  It’s no wonder, really. Who would have told us? Nobody wishes to associate themselves with us any longer, or stop to speak—we have no friends left to tell us news.

  It was just so jarring to see a shadow from the past so unexpectedly before her. His frown only deepened as he waited for her to find her tongue and she could have cursed herself—if she’d known any curses—for allowing her wits to escape her so completely. For any other man she could have formed a response immediately, she was sure—but he was an altogether different prospect.

  The recollection of how her cheeks used to burn whenever Spencer as much as nodded in her direction returned now to prick at Grace’s insides, a memory—given her current circumstances—she had no desire whatsoever to revisit. Spencer had seemed so much more mature when he had left to escort his grieving mother halfway across the country, an almost grown lad of seventeen, so it was hardly surprising Grace hadn’t had a similar effect on him. It was all too easy to imagine what he would have seen as he’d happened to glance at her all those years ago: a mousy child with her nose stuck in a book, far too shy to return the easy smile the Dauntsey boys had for everyone they met. There was no trace of that trademark grin now, however, and the difference less than a decade had wrought in the first man who had ever made Grace blush was startling.

  She gave a small shudder of apprehension at the glint of danger in his narrowed eye, more unfriendly than she had ever seen before and shocking in its coldness. It would have been difficult to think what to say anyway, having stumbled across an acquaintance she’d never thought to see again; the fact he had morphed from a laughing youth to this granite-faced man only made her confusion worse, rising to mingle horribly with the unhappy weight Henry had forced into her chest.

  Managing to at last bully h
er brain into working, Grace swallowed down her unease. Spencer towered above her, his powerful build barely concealed by the expensive cut of his clothes, but there was a touch of something like reluctant concern in his expression where moments before there had been only displeasure and it was enough to help her gather her courage and attempt to muster a reply.

  His mama and mine were such friends. Perhaps he might look less severe if I remind him who I am.

  ‘I’m so grateful to you for your help, sir.’ She peeped up at him from below the brim of her bonnet, gauging his reaction. He stared back, silent and stony-faced, and her courage faltered a little. ‘Even if you don’t recollect we were once acquainted.’

  For a long moment Spencer said nothing, the silence between them stretching out unbroken but for the insistent patter of Grace’s rapid pulse and the relentless crash of waves breaking over the rocks that could have been her demise. The pinch of his brows tightened, but still no light flickered in the flinty eyes as they swept from the top of Grace’s sodden bonnet to her ruined shoes, their chilly scrutiny sending a curious shiver through her jangled nerves. His face was as handsome as ever, but the new hardness she saw in every line somewhat tempered the admiration she had felt as a young girl. Only Henry’s features were burned into her mind like a brand, a face that with a pinch of pain she remembered she would never touch again.

  ‘You’re correct, madam. I don’t.’ Spencer answered flatly, as though barely able to summon any interest, and Grace wondered again at the change in the individual she remembered. That version of Spencer would never have been so brusque, but this one evidently was and she was left with no other option but to answer his indifference.

  ‘My name is Grace Linwood. Your mother and mine were close friends before you left for York—do you recall?’ She tried to force a smile, but her cheeks felt rigid with cold and frank discomfort. ‘It’s so pleasant to see you returned to town! Are your mother and brother with you?’