Love’s Perilous Road

Chapter 1

The estate of Lord Wrapton, near Guildford, Surrey

Thisbe Wrapton knew the ability to see ghosts would be her downfall one day.

One morning, she was a little worried, and since there was a convenient ghost to whom to pour out her troubles, she forgot to take her customary care.

Usually, she made a point of speaking to ghosts in privacy.

Although such a quirk was considered amusing in a child, it was a definite hindrance to a young lady only a few months from her first London season.

The ghost of Wrapton House was a cheerful Elizabethan lady with an enormous ruff who looked benignly upon Thisbe, so perhaps she wouldn’t be enraged at her question.

The lady had had several children, so she would certainly know the answer, and although she was unable to speak aloud, she could write in the air or perhaps mime her response.

Thisbe glanced about, making certain she was alone. Bertha, the maid she shared with her aunt, had left the room to fetch some hairpins, but she wouldn’t take long.

“Dear lady,” Thisbe said softly, “I beg your pardon for being so forward, but I have an urgent question, and there is no one else I dare ask.”

The ghost poised the needle above her exquisite blackwork embroidery and raised an amused eyebrow.

“It’s about a man,” Thisbe said, “a handsome young man with whom I behaved shockingly, I’m ashamed to say.”

The ghost shook her head reprovingly, although amusement still lurked in her eyes.

“But he’s gone to the Continent, and I don’t think he’ll ever return, and what if—” Oh, dear. Even from this sympathetic ghost, Thisbe hesitated to ask for such information.

That hesitation led to her downfall. Ten seconds too late, she took a deep breath, plucked up her courage, and asked, “I fear that I may be with child, but how will I know?”

“Miss Thisbe!” Bertha cried from the doorway.

Thisbe whirled, cringing.

“You had carnal knowledge of a man?” Bertha cried.

Thisbe said nothing to this silly question, for why else would she ask about knowing whether she was with child?

“You let a man put—put that—that disgusting part of himself inside you?” Bertha gasped.

Actually, it had been quite pleasant, but Thisbe had a feeling that saying so wouldn’t help matters. Miserably, she nodded.

Bertha ran from the room, shrieking, “Miss Wrapton! Oh, please come! It’s Miss Thisbe! Whatever shall we do?”

Aunt Andrea hurtled down the corridor from her own bedchamber, bleating, “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Bertha clapped a hand to her heaving breast. “Ruined, my lady. Miss Thisbe is ruined!”

“Ruined?” repeated Aunt Andrea, trembling so much that both her earbobs fell off.

“But how? Thisbe is most carefully chaperoned and never left alone in the company of a man…except…” Her hands flew to her cheeks.

“Oh, my poor child—it was that frightfully rude young man at the assembly when we were visiting Chichester, wasn’t it?

With a funny name, something to do with boats, I think. Oh, woe!”

His name is Mr. Transom, Thisbe corrected, but not aloud. What a disaster. Meanwhile, the ghost rolled her eyes and shrugged, returning to her embroidery.

Aunt Andrea moaned. “How is it possible? Granted, you went out on the terrace with him, but we found you quickly…”

Not quickly enough, though. He’d been so strong, so masculine, so thrilling, so… Aromatic wasn’t quite the right word, but he’d smelled exquisitely pleasurable to Thisbe. And so safe.

What a fool she’d been.

“He was a nobody, although he may have been born a gentleman—for how else would he get into the assembly rooms? In any event, he was a dastard unworthy of the daughter of a baron, even a newly minted one.” Aunt Andrea was extremely proud of Papa’s elevation to a barony in recognition of signal services to the Crown.

By now the ghost had vanished, leaving Thisbe feeling very alone. Not that a ghost could do much but commiserate, but at least she wouldn’t rant and rave. Ghosts, being no longer of this nether world, were somewhat detached from its worries and cares.

“How could you?” Aunt Andrea wailed, wringing her hands. “Why didn’t you stop him before it was too late?”

“I couldn’t stop him,” Thisbe said. “He, ah, did what he did. I felt utterly helpless, and—” And blissful, were the truth to be told, but she wasn’t about to say that aloud either, or at least not to any living person.

The dead were not so eager to judge. “It all happened so fast.” Far too fast, actually.

She would have preferred it to take much longer.

“Carnal knowledge doesn’t take long,” Bertha said, snapping her fingers. “From kisses to babies, just like that.” As a widow, she knew that sort of thing (and had warned Thisbe more than once).

Aunt Andrea, who was an innocent spinster, blushed. “Whatever shall we do with you now?” she moaned. “No decent man will wed you!”

“What the devil is all this bother?” Lord Wrapton—who refused to be addressed in any way but my lord since his elevation to the peerage—stalked into the bedchamber.

Aunt Andrea burst into tears. “That frightful young man at the assembly has ruined our Thisbe!”

Papa—beg pardon, Thisbe thought to herself, my lord—turned alarmingly red in the face. A horrid snarling sound issued from his throat. “He what?”

Thisbe bit her lip and said nothing. Papa wouldn’t want to hear her excuses.

“Stupid girl!” he bellowed. “No sooner has the House of Wrapton been created by the Crown, than you have destroyed it.”

“Surely it’s not that bad,” Aunt Andrea said. “All we must do is require him to marry her immediately.”

“That impudent scoundrel wed the daughter of the House of Wrapton?” Papa shouted. “Never!”

“He can’t marry me anyway, Auntie,” Thisbe said. “He left the very next day for the Continent.”

“You got yourself ruined by a common soldier?” thundered Papa.

Mr. Transom had seemed attractive and fun-loving to Thisbe in a very uncommon way.

In fact, he’d kissed her for a wager, which she’d found hilariously funny, for it made no sense.

He was supposed to kiss the most beautiful lady at the assembly, which she definitely wasn’t.

‘You are to me,’ he’d said, which was charming and kind.

And then he was gone, off to the Continent to become, as he put it, ‘a ghost’. On the verge of tears, she’d watched him go. How horrid to be so sure one would never return alive.

“No one else will wed her, either,” Aunt Andrea said forlornly.

“Don’t be a fool, Andrea,” Papa scoffed. “We shan’t advertise her shame to the whole world.”

“But what if she is with child, Harold dear? My lord, that is.” Aunt Andrea asked.

“Plenty of men will marry a ruined woman, even one with child, given the proper incentive.” Papa narrowed his eyes at Thisbe. “Foolishly enamored of soldiers, are you?”

Not at all, thought Thisbe, but again didn’t say.

“Well! If that’s the case,” Papa said, “I know just whom to ask.”

* * *

After two days in her bedchamber with only bread, water, the one book they didn’t find because it was under her pillow, and a great deal of time to fret about whom she might be forced to wed, Papa pronounced her punishment. She was to marry her second cousin, Eddie Rose.

It could have been much worse. Eddie was not unpleasant-looking, not unkind by nature, and by no means a fool. He was army-mad but too poor to purchase a commission. By dangling the carrot of a cornetcy before him, Papa had convinced him to marry Thisbe and accept her child as his.

At least she didn’t have to run away to join the gypsies. Or traveling players, perhaps; she would have resorted to one of these dubious alternatives if Papa had chosen someone intolerable. She would never see Mr. Transom again, so it was no use pining for him and his intoxicating aroma.

The wedding took place almost immediately by special license, and Eddie was to leave for the army the following day.

Papa had settled a sum on him to provide for the expenses of an officer—which were many—and to give Thisbe a little pin money.

She would remain at home, of course, as at only seventeen, even though married, she was too young to live unsupervised.

Or so Papa decreed. She would have loved to have a little cottage of her own with only one or two servants, but that would make Papa look miserly.

Un-baronial. Not only that, he now feared she would share her favors with any man who happened along.

It was his duty, he proclaimed, to ensure her fidelity to Eddie.

That evening, when she and her husband were left together in a chamber with a bed they were to share, Eddie said kindly, “I suppose we should get on with consummating our marriage. Then at least there will be a chance the child is mine.”

“Very well,” she said. Perhaps he kissed nicely. She would soon find out.

“Shall I undress you, Thisbe, or do you prefer to disrobe yourself?” he asked.

“Undress me?” she asked, astonished. “Whatever for?”

“It’s usual, when it comes to carnal knowledge, but if you’re shy…”

“I’m not. It’s just that I don’t see why one must disrobe,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “I understand, but a quick coupling on a dark terrace is nothing like what goes on between a man and his wife.”

And he proceeded to show her what carnal knowledge really meant.