No Man's Bride Read online

  SHANA GALEN

  No Man’s Bride

  For my husband.

  Your support and love

  mean everything to me.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  “Daddy, please. Please.” Catie pounded her small, aching fist against…

  Chapter 2

  On hands and knees, Catherine backed into the doorway, surveying…

  Chapter 3

  Quint Childers, the Earl of Valentine, heir to the marquessate…

  Chapter 4

  “Get out here right now, Catherine Anne,” her father shouted…

  Chapter 5

  Edmund Fullbright moved away from his daughter’s door before his…

  Chapter 6

  Catherine checked her appearance in the mirror one last time…

  Chapter 7

  Quint paced his bedroom, listening to the clock chime four.

  Chapter 8

  “Stop screaming,” Quint said, when he found his voice. “I…

  Chapter 9

  Catherine closed her eyes. All the blood was rushing to…

  Chapter 10

  When Quint strode into his dining room that evening, he…

  Chapter 11

  Catherine knew she had lost the battle. Overbearing politician! She…

  Chapter 12

  The sun was low in the sky by the time…

  Chapter 13

  Catherine didn’t know where she was running or why. She…

  Chapter 14

  Valentine began to rise, but Catherine waved him back down.

  Chapter 15

  Quint sat behind his desk and tried to concentrate on…

  Chapter 16

  Catherine ducked under the low opening to the house and…

  Chapter 17

  The next few days were painful for Quint. He felt…

  Chapter 18

  Quint stepped out of his boots, freed his erection from…

  Chapter 19

  Quint didn’t understand women. He didn’t understand why they had…

  Chapter 20

  “No, that one is too white,” Madeleine told Josie. She…

  Chapter 21

  Edmund Fullbright fingered the white vellum with the gold border…

  Chapter 22

  Quint decided that he hadn’t given his wife quite enough…

  Chapter 23

  Quint had been a bulwark beside her in the receiving…

  Chapter 24

  Catie thought she dreamed the sound. She tried to turn…

  Epilogue

  In these days of foreign and domestic unrest, the choice…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  London, 1801

  “Daddy, please. Please.” Catie pounded her small, aching fist against the walls of her prison under the stairs. She barely rattled the door. She’d been locked in the tiny closet for hours, and all the crying had rendered her weak and pitiful.

  She was pitiful.

  Just like her daddy said she was.

  “Please,” she cried again, but no one came. No one ever came when she cried. No one cared.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, trying to make herself small, trying to give the mice and rats as much room as possible. She was ten. She shouldn’t be scared. Her mamma was always telling her to act like a big girl. But as her tears wet and chilled her knees, she shivered.

  Please, God. Please.

  Catie heard a creak and opened her eyes. Was it her imagination or was—

  “Catie? Are you in there?”

  It was her cousin Josephine Hale. Catie would know Josie’s voice anywhere. And though it was dark, she could see Josie in her mind. Josie was tall for her eight years and skinny, with a shock of short red hair and freckles. She was probably wearing her eye patch. Josie’s sight was perfect, but she was going to be a pirate one day.

  “Catie? Where are you?”

  “I’m here,” she croaked. Behind Josie, their cousin Ashley Brittany held up a lone white candle. The red flame danced in the drafty house. Ashley was also eight and the most beautiful girl Catie knew—and not just because Ashley was here to save her. With her long hair of spun gold, her huge green eyes, and her porcelain skin and Cupid’s bow mouth, Ashley was as beautiful as the picture of the goddess Athena in the schoolbook Catie had once seen.

  Like Athena, Ashley was a warrior. “We’ve come to save you,” Ashley told her now.

  Josie reached out to Catie, and Catie jumped into her arms and hugged her tight. “How did you know how to find me?”

  “Your sister was making fun of your crying at church this morning,” Ashley said. “We figured out what happened and came as soon as we could. I’m sorry we couldn’t come earlier.”

  Catie swallowed. It was Sunday evening? She’d been locked under the stairs for almost two days.

  “Maddie’s waiting outside,” Josie told her.

  Maddie was Madeleine Fullbright, another of Catie’s cousins and the fourth in their circle. Maddie was eight, almost nine. Nearest in age to Catie, Maddie also resembled Catie the most closely. Both had long dark hair and olive skin, though Maddie had huge blue eyes whereas Catie’s were plain muddy brown.

  “Let’s go,” Josie said.

  Catie paused for only a moment. Her daddy would be very angry if he found her missing. He might even hit her, like he sometimes did when she made him very angry. But Catie could not go back in the closet. Anything but that. “Yes, let’s go.”

  With Josie behind her, Catie followed Ashley and her candle until they turned the knob of the door to the dining room.

  “We’ll go out the window,” Josie whispered. “Maddie will help us down.”

  They opened the door, stepped inside the dining room, and Lizzy jumped out from behind a chair and into their path. “Where do you think you’re going?” She was only seven, but already Catie’s sister was a miniature version of their father. Lizzy put her hands on her hips and stood with legs braced apart as he did. It would have been comical, a little blond child with an angel’s face standing in the center of the room, making demands of three girls all bigger and older. Instead, Catie felt fear shoot through her like a thousand tiny pins falling onto her body.

  “Lizzy, what are you doing in here? Go back to bed,” Catie whispered.

  “No.” She shook her head and pointed at the doorway. “You better get back in that closet Catherine Anne. Go back now, or I’ll tell Daddy.”

  Catie knew she’d do it too. Not only was Lizzy mean and spiteful, she was their daddy’s favorite. And she intended to keep that favored status. “No, Lizzy, please,” Catie begged.

  Lizzy took a step forward. “My name is Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot,” Catie said quickly. “Please go back to bed.”

  The blond angel scowled at her. “Say it. Say Elizabeth.”

  “Elizabeth,” Catie whispered. “Don’t tell Daddy.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Say, please.”

  “Please.”

  Lizzy appeared to think about her options for a moment, then shook her head. “No. I’m going to tell. Daddy said I could decide when you could come out. I didn’t say you could come out yet.”

  “Little brat,” Josie hissed. “Let me get my hands on you.”

  Catie jumped in front of Josie. “No! She’ll scream and wake my daddy.”

  “That’s right.” Lizzy stuck out her lip and crossed her arms. “Get back in that closet, or I’m going to tell.”

  While Lizzy made her demands and stomped her small feet, Ashley moved stealthily behind Lizzy. Ashley chose that moment to
grab Lizzy around the throat, clamping her hand over Lizzy’s mouth. Sometimes Catie wished she had older brothers to teach her these things.

  “Now, you listen to me, Lizzy,” Ashley hissed, holding Lizzy tight. “You aren’t going to tell anyone about tonight. You hear me? If your daddy wakes up, you are going to tell him that you let Catherine out.”

  Lizzy shook her head and struggled to free herself from Ashley’s iron hold.

  “You’ll do what I say,” Ashley ordered. “If you don’t, you better not ever sleep again because I’ll come in the middle of the night and get you!” With a shove, she released Lizzy and pushed her to the floor. Then Ashley bent over her so that her long blond hair tangled with Lizzy’s until the two heads were almost indistinguishable. “Now go to bed.”

  Catie watched as Lizzy jumped up and scampered away. She prayed Ashley’s threats had worked. If not, her daddy was going to be very, very mad.

  Josie went to the window and helped lower Ashley. As soon as Ashley was out of sight, Josie turned. “Jump, Catie!” Josephine held the window curtain aside so Catie could slip out of the dining-room window and join her cousins on the walk in front of her parents’ house. Catie gave a last glance over her shoulder, into the black house, where her daddy was sleeping.

  “Catie, are you coming?” Madeleine called. She was a small shape in the dark beside the golden-haired Ashley.

  “Yes!” Catie answered. Her stomach convulsed at the thought of what her father would do to her if he realized she’d escaped, but she would rather die than go back into the rat-and-spider-filled closet. “I’m coming,” she said and scrambled out the window.

  Ashley and Maddie caught her, and as soon as she was on solid ground beside her cousins, she hugged them as hard as she could.

  Ashley hugged her back just as hard. “You’re okay now,” she said. “We’ve got you, and we’re going on an adventure.” Her father called Ashley a little hoyden, and Catie knew her spunky blond cousin was almost certainly the instigator of her rescue.

  Madeleine took Catie’s hand in hers, her warm grip calm and reassuring. “Is your mommy all right? And Lizzy?” Maddie asked. She was always concerned about others.

  “Aunt Cordelia and Uncle Edmund are snoring away in their beds,” Josephine answered, climbing out the window behind Catie, then taking her other hand. “And Uncle Edmund made that little brat, Lizzy, Catie’s prison guard. When I’m a pirate, I’ll make them all walk the plank.”

  Catie hugged Josie, feeling her cousin’s sharp shoulder blades under her hands. As Catie had imagined, Josie had her auburn hair tied under a strip of cloth and had fashioned an eye patch out of an old handkerchief.

  With Josephine on one side of Catie and sweet Madeleine on the other, the three girls followed Ashley, their leader. Catie didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She was free of rats and spiders and cruel little sisters. She could breathe, and though the night was cold, especially as she was dressed only in her nightgown, the air felt good on her tear-stained face.

  A half hour later, the girls climbed into Maddie’s room in the Earl of Castleigh’s safe, quiet town house on Berkeley Square. Catie looked at her cousins, at their dirty dresses, their eyes sparkling with adventure. She was dizzy with the adventures of the night as well. Either that, or she was weak from hunger.

  Maddie convinced everyone to wash their faces, and then she brought out clean nightgowns for all. Finally, they all climbed onto Maddie’s bed. Catie saw that it was growing light behind the curtains, and she knew she needed to get home before her father found her missing.

  Please, God, let Lizzy keep her mouth shut.

  Catie didn’t understand why Lizzy was believed when she was not, why Lizzy was coddled when she was turned away. Her father had said she should have been a son. But he didn’t hold being a female against Lizzy.

  Maybe because Lizzy was so pretty or because she looked like him. All Catie knew for certain was that her father looked for reasons to punish her.

  “You know,” Catie said, looking at her cousins and friends again, “once we grow up and marry, we won’t be able to have adventures like this anymore. Our husbands won’t let us.”

  Madeleine looked at Catie. “Is that why your daddy hurts your mommy?”

  Catie sighed. As the eldest, she was expected to know everything. “No, he does it because he can. Because he’s a man,” she answered. “Men are stronger and meaner, and they have rights. When you get married, your husband will treat you the same.”

  “No, he won’t,” Madeleine said. “My daddy is nice to my mommy.”

  “She got lucky,” Catie said. “And he’s rich. If your daddy wasn’t rich, he wouldn’t be as nice.”

  “When I become a pirate,” Josephine told them confidently, “I won’t need a husband. I’ll have loads of treasure all for myself.”

  “And I’m going to have lots of adventures,” Ashley said. “I won’t have time for a husband, especially a mean one.”

  “But how will you have money for adventures without a husband?” Josephine asked.

  “Well, I don’t care how poor I am. I’m not going to marry at all. Ever.” As soon as the words were spoken, Catie knew she meant them. How could she marry, when all her life she’d seen clearly what men were and what they could do? And it wasn’t only her father who was cruel. She’d seen his friends hit their wives and kick dogs in the street. How could she know which men were like her uncle William, Madeleine’s daddy, and which were like her father?

  “And I’m not going to marry either,” Madeleine chimed in. “Never. I don’t need the money. If you want, Catie, you can come stay with me. You, too, Ashley, when you’re not on an adventure, and you, Josie, when you’re not on your pirate ship.” She paused, and then because she was Madeleine and could never be cruel, she added, “Your sister can come, too, Catie, if she really wants.”

  “I’ll tell her, but she thinks she’s special.” At least that’s what their father always told Elizabeth. He always said, “If I have to be cursed with daughters, thank God one is small and pretty. You’ll marry a prince and make us all rich, Elizabeth.”

  Now Catie told her cousins, “Elizabeth thinks she’s going to marry a prince.”

  “She’s a fool,” Ashley said. “But I’m not.”

  “Me, neither,” Catie said, then sat up straighter. “I propose that we make a pledge, a promise never to marry. I’m the oldest, so I go first. I, Catherine Anne Fullbright, swear never, ever, ever to marry so long as I live. Now your turn Maddie.”

  “I, Madeleine Richael Fullbright, swear never, ever to marry so long as I live. Now your turn, Josie,” Maddie said.

  “I, Josephine Linet Hale, swear never, ever, to marry so long as I live. I promise to be a pirate!”

  “Now you, Ashley,” Catie directed.

  “I, Ashley Gweneira Brittany, swear not to marry for as long as I live. But you know what this means, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We’re going to be spinsters.”

  For a moment the four cousins were quiet, and then Catie said, “I’d rather be a spinster than beaten and locked in a closet.”

  “I’d rather be a spinster than a silly girl who thinks she’s going to marry a prince,” Ashley said.

  “It won’t be bad to be unmarried if we’re all unmarried,” Josie said.

  “So we’ll make it fun. We’ll be the Spinsters’ Club!” Catie said, impressed that she had thought of it.

  “That’s right,” Josephine agreed. “We’ll stick together. No men or mean girls allowed.”

  Catie was the first to sit up, stick out her hand, and the other girls followed. Soon all four sat in a circle on Maddie’s bed, hands joined in a silent yet binding pact.

  Chapter 2

  Ten years later

  On hands and knees, Catherine backed into the doorway, surveying the shining floor of the drawing room. She’d just spent three hours dusting, sweeping, mopping, and polishing, and she was finally done. She
sat up, feeling her back twinge in protest. The muscles in her arms and legs were on fire. No matter. She was finished. She was free.

  She could spend the rest of the afternoon curled up in her bed, reading a book or even sleeping. Sleep sounded like the best option at present. She was so tired. She’d been up since dawn helping with the laundry, cooking breakfast, and straightening the mess her father had made when he’d come home drunk the night before.

  With a sigh, Catherine rose, hefted the heavy pail, and lumbered down the stairs. The house was unusually quiet today. Neither of her parents nor her younger sister was home. Not that she missed them. She preferred days like this, but all the peace and solitude did give her pause. She wasn’t used to it, and she knew it wouldn’t last.

  Going through the kitchen, Catherine went out the back door and poured the dirty water into the yard. The sheets on the clothesline were almost dry, and she checked the sky to make sure the rain would hold off another hour or more. Satisfied, her clean linen wouldn’t be drenched in the near future, she set the pail by the door and went wearily back up the steps.

  That was when she heard them. Her mother, her sister, and her father. They were talking and laughing, making their way up the stairs to the first floor. For a long moment, Catherine hovered in the kitchen, wondering how long she could hide down here. How long would it be before they missed her? She bit her lip to ward off a rueful smile. Probably as long as it took before they wanted something.

  “Catherine Anne!” She heard her father call in his booming voice.

  Well, she had known it wouldn’t be long.

  And she knew better than to tarry. She scampered out of the kitchen and was almost to the drawing room before her father bellowed again. “Yes, Father! I’m here.”