The Captain’s Wife E-Book

Nina Jarrett

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Inconvenient Brides
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 87

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A vicar's daughter marries a handsome army captain, but they are separated by war and violence. Can they find a second chance at love?
A captivating prequel novella full of unrequited feelings and steamy romance.
Mrs. Lydia Lewis has given up on broken promises. Marrying her soulmate only to be attacked during his heartbreaking absence, she finds refuge as an incognito ducal housekeeper.
Captain Jacob Lewis is angry and hurt. Returning from military service to discover his spouse has vanished into thin air, he begins an almost hopeless search to bring her home.
Can this star-crossed pair reclaim newlywed bliss?
The Captain's Wife is the delightful prequel to the Inconvenient Brides Regency romance series. If you like worthy heroes, fast-paced plots, and enduring connections, then you’ll adore Nina Jarrett’s charming tale.

What readers are saying ...

★★★★★ "Short but sweet story about true love's staying power." - Jessica

★★★★★ "A good book that grabs your attention right at the beginning ..." - BP34

★★★★★ "A wonderful tale of undying love and devotion. For someone to keep looking even after years apart, is a wonderful book." - Ceara Merkle

★★★★★ "I highly recommend it and really want to read the next book in the series." - JP

Leseprobe

The Captain’s Wife Ebook Edition

Copyright © 2022 by Nina Jarrett. All rights reserved.

Published by Babooks Publishing.

Edited by Katie Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

For more information, contact author Nina Jarrett. www.ninajarrett.com

THE CAPTAIN’S WIFE

INCONVENIENT BRIDES PREQUEL

NINA JARRETT

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Epilogue

Afterword

Get a Free Copy of Interview with the Duke

About the Author

More Books by Nina Jarrett

SUBSCRIBE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY OF INTERVIEW WITH THE DUKE

In the summer of 1818 an article appeared about a duke that started three young couples on their journey to true love. This steamy historical romance is the story of that unexpected interview.

She only has eyes for him …

Dinah Honeyfield has been in love with her father’s houseguest since he came to stay in their home. As their friendship blossoms, she suspects he admires her in return, but as the years pass by he never attempts a courtship. If he does not act soon, she must take matters into her own hands before her father insists she marries another man. 

She is his muse, the inspiration for his words ...

Lord John Pettigrew left his birthright behind to pursue his dreams, which is when he met the ravishing Dinah. Fate itself had beckoned him to her doorstep, but how is a struggling writer to woo the only child of a wealthy businessman when he has nothing to offer her? A chance encounter with the Duke of Halmesbury might just provide an answer.

Get your free copy by subscribing at NinaJarrett.com.

CHAPTER1

PRESENT DAY, OCTOBER 1818

“Lydia.”

Her hand froze on the brass door handle. She would recognize that deep velvety voice anywhere. It made her heart leap with joy and her veins freeze in horror. Slowly, she turned around, praying her vivid imagination was playing tricks on her. Her eyes searched and found what she was afraid of: her husband, tall and painfully handsome, standing on the lowest step.

He looked different from the last time she had seen him. His shock of coppery hair stirred in the breeze, and his intense eyes, which changed hue from blue to green depending on his mood, were currently a deep shade of turquoise and fixed on her own. Her heart raced and her mouth went dry with apprehensive excitement while her eyes traveled over his freckled snub nose, wide cheekbones, firm mouth, and strong, triangular jaw. The rain clouds that threatened cast a strange light and framed him with deep grays, adding to the drama of their overdue reunion.

After three long years, Jacob, her husband, had found her.

They stared at each other for several moments before he spoke again, his voice husky with emotion. “I don’t know whether to shake you or kiss you, but unless you want one or the other to occur out here on the roadway, I suggest you let me come inside?”

Lydia jumped, remembering where she was as her eyes darted up and down the deserted street. “Of course,” she murmured as she turned to open the red door, then led the way through the dark hall and into the front room. Jacob followed her, and while Lydia hurried to light the oil lamps, she was aware that he took in the sparse furnishings, his eyes settling on her father’s large leather-bound Bible laid out on the escritoire by the front window.

Finishing her task, she looked up, embarrassed that her hands were trembling with repressed emotion, to find Jacob standing near the stone fireplace and gazing at her. She noted with surprise that he was wearing a burgundy tailcoat with brass buttons, reminiscent of his customary scarlet uniform coatee. Instead of his uniform whites, he wore a fawn waistcoat and pantaloons. A white linen cravat was tied around his neck in place of a military black stock, and rather than his black soldier riding boots, he wore polished brown Hessians. A gray beaver was in his hand, no evidence of his black soldier cap, and his hair had grown out to a mess of curly locks that her fingers itched to comb and smooth back from his face. He was the very picture of the perfect country gentleman paying a call on the home of an acquaintance.

“Lydia Lewis, as I live and breathe. Or am I to call you Mrs. Thorne?”

“You are no longer in the army?” she blurted.

“That is correct. I sold my captain’s commission nearly three years ago—when I returned from war and learned you were missing.”

Lydia bobbed her head in distracted acknowledgment. “How did you find me?”

Jacob took the magazine rolled up under his arm, shaking it out so she could see the title. “The Gentleman’s Magazine ran an interesting article recently.” Jacob opened the magazine and found what he was looking for. “ ‘His Grace, the Duke of Halmesbury, renowned for his estimable charitable work, recently oversaw the renovations and restaffing of The Halmesbury Home for Children’ … et cetera, et cetera … ‘appointing his own esteemed housekeeper, Mrs. Lydia Thorne, as the director of the home.’ ”

“You remembered?”

Jacob scowled, tossing his head in affront, which set his coppery waves bouncing as if they had a life of their own. “I remember everything … I remember that we played make-believe as children by the river and your title was Princess Lydia of Thorne. I remember we read each other poetry and novels in the meadows when I came home for breaks from Eton. I remember how you looked, what you wore at our anvil wedding when that blacksmith presided over our hurried vows in Gretna Green. I vividly recollect the letters you sent me when I was shipped out to war with the French madman. How I prayed to survive my wounds, so as to not abandon you, as I lost consciousness on the blood-soaked grounds of Waterloo. My memory of fighting a fever in a field hospital for weeks, while awaiting word … any word … from my wife is etched indelibly on my mind. I also can’t help but recollect the exact moment when I returned home and was told of your midnight disappearance at the end of June 1815. So, yes, I recognized your alias and, after years of searching, I finally worked out where to find you.”

Lydia stared at him with rounded eyes, her chest constricted in horror at the thought of Jacob injured. Until today she had not been certain he had survived the Hundred Days after Napoleon’s infamous escape from Elba. To see him in the flesh, to confirm that he indeed lived, filled her head with a riot of emotions—predominantly light-headed relief that he was alive, well, and with no visible evidence of permanent injury marring his physique.

Jacob grimaced as he looked away. “Unfortunately … the one thing I did not remember was telling you fourteen years ago about how I had attended school with Halmesbury, and that he was a kind and honorable man—a true gentleman. I only recently recalled, while reading this article, that I had stated that if I was ever in need, he was the one person other than you whom I would trust with my life. That, and, of course, that he owed me a favor for tutoring him when he had difficulty with his Latin lessons, and that he was eager to repay the favor. If I had, in fact, remembered our conversation in your father’s rose garden, I would have found you long before today.”

Lydia dropped her gaze to stare sightlessly at her entwined fingers, unsure what to say. Her day of reckoning had arrived.

CHAPTER2

FEBRUARY 1815. NEARLY FOUR YEARS EARLIER.

C