The marriage experiment, p.1
The Marriage Experiment, page 1
The Marriage Experiment
Laws of Attraction
Book Two
Laura Trentham
Contents
Also by Laura Trentham
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Also by Laura Trentham
About the Author
Also by Laura Trentham
Historical Romance
Spies and Lovers
An Indecent Invitation, Book 1
A Brazen Bargain, Book 2
A Reckless Redemption, Book 3
A Sinful Surrender, Book 4
A Wicked Wedding, Book 5
A Daring Deception, Book 6
A Scandalous Secret, Book 7
* * *
Spies and Lovers Boxset: Vol 1
Spies and Lovers Boxset: Vol 2
* * *
Laws of Attraction
The Courtship Calculation, Book 1
The Marriage Experiment, Book 2
The Passion Project, Book 3
* * *
Contemporary Romance
Sweet Home Alabama Novels
Slow and Steady Rush, Book 1
Caught Up in the Touch, Book 2
Melting Into You, Book 3
The Sweet Home Alabama Collection
* * *
Cottonbloom Novels
Kiss Me That Way, Book 1
Then He Kissed Me, Book 2
Till I Kissed You, Book 3
* * *
Christmas in the Cop Car, Book 4
Light Up the Night, Book 5
Nobody’s Hero, Book 6
* * *
Leave the Night On, Book 7
When the Stars Come Out, Book 8
Set the Night on Fire, Book 9
* * *
The Fournette Family Boxset, Books 1-3
The Cottonbloom Novella Collection, Books 4-6
The Abbott Brothers Boxset, Books 7-9
* * *
Highland, Georgia Novels
A Highlander Walks Into a Bar, Book 1
A Highlander in a Pickup, Book 2
A Highlander is Coming to Town, Book 3
* * *
Heart of a Hero Novels
The Military Wife
An Everyday Hero
* * *
Writing as Leah Trent
Historical Erotic Romance
Fieldstones Adventure Novellas
An Impetuous Interlude, Fieldstones Adventure Book 1
A Naughty Notion, Fieldstones Adventure Book 2
A Mysterious Masquerade, Fieldstones Adventure Book 3
A Dangerous Desire, Fieldstones Adventure Book 4
The Fieldstones Adventures Boxset
* * *
Contemporary Erotic Romance
Bad Boys Breakfast Club
Big Bad Boyfriend, Book 1
Boss in Bed, Book 2
I love to hear from readers! Come find me:
Laura@LauraTrentham.com
www.LauraTrentham.com
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As an amateur lepidopterist, Adriana Coffey would like nothing more than to live a quiet life in the country and await Cyrus Shaw’s return from his grand tour. After all, an understanding has existed between them since childhood. Unfortunately, with Cyrus out of the country, a marriage is arranged with her detestable stepbrother.
Dawson Shaw, the new Earl of Westhorpe, would like nothing more than to grab his younger brother up by the nape and shake some sense into him. Adriana is intelligent, beautiful, and unappreciated by society and his scapegrace brother. But is he willing to betray Cyrus in order to fulfill his own longings?
Adriana feels like she has no choice but to accept Dawson’s offer of marriage. Unlike the charming Cyrus, Dawson is aloof and cold… or is he? Their marriage is proof that assumptions can be disproven. The attraction between them is altogether unexpected and new for Adriana. But will their growing connection survive the coming tempest when Cyrus finally returns?
Chapter 1
Miss Adriana Coffey was in trouble. Not the usual kind that warranted a lecture from her father like getting so caught up in a drawing of an Arctia caja, a common yet beautiful garden tiger moth, she missed afternoon tea. No, her troubles gathered at a crossroads, and if she set a foot wrong, her future could be a dark path indeed.
She paced the drawing room of their rented town house and did her best to tamp down her rising panic. Logic would get her further than panic. What were her options? She could beg to return to their country estate. While it wouldn’t solve her problem, it would offer a temporary reprieve to work on a more permanent solution.
What if she confided in her father? She bit at a fingernail. He loved her, but would he believe her? He might blame the entire situation on her passionate Italian blood, never mind the fact she hadn’t been given to flights of fancy.
Another option would be to strike out on her own. Unfortunately, she knew of no elderly ladies in search of a companion. Could she work as a governess? While she had no particular affinity for children, she was bright and could learn. However, she had no references, and her father would quash the notion as soon as he learned of her schemes.
It was not lost on her that her good friend had been in a similar situation only weeks earlier, but Madeline was bolder than Adriana could ever imagine being. She had thrown over her betrothed, who happened to be her distant cousin and the heir to a dukedom, to elope with a rake and gambler, albeit a very charming and handsome one.
The difference was that Adriana could not imagine abandoning her father. They were close. After all, it had been the two of them since she was a babe. Until he had remarried two years ago. Things had changed. Of course they had. She had been naive to think they wouldn’t.
Her stepmother was in his ear and had convinced him he could very neatly take care of his business and daughter in one fell swoop. It hinged on her marriage. Unfortunately, the intended groom was her odious stepbrother. How convenient to be able to leave his estate to his stepson, knowing his daughter would also reap the benefits. Although would she?
Like the estate itself, she would be owned by her husband and subject to his whims no matter how cruel. She would have no power. It was galling and unfair.
There was another option of course. Marriage to someone else entirely. Someone she had known since childhood. Someone who wouldn’t try to subjugate her. Someone kind and funny and handsome with golden hair and green eyes and a wide, ready smile. Unfortunately, Cyrus Shaw was currently gallivanting around the Continent.
Cyrus had grown up the spoiled fourth son of an earl. Nothing had been expected of him, and he had been free to pursue whatever passions inspired him. At the moment, he fancied himself the next great romantic poet of England. If she were being honest, which she never had been with him about his art, she found his poems a treacly mess.
She and Cyrus might even be in love. He had kissed her once, after they’d turned sixteen. It had felt… nice. A little damper than expected, but nice. Every year afterward, they discussed making a match, but always in the distant future. They had only turned twenty the previous summer, but ready or not, Adriana feared she was soon to be given no choice in the matter.
Twenty was an age where women were speeding toward spinsterhood, and men… Well, men had oats to sow while women watched their unfulfilled dreams wither. She fought a scream of equal parts fury and frustration.
She had written to Cyrus weeks earlier as her situation became tenuous, and his reply had arrived as her situation turned dire. It was not the news she had hoped to receive. Cyrus was not riding to her rescue because he hadn’t yet visited the Roman ruins in Italy.
What could she do except write him again, this time holding nothing back as to the reality of what she faced? Decision made, she sat at the writing desk in the corner of the drawing room and readied paper and ink.
She skipped the light, gossipy preamble she usually opened with. Her letter wasn’t eloquent or flowery. It was stark, and her fear was evident in the way her usually faultless penmanship was marred by ink spots and squiggly letters. She didn’t care. Pretending everything was fine had become exhausting.
The front door opened, and the low murmur of the butler was drowned out by her boorish stepbrother’s voice. “Send a full decanter. I’ll join Miss Coffey in the drawing room.”
Adriana dashed off a signature, folded her letter, and sealed it with a blob of wax. Slipping his last letter and her reply into a discreet pocket sewn into her skirts, she turned and bolted toward the drawing room door. Her desperation to escape was her downfall. Sh
“Oho! I wasn’t expecting such a warm welcome.” His gaze was fixed squarely on her exposed limbs.
She scrambled to her feet and smoothed her skirts down. A blush roared through her, and her skin felt stretched tight. She loathed him, but she feared him too.
“Good afternoon, Richard.” Her lips trembled with a disingenuous smile as she sidestepped around him to the door.
He grabbed her arm. While he wasn’t hurting her, she cringed away from his touch. “Why are you in such a rush, my dear?”
“I require a nap before tonight’s ball. It will be a long evening.” She tugged, but he only tightened his grip and pulled her close enough for her to smell the liquor on his breath and seeping from his sweat-stained collar.
“You can surely spare your dear brother a few minutes of your time.”
“You are not my brother.” She was failing in her attempt to act dispassionate and polite.
“Indeed, you are correct.” A wolfish gleam came into his eyes, and his grip tightened enough to sting. “Your father desires we make a match, and to that end, I would like us to become better acquainted.”
“Whom I wed is not for my father to decide.” While she wished her declaration was entirely truthful, it wasn’t. Her father did have a say. A rather large one.
Her father had already been a landowner before inheriting the barony. A majority of his holdings weren’t entailed like so many other peers, and he could leave his only child a substantial inheritance. Yet her father, being the upstanding, honorable man that he was, also felt the need to provide for his new stepson, Richard. How convenient for everyone if Adriana would accept her fate with the obedience demanded by society.
Richard was a rake who spent his time whoring, drinking, and gambling. If he inherited her father’s wealth, there would be nothing left within a year. Her father put Richard’s proclivities down to youth even though he was five years older than Adriana and she had possessed more sense as a girl in short skirts than he could currently claim ownership of.
Her father’s title would pass to a distant cousin no matter what, but if Adriana married someone else, Richard would be left with a modest annual stipend and nothing else. Her father’s business and land would pass into her husband’s hands, which meant Richard was determined to marry her through fair means or foul.
“Let me show you how good we can be together,” he murmured.
It took her a blink to realize his lips were coming perilously close to hers. She turned her face, and his wet kiss landed on her jaw. She shoved him with her free hand. “Get away from me. You smell like a distillery and another woman.”
He staggered to the side. If he hadn’t been drunk, she would never have been able to budge him. Richard was a big man, tall and broad of shoulder with meaty hands. His eyes narrowed on her, and she braced herself for whatever vileness he might spew.
The butler saved her. He glided into the room, his expression blank, with a decanter and crystal glass on a tray. Adriana slipped by him and ran up the stairs into her room, locking the door behind her. She fished out the letter and smoothed it against her leg. It was slightly crumpled from her fall onto the settee, but the seal was intact.
A nap before the evening’s ball would be wise. It would be dawn before she saw her bed, but her mind whirled. How long would it take for her letter to reach Cyrus? A week? Two weeks? It might be longer if he had moved on before the post arrived. And then how long for a reply? Could she count on him to return to her with haste? At best, she would need to survive weeks. An eternity. A panicked sob threatened to escape.
Option one was her only choice. She had to buy herself—and Cyrus—time. She would feign an illness and insist on convalescing at their country estate in Bainbridge. Her stomach heaved. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to pretend. The thought of trying to evade Richard in the small town house for another day, much less weeks, made her feel very ill indeed.
The sooner her letter was posted, the sooner she could expect a reply. She summoned Jones, the young maid Adriana and her stepmother, Sarah, shared. “I need you to accompany me to Lord Westhorpe’s residence, Jones.”
“Yes, miss. Do you wish to change?” The maid’s quizzical expression had Adriana stealing a quick glance in the looking glass.
Her hair had been pinned up, but tendrils had escaped during her morning’s work in the garden, sketching the yellow underwing moth she’d caught under glass. Her dress was an older one she wore when she wasn’t planning on accepting or making social calls. The hem was short and a little frayed, but the three-quarter sleeves were good for keeping out of paint or ink. It was comfortable but not at all fashionable.
She would squash a bonnet on her messy hair and wear a shawl. It wasn’t like she was paying a social call. She would ask Dawson to send the letter to Cyrus with his own correspondence as he had a better idea where his younger brother would be staying while in Italy.
She smiled at Jones. “We won’t be long, and Lord Westhorpe cares not for how I look.”
She had known Dawson Shaw, Earl Westhorpe, for as long as she’d known Cyrus, but Dawson had been enough older to not qualify as a playmate. He had always been serious and stoic and not given to laughter or adventure or… fun.
When she and Cyrus had escaped their respective schoolrooms to gallivant through the fields and forests between their estates, playing games of pretend or catch me if you can, Dawson had sought solitude with only a book for company. Even now she found him more than a little intimidating. He would have made a fine monk. Instead, he’d become a soldier.
Adriana crept down the stairs and out the front door as quietly as possible. Richard knew his greatest competition for her hand was Cyrus Shaw. In fact, it had been soon after he’d left on his grand tour that Richard began to aggressively press his suit. If Richard suspected she was practically begging Cyrus to come home and marry her, he would sabotage her plan.
Used to tramping over the hills and fields of home, Adriana took the path through the park to reach Dawson’s town house. She only got distracted once when she spotted a Callimorpha dominula, more commonly known as a scarlet tiger moth, but pulled herself away and arrived in less than ten minutes. Jones’s cheeks were pink from the walk, and Adriana suspected hers were as well. “You may go to the kitchens for a quick visit, Jones.”
“Are you certain, miss? I think I should—”
“Lord Westhorpe and I are childhood friends. My father would trust him with my life, let alone my virtue. I won’t be long.”
Friends might be overstating their relationship. Yet despite Dawson’s aloofness, Adriana trusted him.
A memory surfaced with the suddenness of a streak of lightning. Three years prior, when she’d been seven and ten, Dawson had discovered her in a tree with her sketchbook in pursuit of a Sesia bembeciformis. Lunar hornet moths were wily and rarely seen. If they were spotted, they were often mistaken for an actual wasp, so good was their camouflage.
Her skirts had snagged on her climb and left her ankles and petticoat in full view. Caught between girlish fear and a womanly embarrassment, she had stammered out a few nonsensical words of greeting as if they were meeting over tea in a drawing room and she wasn’t suspended ten feet overhead with her unmentionables in full view.
His lopsided grin and the twinkling of his dark eyes had sent a jolt of surprise through her. The rare event of his smile struck her as something special. He hadn’t commented on her unladylike position or pursuits. He’d merely swung himself onto the branch beside her, untangled her skirts, and lowered her down with an ease that made her stare at the way his arms bulged against the seams of his jacket.
