A Necessary Deception by Georgie Lee

CHAPTER ONE
     
    Hampstead Heath, England - October, 1811
     
    "Mary, your husband is back. He isn’t dead!" Mr. Ogden called out from his place behind the bar. He pointed to a circle of cheering patrons surrounding a man in the center of the Marquis of Granby pub.
    It can’t be. Mary Thomas dropped the tankard she carried, barely aware of the beer wetting the tops of her shoes. The thrill of being innocent and in love, the pain of separation and unalterable mistakes, loss, disappointment and fear unraveled inside her like the rope the brewers used to move the heavy casks. She braced one arm against the post beside her. Captain Charles Beven had left. He wasn’t supposed to come back.
    She let go of the rough wood and picked up the empty tankard, leaving the beer to dry on the floor. With a shaking hand she set the pewter on a nearby table, struggling to gather her scattered wits. Emotion had carried her away once before with Charles, leaving her with nothing but regret and problems. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
    Through a gap in the crowd surrounding Charles, she caught her first proper look at him. He was leaner than she remembered, his cheekbones sharper beneath his longer brown hair, but there was no mistaking the joyful spark in his rich hazel eyes while he accepted the good cheer heaped on him. His optimistic nature had, for a time three years ago, lifted her out of the routine of helping her parents run the Marquis of Granby pub. Then he’d left to return to his regiment in Spain, and she’d ignored his letters until they'd stopped coming.
    "This will be trouble," Aunt Emily whispered as she came up beside her, leading Mary's two year old son John by the hand.
    "It's worse than trouble." Mary tugged at the stubborn knot of her apron, her fingers shaking too much for her to get it loose. Then her hands stilled as Charles finally noticed her. She braced herself, waiting for his vivid eyes to turn hard with accusations.
    I shouldn’t have pushed him away . After the lie she and her family had told everyone, she’d had no choice.
    He didn’t scowl at her but his smile stiffened as he stepped out of the center of the well-wishers and slowly approached her. She yanked the apron strings and they came apart, making the white garment billow out around her before she crushed it together and flung it down beside the tankard. In the fall of the fabric and the flicker of the lamplight above it, she could almost see his tanned skin against the sheets, feel the weight of his thigh on top of hers, and hear his deep voice caressing her in the dark. He wasn’t likely to speak so sweetly to her tonight, nor should he.
    She straightened to face him, settling her shoulders but not the tremor making her knees weak. She’d cared for him, but their time together had led to the first of many problems that year, some of which still threatened her and the pub.
    "Who’s the man?" her son asked in his small voice.
    He was someone who'd chosen a bad time to return from the dead.
    ~*~
     
    Charles fixed on Mary, ignoring the men clapping him on the back and welcoming him home. He’d pictured this moment so many times in Spain and during the crossing over when he’d stayed on deck to watch the shores of England come into view. The lantern light from overhead danced in the blonde streaks in her chestnut hair exactly as he remembered. The slight hue of red which graced her cheeks and the merry curve of her full lips were absent. There was no humor in her amber eyes, no teasing lowering of her lashes to brush her cheeks before she raised her gaze again, no softness in her movement as she removed her apron and set it aside.
    She doesn’t want me here. I shouldn’t have come back . Yet he couldn’t stay away. When she'd failed to respond to his letters, he'd railed at her inconsistency and then sworn to forget her. He never had. During the last month while he and his unit had struggled to rejoin the army after being stranded