Tristan Trent, the Marquess of Hopkins, hadn’t wanted to speak of matters that should remain private, but the rumors had reached the ears of Her Grace. If it were anyone else, he’d tell them to go hang, but this was the Duchess of Haverford, and perhaps she could help still the gossiping tongues come spring.
He pulled at his tight cravat. Nerves he hadn’t experienced since he was a lad entering Eton for the first time coursed through him as he followed the livered footman to the parlor where Her Grace awaited him.
“Hopkins, thank you for joining me,” Her Grace greeted, as a cup of the most delicate porcelain was presented to him.
“It is I who should thank you for the audience.”
Her Grace’s eyes twinkled. “You are wishing me to Hades, my dear. But you shall forgive me. I have heard the rumors, and I mean to help if I can. But first, I must know the truth for myself.”
“Yes, well, the truth.” He resisted the urge to pull at his cravat again as he settled across from the Duchess of Haverford.
“Is your wife truly back from the dead?”
It was the question everyone asked and wondered about. Everyone presumed Elaina dead, but Tristan never gave up hope, even when urged to do so and told to marry again and provide a mother for his small children. “She is,” he answered simply.
“How? Where was she? We all assumed….”
“It was a reasonable assumption.” He took a sip of the tea. “My wife, Elaina, washed up on the shores of Alderney, where she remained for three years.”
“I am informed that she didn’t recall who she was, or where she came from.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he answered. “The only knowledge she possessed was her name because another sailor, who also was washed overboard, had heard it called out before the tragedy. He could only supply that she was on a merchant ship traveling from Saint-Malo, France to Plymouth.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. He’d not known of her presence before the storm struck and everyone had come up on deck to abandon the ship, which was soon to sink because of damage from the storm. For three years Elaina knew nothing else. When my brother, Harrison, visited Alderney and a man he hoped would be a business associate, and was introduced to her.”
“Did she remember your brother then?”
“No. Seeing his face, a man she’d known several years, stirred no memories.”
“Oh dear.”
EXCERPT:
Elaina took a deep breath. Fear clutched at her heart, as she followed Harrison into the inn and remained silent when he inquired as to which chamber his brother could be found, and then followed him up the stairs until they stood before a dark wooden door and knocked.
A petite woman with blond hair answered the door. “Harrison!” she cried, clearly happy to see the man.
“So, this is where my family is,” he announced and stepped into the set of rooms. Elaina didn’t follow and tried to breathe through the anxiety crushing her chest. “It’s a good thing that I stopped at my home and discovered the various notes, or we would have traveled directly home and missed you completely.”
“We?” a voice questioned.
“Yes, we,” Harrison cleared his throat. “And I’m happy to be the one to facilitate this reunion.” At that, Harrison stepped aside and held out a hand to her. “I found Elaina.”
She allowed Harrison to pull her into the parlor and glanced around at the sea of shocked faces.
“Oh dear,” the blonde woman sighed.
“Elaina is it truly you?” a gentleman with dark hair set a glass aside and slowly crossed the room, staring at her as if he couldn’t believe that what he was seeing was real.
She had no response as she studied his appearance from the dark hair to the brown eyes, aquiline nose, firm lips and strong jaw, hoping for a sense of familiarity, but he was just as much a stranger as everyone else in the room.
“I can’t believe you’re back. I hoped, prayed…”
Before she knew what was happening, the stranger pulled her into an embrace. “Elaina, thank God you’ve come back to me.”
His voice was heavy with emotion and all she could surmise was this must be her husband.
He pulled back and looked down at her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a light misting in his eyes as if he were near tears. Had he loved her so very much?
“Where were you? What happened? We thought you’d drowned.”
Elaina quickly glanced at Harrison and hoped for his assistance.
“Tristan, there is something you must know.”
His brow furrowed with concern. “I’m certain you’ll explain all of the details,” he dismissed and took Elaina’s hand, drawing her further into the room.
“Elaina doesn’t remember who she is.”
He stopped and turned. “What?”
“She washed ashore after the shipwreck and never recovered her memory of who she is, where she came from or why she was even on a ship,” Harrison explained.
Tristan’s eyes widened, and he studied her again. “Is it true? You don’t know me?”
At that, the tears threatened, but Elaina blinked them away. Harrison had told her that Tristan was her husband and Elaina had prayed that once she gazed upon his face that her memory would return. Except it hadn’t. Everything about her life before she woke in Alderney was gone, an empty canvas, and now she feared that it would never return.
The Forgotten Marquis
For three long and lonely years, Tristan Trent, the Marquess of Hopkins, waited for his wife Elaina’s return. Eyewitnesses insist no one could have survived the storm that swept her overboard, but Tristan refuses to give up hope—even when he is trapped into a betrothal he doesn’t want and forced to declare Elaina dead.
Elaina Trent has no memories of her life before waking in Alderney surrounded by strangers, and three years of trying to recall an elusive history has left her life in limbo. Determined to have a future even though her past is gone, she accepts a marriage proposal and a promise for a new life. But when a man claiming to be her brother-in-law stumbles across her, Elaina has no choice except to end her engagement and return to a husband she no longer knows.
When Elaina and Tristan are finally reunited, she still cannot recall what they once shared. Can she begin anew with a gentleman she doesn’t even know and hope that love grows once again, or will they remain strangers forever?
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Meet Jane Charles
USA Today Bestselling Author Jane Charles lives in the Midwest with her former marine, police officer husband. As a child she would more likely be found outside with a baseball than a book in her hand, until one day, out of boredom on a long road trip, she borrowed her sister’s romance novel and fell in love. Her life is filled with three amazing children, two dogs, two cats, community theatre, and traveling whenever possible. Jane has authored romances set in the Regency era as well as Contemporary/New Adult.
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