Read Online The Accidental Bride by Jane Feather - Free Book Online

shared his bed with a woman. Diana had been ill for many months before her death. Paradoxically in the circumstances, he found it rather pleasant to have a warm body so close to him.
    He drifted to sleep while the sounds of revelry from downstairs continued until well into the night.
    When Phoebe awoke in the morning, she was alone in the big bed. And when she went downstairs, there was no sign of her husband and no indication in the quiet, orderly house that she had been married the previous day.
    Even her father had left without so much as a word of farewell. Gone back about the business of the war, happy to leave his daughter in the charge of her husband—in more ways than one, Phoebe thought with a bitter little smile. His daughter was no longer
his
expense.

4

    “T hat’s the last one, Granny!” Phoebe threw the last cabbage
from the trench into the basket and straightened her aching back. She leaned on the spade and pushed her hair out of her eyes with a gloved hand. The day was sunny, and despite the cold Phoebe had worked up quite a sweat digging up Granny Spruel’s winter cabbages from the straw-lined trench where they’d been stored in the autumn. Mud from the glove mingled with the dew on her brow and streaked down her cheek, but she didn’t notice.
    “Eh, lass, you’ve got a right good heart on ye,” the elderly woman said. “With the lads at the war, there’s no one to ’elp a body these days.”
    “Any news of your grandsons?” Phoebe hoisted the basket and set off up the garden path towards the kitchen door.
    “Nothin’ since afore Christmas.” Granny Spruel followed Phoebe into the kitchen. “Set ’em down in the pantry, dearie . . .. A fellow what was comin’ through said he’d met up with Jeremiah down in Cornwall somewhere. Fightin’ was somethin’ awful, he said. But Jeremiah was still upstandin’ when ’e left him.”
    “They’re saying there’s no support left for the Royalists in Cornwall,” Phoebe said, returning from the pantry. “They’ve practically given up. I’m sure you’ll be seeing your grandsons back again soon.”
    “Aye, we can but ’ope and pray, dearie. Ye’ll have a slice of my fruitcake, now, won’t you? And a cup of cider?” Granny Spruel bustled to the dresser and lifted the lid on an earthencrock. She took out a cloth-wrapped cake and cut a hefty wedge. “Help yourself to cider, dearie.”
    Phoebe did so and took a healthy bite of cake. She knew that while her physical assistance was welcomed by Granny and the other women of the village left without a male back to aid them, her company was as important for the elderly women who craved a chat in their long, lonely days. Younger women had no time to chat, left as they were with broods of small children and all the work of house, garden, and smallholding to take care of. So in these months of civil war the elderly suffered an isolation most unusual in the close-knit community of the countryside.
    The chimes of the church clock brought Phoebe to her feet with a mortified cry. “Surely it isn’t eleven-thirty already!”
    “Oh, aye, that it is. That old clock never misses a minute,” Granny said as if this was somehow comforting. “We all expected you’d ’ave no time for helpin’ out the old folks after your marriage.” Granny chattered as she accompanied Phoebe to the garden gate. “Quite the grand lady we thought you’d be.” She chuckled as if at an absurdity.
    “Some chance of that,” Phoebe said with a responding grin. She raised a hand in farewell as she opened the gate. “Nothing’s going to change, Granny. I’m just the same as ever.”
    For some reason this statement sent Granny Spruel into a fit of laughter, her lined, weather-beaten face crinkling like a wrinkled apple. “Aye, we’ll see about that, m’dear,” she said, and still chuckling turned back indoors.
    Phoebe flew down the village street, holding up her skirts to protect them from the mud, although it was