The Reluctant Bride

by Lynne Francis

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A gripping saga of love, longing and manipulation . . .

Kent, 1822

Fearing for his life, Thomas Marsh has fled Castle Bay and found work as a mill hand, deep in the countryside. Here he comes across the unconventional Isabel Cavendish and is captivated by her beauty and wildness. But Isabel's father has ambitions for his daughter, and she is soon sent away to Ramsgate to learn how to be a lady.

Struggling to understand society's obsession with dresses and balls, Isabel chafes against the restrictions of her new life. Then she meets Daniel Coates, in town for one night only, and the pair discover a strong mutual attraction. When circumstances force the couple apart, Isabel is heartbroken.

But before she can reunite with Daniel, the horrified Isabel is taken to London by her father to be married to a much older widower.

Can she find a way to escape the marriage of convenience her father wishes to force her into? What will become of this reluctant bride?

Why readers love Lynne Francis ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐!

'Impressively researched . . . I loved this five star book' Kay Brellend

'An engaging, thoroughly researched tale of youthful naivety and courage in the face of adversity, full of rich detail and imagination. Highly recommended!' RoNA award-winning, bestselling novelist Tania Crosse

'A compelling and captivating historical saga rich in atmosphere, emotion and heart' Goodreads Reviewer

Release date: May 16, 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

Thomas was weary. His anger from earlier in the day had dissipated, leaving the dull throb of a headache and an unsettled feeling in his chest. The words he’d hurled at Bartholomew Banks still echoed in his head. ‘You killed my aunt, drove my father to drink and destroyed my family. I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done, see if I don’t.’

He’d waylaid the man on his way to church, his wife Eustacia on his arm, their two young children following with their nursemaid. Bartholomew had stopped and Thomas had drawn himself up to his full height, although at fifteen he was puny and on the small side. Bartholomew, elegant in his dark frock coat, towered over him. His wife appeared alarmed, Thomas noticed, but Bartholomew laughed. Laughed at him, after everything he had done to ruin the Marsh family. Rage boiled up in Thomas’s chest. He wished he’d thought to bring a knife – he could have plunged it into the scoundrel. He was ready to fly at him, pummel him with his fists instead, but he was seized and his arms pinioned by the Banks coachman, who had just delivered the family to church.

Bartholomew had leaned in close. He maintained a pleasant expression but he hissed at Thomas, ‘If you haven’t left Castle Bay by sunset tonight, what’s left of your family will be weeping over the body they find washed up on the beach tomorrow morning.’

Then he ushered his family up the path to the great arched doorway of the church, greeting fellow worshippers as they passed. New arrivals cast curious glances at Thomas as he struggled, gripped in the firm embrace of the burly coachman, who had taken the precaution of clamping a gloved hand over his captive’s mouth.

Once the studded wooden door had creaked shut, the man released him.

‘You heard what he said. He means it. Get yourself out of this place or it will be the worse for you.’ The coachman aimed a cuff at Thomas, but he ducked and ran off up the path past the church, through the graveyard, then out onto the track that threaded through the village.

For whatever reason, Bartholomew chose not to worship in his local church in Hawksdown, but the one a mile or so up the road in Kingsdown. It stood on a hill, commanding a view of the sea responsible for the deaths of so many of the men now buried in the churchyard. It had taken Thomas a while to track down Bartholomew Banks to this place, and to the Sunday routine that had created the rare opportunity to accost him. Bartholomew spent most of his time within the walls and grounds of Hawksdown Castle, a place you couldn’t enter without a very good reason for being there. His having ordered the murder of Meg Marsh, Thomas’s aunt, and prompting Samuel Marsh, Thomas’s father, to drown himself in drink and guilt, wouldn’t have been considered a good enough reason.

Thomas stopped in his rapid progress along the track. He’d meant to mention the baby – the one Meg had been carrying when she was taken, the one Bartholomew had fathered. Samuel had let slip Meg’s condition to Bartholomew, and this had caused the whole sorry saga to unfold. Samuel could never forgive himself for having put his sister and her unborn child in harm’s way. Eliza, Thomas’s mother, had mourned the loss of the baby as if it was her own – which indeed they had intended it should appear to be, to spare Meg the shame. That baby would have been at least seven years old now. Thomas had particularly wanted Eustacia Banks to know about the child. Now it was too late – he’d missed his chance. And he needed to get away: Bartholomew Banks, the son of the Lord Warden, had the men and the means at his disposal to carry out his threat to have him killed.

It was nearly an hour’s walk back to Thomas’s home in Prospect Street, Castle Bay but, half running and half walking, he made the journey in considerably less time. He found his mother in the room that served as a bedroom and living room for the three remaining members of the Marsh family. His aunt Meg had vanished eight years earlier, presumed murdered on the orders of Bartholomew Banks, an event that was swiftly followed by the death of Thomas’s grandmother, Meg’s mother, brought on by despair. After that, Thomas’s parents had fallen on hard times. Eliza couldn’t manage the family bakery on her own, Samuel had sunk into drink and, one by one, the rooms in the house were rented out to make ends meet.

Prospect Street led to the seafront, where inns and bawdy houses alternated, both frequented by sailors who flooded into town while their ships were at anchor in the sheltered waters of the Downs, just offshore. The tenants they attracted were not the sort that Eliza wanted her son to associate with, so she had kept him at the Charity School for as long as she could. But once he had turned twelve, after four years of schooling, Thomas was found a job at the boatyard.

His learning was of little use to him in his new employment. When he wasn’t sweeping up, he was endlessly fetching and carrying nails, hammers, brushes and pots of pitch, from one end of the yard to the other, in answer to a boatbuilder’s summons of ‘Thomas! Here. Now!’ Small for his age – no doubt due to the restricted diet forced on him by his family’s poverty – he’d proved adept at squeezing into awkward spaces to caulk seams or hammer in nails.

It wasn’t long before he’d persuaded the men to show him the right way to saw a plank, or sand an oar so that the precision of the blade helped propel a boat through the water. It would have made sense for the boatyard owner to take Thomas on as an apprentice, but he had refused.

‘There’s no doubting your work, lad,’ he said, ‘but I remember your father only too well. Couldn’t stay away from the drink, couldn’t get himself to work on time and couldn’t be trusted to be sober when he was here. How do I know you won’t be the same, just when I’ve invested in your training? It’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.’

Thomas’s protests that he wasn’t like his father – that he had no intention of drinking and needed a trade to help provide for the family – fell on deaf ears. As the months, and then the years went by and other boys began their training, Thomas remained at everyone’s beck and call. His resentment grew.

Now, although he hadn’t made a conscious decision to leave his work, he had no alternative. Bartholomew Banks wouldn’t hesitate to carry out his threat so he must depart from his home and from the town. As he stepped through the front door of the house in Prospect Street and mounted the stairs, his heart was thudding. Not from his hurried return, but in apprehension at what he must say to his mother.

His parents could get by on the rent that came in, he reasoned, even if most of it went straight out to one of the nearby inns to satisfy Samuel’s insatiable thirst. He knew, though, as he put his hand on the doorknob of their room, that reason had very little to do with it. His mother would be very upset.



Thomas closed his eyes briefly at the memory of his hurried announcement. His mother had alternately wept and raged and he had shouted back, saying things about his father he now regretted, even though they were true. His final words before he’d slammed out of the door had been ‘The name Marsh is as good as cursed. Even if I could stay, I could never make anything of myself here.’ Then he’d left, with nothing but the clothes on his back. Tears started to his eyes as he remembered. His time in Castle Bay was over, at least while Bartholomew Banks remained at Hawksdown Castle.

He’d followed the route to the Dover turnpike, wrapped up in his thoughts, noticing nothing and nobody, without a clear plan in his head. Then, as the last few cottages fell away behind him, he turned on a whim to follow a track inland, away from the sea he’d known all his life. There were no dwellings here, just hedges at either side of the track and more hedges beyond them, carving the gentle rolling landscape into a patchwork of green and brown.

As Thomas’s agitation eased, new thoughts surfaced to trouble him. Where was he going? Where would he sleep that night? What would he do? He pushed them away as best he could. It soothed him to trudge along, placing one foot in front of the other, his mind a blank. A windmill sat above him on a small incline, its sails turning smoothly in a wind from which the hedgerows shielded Thomas. He didn’t contemplate stopping – he wasn’t yet far enough from home and it stood all alone, with no habitation in sight other than the mill house. He walked on.

Bartholomew Banks would be at his table now, with his wife and his family, no doubt full of piety after his morning in church, and intent on a good dinner. Thomas’s stomach rumbled. His breakfast had been meagre, and a long time past. He had only a few coins in his pocket – not that there was anywhere to spend them. He passed a stand of trees. Then, all at once, a church revealed itself, its wall replacing the hedgerow along the track.

Thomas rested for a moment, leaning on the wall. There was a village beyond the church, a scattering of houses between the track and the distant turnpike. It was peaceful in the afternoon sun, a village green set around with cottages. Hunger made him want to advance, but he hesitated. He had never left the Castle Bay area before. He knew the close-packed streets that ran down to the seafront like the back of his hand. He could travel barely five paces without someone passing – a fisherman, a sailor ashore, maybe one of the smugglers who frequented the Fountain Inn at the bottom of Prospect Street. Here, no one stirred. The good folk had no doubt been to church and were now, like Bartholomew Banks, behind closed doors with their families. This was not a place to knock and ask to be spared a piece of bread. Thomas thought they would most likely set a dog on him.

A pump stood a little distance from the church, on a patch of grass marking a fork in the track through the village. Thomas went over to it and pumped a little water to splash on his face, before turning his head and holding his open mouth under the flow to quench his thirst. Then, fearing the squealing of the pump handle might have disturbed the nearby residents, he set out once more. He chose the fork veering away from the village and felt his confidence grow as he walked. Every step took him further away from Bartholomew Banks and deeper into the countryside. He felt invisible there.

As the afternoon drew on, he told himself he would stop in the next place and find food and shelter for the night, before seeing where his feet took him the next day. The hedges towered above him and the track went on and on, taking a curve here and there, but with no end in sight. When the hedges occasionally fell away, it became clear there were no features in the landscape – not a church steeple, the roofs of a village or a glimpse of the sea. Just endless, rolling fields, greens turning to yellows with the first hint of autumn. Thomas hadn’t seen a soul along the track and he began to feel anxious.

At length, he realised he was approaching habitation. A pair of cottages appeared at the edge of the track, then a couple more, before he found himself at a junction. He hesitated, unsure which way to turn, then carried straight on. He feared the road dipping away to the left would carry him back in the direction of Castle Bay. After a few paces, he judged himself to be in the centre of the village and, after a few paces more, he saw a cottage, set back and low down from the track, with a sign hanging at the gate. It read, ‘The Wheatsheaf. Beer House’.

Nothing could be further from the inns of Castle Bay, Thomas thought, busy at all hours. The Wheatsheaf appeared to be someone’s house, the front room no doubt converted to a bar for the sale of ale. Perhaps it was all that this hamlet required. The front door was firmly closed and there was no sign that it was open for business.

Thomas considered walking on but the loud rumbling of his stomach decided him. He’d be sleeping the night in a hedgerow with nothing in his belly if he didn’t at least make some enquiries. He opened the gate, went down the narrow path and rapped on the door. After a minute or two, a woman opened it. She looked him up and down without speaking.

‘I’m a stranger to these parts,’ Thomas said, ‘just passing through and wondering where I might find food and lodging for the night.’

The woman frowned. ‘I can serve you ale,’ she said, opening the door wider and standing back.

‘I don’t drink.’ Thomas was apologetic. ‘But I’d gladly buy some food if you have any to spare? Some bread and cheese, maybe?’

The woman pursed her lips, thinking, then beckoned him in. The door opened directly into what had once been a front parlour but was now made over for the consumption of beer. Dark wooden stools were set around the edge of the scuffed wooden floorboards, a few small rickety tables before them. At the back of the room, in front of another door, a bar had been built – a crude affair with shelves housing glasses and tankards.

‘Shall I light the fire?’ The woman indicated a small grate, swept clean and with logs piled ready for use.

‘No, no.’ Thomas, conscious of how little he had to spend, was keen not to put her to too much trouble. The room was cool, but it was welcome after his walk.

‘I’ll see what I can find,’ the woman said, making ready to leave by the door that Thomas guessed led to the kitchen.

‘Just something small,’ he said, anxious, thrusting his hand into his pocket to check the number of coins there. His stomach rumbled loudly.

The woman smiled, immediately appearing several years younger. ‘Take a seat,’ she said, gesturing to the empty room, and went through the door behind the bar.

Thomas went to look out of the window. The Wheatsheaf sat low and the garden around it was overgrown. Did she run the place by herself? Could he offer to lend a hand and earn himself a little money to take him further? Then he remembered his long-held vow, broken already, to stay away from inns.

The door squeaked open and Thomas turned back. The woman entered, carrying a plate, a hunk of bread clearly visible. She set the plate on the table – it held a slice of pie, a piece of cheese and a mound of red-brown pickle.

‘There. I hope that will do. And I brought you a glass of my home-made dandelion and burdock – my husband swears by it after a long day in the fields. Restorative, he says. You look as though you might be in need.’

As he fell on the food and drink, the landlady watched him from behind the bar, hands on her hips, a print apron over her skirt. He’d cleared the plate in no time and she smiled.

‘Where have you walked from, to have such an appetite?’ she asked.

Thomas was guarded. He didn’t want to go into the reasons for his journey, so he evaded the question, saying, ‘Breakfast was a long time ago.’

In truth, so much had happened that day, he could barely remember the breakfast he referred to.

‘You’re looking for a place to stay, you said?’ The landlady had turned away and was polishing glasses. The sleeves of her blouse were rolled up and her arms were still brown from the summer sun. ‘We don’t let rooms here, I’m afraid. The house is already too full with family.’

‘Is there anything else hereabouts?’ Now that Thomas had rested a while, he found himself reluctant to travel further that day. The thought of asking for the fire to be lit after all, and another glass of the landlady’s home-made drink, was very tempting. Then he remembered how low his funds were.

‘Or do you know of any work to be had?’

The landlady came over and took his empty plate and glass. ‘You might ask at the mill. The miller was in here the other day, saying he’d lost his mill boy and didn’t know how he’d get another, there being so few young folk around here.’

‘The mill?’ Did she mean the one he’d passed some miles back? He had no fancy for tramping all the way back there.

‘Yes, it’s about half a mile from the village.’ Seeing his puzzlement, the landlady added, ‘I’m guessing you didn’t arrive here that way. Go left out of the door, past the big house, then turn off and follow the track down into the dip. When you rise out on the other side, beyond the wood, you’ll be able to see it.’

He could make himself useful around the mill, Thomas thought, even though he had no experience of such work. He got to his feet, and settled the bill, which was less than he’d expected. Then he thanked the woman, earning another smile, and went back outside. He shivered – in the short time he’d been inside the temperature had dropped and the weather had changed. The sun had vanished and light clouds had given way to dark ones. Thomas turned up his jacket collar and set out. He hoped that the miller would look kindly on him.



‘Left, then past the big house,’ he said to himself, as he exited the beer-house gate. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know the name of the place he found himself in. He saw a substantial wall a little way ahead on the right, which must belong to the big house the landlady had mentioned. He realised he didn’t know her name, either. He wished he’d thought to ask – it might have been useful for his forthcoming conversation with the miller.

The house behind the wall was, indeed, the biggest he had seen so far in the village. A kind of manor house, Thomas decided, having little knowledge of such things. He glanced in at the gate as he went by and what he saw brought him to a sudden halt. The huge wooden doors to a brick building at the side of the house stood open and a great upright wheel turned within, powered by a donkey that walked inside it.

A girl of about his own age was uttering words of encouragement to the beast, which turned every few minutes within the wheel and began walking the other way. Thomas stared. He struggled to make out what the donkey was doing – he could hear a creaking, and a splash in the wheelhouse each time the animal turned around within the wheel.

The girl had noticed his presence. She was rather well-dressed for her role, Thomas thought. Her loose dark hair flowed down over the shoulders of a white lace dress, although it was grubby around the hem from the dust in the yard. She broke off talking to the beast to throw Thomas a glance and he took the opportunity to call out, ‘Could you tell me where I am, please?’

‘Marston,’ the girl replied, over her shoulder. ‘This is Marston Grange, my home,’ she added, and gave Thomas a look that made him blush. She had guessed, correctly, that he’d thought her a farmhand. He nodded his thanks and hurried on, paying little heed to the few houses that remained before the road offered a right turn. It dipped down, as the landlady had said it would, running alongside a wood, before climbing steeply, then bearing right. The windmill rose high beside one of the hedges along the lane ahead of him, the white sails stationary, the dark weatherboarding echoing the colour of the bruised clouds. As he drew closer, he saw the shabby paint and the gaps in the sails and his heart sank. Would there be money enough to employ him? If not, a glance at the sky told him he’d have to beg for shelter. It was that, or a rainy night spent sleeping in a ditch, or in the wood he had just passed – not something that a town-bred boy like Thomas had contemplated before.

He’d be unlikely to find the miller anywhere other than in his house on a Sunday, Thomas decided. He opened the gate and approached the building set beside the mill. Chickens scratched in the yard and a dog began to bark before he’d even knocked at the door. A lot hung on his words, Thomas knew, and he hadn’t prepared any.

The door was opened by a whiskery gentleman, somewhat red in the face. A glimpse of the table in the simple room behind him told Thomas he’d disturbed the miller at his dinner.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you, sir,’ Thomas began, ‘but the woman at the beer house in the village told me you might need help at the mill.’

He looked hopefully at the man who, to his surprise, let out a shout of laughter.

‘Village, eh? How grand we’ve become. So, Mercy sent you? Well, come in, lad. You’d best tell me what you know about milling.’

Thomas feared his ignorance would be apparent immediately, but he stepped in anyway and was at once introduced to the miller’s wife and his three children. They regarded Thomas with wide eyes.

‘Fetch the boy a plate,’ the miller, who’d introduced himself as Adam Hopkins, instructed his wife. ‘He looks half starved.’

Thomas protested that he’d eaten only recently, at the beer house, but Mr Hopkins would hear none of it.

‘I’m sure you’ll find room for a slice of this beef and a potato or two,’ he said comfortably, adding them to Thomas’s plate. ‘Now, you’d better tell me where you come from and what you know.’

So Thomas told him that he was from Castle Bay, seeking work having left his employment at the boatyard. He found himself confessing, between mouthfuls of the miller’s wife’s delicious cooking, that he’d never worked in a mill.

‘I learn fast, though,’ he said. ‘And I have some skill in carpentry. I’m sure I can make myself useful.’

The miller regarded him shrewdly. ‘Would I be right in thinking that you’ve left in a hurry so you don’t have a character from the boatyard? Nothing to tell me how trustworthy you are and how hard you work?’

Thomas grew hot. He shook his head, and stared down at his plate. His blush surely implied guilt.

The miller pressed him further. ‘Would there be something that’s driven you away from Castle Bay? A bit of trouble, perhaps?’

Thomas swallowed hard. Surely word of his banishment by Bartholomew Banks hadn’t spread beyond the town. Then he told himself not to be foolish – the miller had just made a lucky guess.

‘There’s been some trouble between my family and someone important in the town,’ he said, reluctant to reveal too much. ‘I spoke out of turn today and was warned off, told to leave the area.’ He shrugged. ‘So here I am. Ready and willing to do a hard day’s work if you’ll give me a try. If not, I’ll move on. But I would be very grateful if you could find me somewhere to lay my head before I do.’

He held his breath, waiting for the miller’s response. Again, the man surprised him by laughing.

‘I’ll give you a trial,’ he said. ‘I can’t deny I’m in a need of a boy, the last one having upped and left. And it’ll be a while yet before these three can help me in the business.’ He smiled at his children, who gave every appearance of having solemnly followed every word.

‘You can bed down in the barn tonight, but be ready for an early start tomorrow. In the meantime, try a slice of Mrs Hopkins’s apple pie and tell me about yourself. I’m not asking for your secrets – you’re welcome to keep those.’

By the time Thomas, yawning, followed the miller across the starlit yard to the barn, he’d told the man rather more about himself than he’d cared to, but he’d wanted to convince him of his honesty and make clear he’d left Castle Bay for family reasons, not for thieving. He thought he’d have trouble sleeping, never having spent a night on a bed of empty grain sacks before, with just a rough blanket for warmth and the constant scratching and squeaking of vermin for company. But, weary from the emotions and exertions of the day, he’d fallen asleep almost at once. When the miller came to shake him awake in the pitch dark of the early morning, he found it hard to place himself.



‘Up you get. Time to see what you’re made of.’ The miller’s voice had broken into his dreams.

Thomas, struggling to open his eyes and leave sleep behind, saw an unfamiliar figure standing before him, dressed in a white smock. He blinked hard.

‘Put your head under the pump in the yard,’ the miller said. ‘And make use of the privy there, too. Then come to the house for some breakfast before we start work.’

The icy gush from the pump had the desired effect on Thomas. By the time he’d shaken the water out of his hair he was much more alert, although not particularly hungry. It seemed odd to think about eating in what felt like the middle of the night, but he did his best to force down a few mouthfuls of bread.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ Mr Hopkins said, waiting for Thomas by the door. He pushed his chair back from the table, thanked Mrs Hopkins and followed the miller across the yard. The mill loomed above Thomas as he climbed the wooden stairs to the entrance. Inside, all was in darkness but the miller was busy lighting candles inside lanterns set around the walls. The gloom receded, revealing a collection of cogs, wheels and wooden shafts that rose upwards, then vanished beyond the perimeter of light. Thomas began to sneeze.

‘Aye, it gets you that way at first,’ the miller said cheerfully. ‘It’s the dust from the milling. You’ll get used to it. Now, I’ll give you a quick look around, so you can see how it all works, before we make a start for the day.

‘The grain sacks are delivered underneath us.’ Mr Hopkins stamped on the wooden floor to illustrate his point. ‘They’re hoisted up to the dust floor, just beneath the cap.’ As he spoke, he mounted a ladder that led up through the floor to the room above. He carried on speaking as he went and Thomas hurried to follow his feet as they vanished through the opening. They climbed another ladder immediately, passing two sets of huge stone wheels as they did so. Thomas took them to be the millstones, set horizontally on top of each other.

Each floor was narrower than the last, and circular but with faceted edges, matching the exterior. By the time they reached the top, the space was all but filled with the largest wooden wheel Thomas had ever seen. The miller couldn’t stand upright, his head held at an awkward angle to avoid bumping it on the roof.

‘The cap is above us,’ he said. ‘The fantail catches the wind and turns the cap so that the sweeps have the best of it. The sweeps turn this wheel,’ he patted its wooden surface, ‘which drives a shaft that turns the millstones below us to grind the grain.’

He began to descend the ladders again. ‘The grain sacks are emptied into these hoppers here . . .’ The miller was talking rapidly as he went, pointing out the mill workings on the way. He told Thomas to look through one of the windows as they passed and he did, becoming transfixed so that he missed every word that came after. The window was draped with cobwebs festooned with dust but, despite that, it gave a view out over the countryside to the east, where the sun was rising: a golden globe among trails of pink clouds as the pale blue of the heavens revealed itself. Thomas knew that the sea lay in that direction and he felt a sudden pang of loss for his home. He had never spent a night away from it before and the strangeness of his situation threatened to overwhelm him. All his years by the coast told him that such a sky promised a brisk wind so, reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the view and hurried down the ladder after Mr Hopkins.

‘As you can see, there’s more than enough work to keep one person fully occupied,’ the miller was saying, as he re-joined him. ‘And with the whole building and almost everything in it made of wood, needing constant repair, your skills will be very useful to me.’ He beamed at Thomas, who swallowed hard, then sneezed several times in succession. He could only hope that what appeared to him as a jumble of machinery would start to make sense as the day – and, perhaps, the weeks if he could prove himself – unfolded.

The miller went towards one of the two doors that led out onto the platform surrounding that floor. ‘I’m going to release the brake wheel,’ he called back, ‘and set the sweeps going. Then I’ll show you the rest.’ Thomas had managed to work out that the sweeps were the sails but most of the other terms the miller had used seemed unfathomable.

Mr Hopkins had been gone barely a minute before Thomas felt the building shudder as the sails began to move. Creaks and more shuddering followed as the shafts within began to turn, powered by each sweep of the sails. He poked his head out of the door to take a look but ducked quickly back in as he saw one of the sweeps descending towards him.

He heard the miller’s voice from behind him. He had come back in through the ot. . .