Once Upon a Promise

By Nicola Davidson

Long ago abandoned for the battlefields of Europe by her aristocratic soldier husband, Emma Montclair craves a formal separation. To forget the man who pulled her into his glittering, stifling world, introduced her to love, laughter, and sizzling passion in their whirlwind marriage, then broke her heart.
Ordered home to inherit an unexpected title, Major Caleb Montclair must face the wife he’s never stopped loving, and the dark secrets that kept him away. Confronted with Emma’s request, he offers a hasty counter-bargain: six weeks to win her back. But even as old tenderness rekindles, lost time and past wounds threaten their reunion. Does love truly get a second chance?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicola Davidson
• Release date: Mar 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9780473361297

Nicola Davidson

USA Today bestselling author NICOLA DAVIDSON worked for many years in media and government communications, but hasn’t looked back since she decided writing erotic historical romance was infinitely more fun. When not chained to a computer she can be found ambling along one of New Zealand’s beautiful beaches, cheering on the All Blacks rugby team, history geeking on the internet, or daydreaming. If this includes dessert—even better!Nicola's books have appeared in USA Today, NPR, and Entertainment Weekly.Find Nicola online: Twitter (@NicolaMDavidson) Facebook (Nicola Davidson – Author) Instagram (NicolaDauthor) or her website www.nicola-davidson.com

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

London, May 1815

Five words.

Just five words stood between herself and happiness, and she still didn’t have the courage to write them.

Hand shaking, Emma Montclair dipped her quill into the silver pot of jet-black ink and brought it back to the crisp cream paper, to begin the necessary letter she’d been putting off for months.

I heartily desire

Too flowery.

I respectfully request

Too weak.

Oh, please, she scolded herself out loud as the quill faltered again. They’re just words. The sky will not fall. The ground will not split open. In actual fact, everyone will be most relieved, so write, damn you.

Her fingers flexed, then gripped the quill hard, the scratching sound of writing on paper like a sword unsheathing in the silence of the lavishly appointed bedchamber.

Caleb, I want a separation.

There was the answer to all her problems. And it wouldn’t be such a terrible scandal, barren wives often retired to the country. Nor would anyone raise an eyebrow if her husband took a permanent mistress; all of London knew the sinfully handsome and dashing Major Caleb Montclair had wed far, far below himself when he insisted on marrying the daughter of his father’s secretary. For heaven’s sake, he was the beloved eldest son of society leaders Lord and Lady Hugh Montclair, nephew of the Marquess of Hadleigh and godson to the all-conquering Duke of Wellington.

Despite the warmth of the late spring morning, Emma shivered and rubbed her arms, an all-too-familiar reaction to thoughts of the glossy, rigid world she didn’t belong in and felt trapped and hounded by. Caleb was born, raised and entirely at ease in the ton. She merely lurched from one faux pas to the next, never knowing the right fashion plate to view, on-dit to hear or fan to use.

Indeed, it would be far better for everyone if their stop-start six year union became a different arrangement. He could then march the globe with the British Army until his hair turned gray. And she, well, she would have freedom.

Her dreams were simple: A pretty cottage leased from her dear widower friend Donald. Charity work, not balls. A small garden to personally tend again. Taking tea with women because they were kind and amusing and smart, not because of a suitable rank.

No more would she roam the lavishly perfect Montclair townhouse like a lost soul, lonely and isolated from the busy, fulfilling life she’d once known. No more living under the thumb of a mother-in-law who spoke only to criticize. No more waking from vivid lusty dreams of someone who was not there...

A sob caught in her throat.

When Caleb first joined the army, temporary leave certificates were generous, but over time her husband’s visits home dwindled considerably. After the summer of 1812 they stopped altogether, and she had to make do with brief, polite letters. At least he still wrote, the missives arriving infrequently but continuously from the brutal battlefields of Spain and France, then the shadowed corridors of power in Vienna, and lately, with his godfather Wellington in Brussels.

It was three years since she had seen him, and finally, thankfully, the memories of his touch were fading. Never again would a man possess her body and soul so completely, that a mere glance or light caress hurled her into a raging storm of fevered need. Nor would there be any more scandalous daytime trysts in secluded alcoves or the lush, private meadows of the Montclair country estate in their quest for a baby.

Three whole years.

If that wasn’t the act of a man who had fallen completely out of love with his wife, who profoundly regretted his impulsive, whirlwind marriage when they had been a pair of foolish twenty-one year olds, it was hard to imagine what was.

So write the wretched letter, she muttered, swallowing hard. Send it. And let it be done.

Em! Emma!

Uttering an unladylike curse under her breath at the familiar shout, Emma snatched up the piece of paper, shoved it into a desk drawer and banged it closed, just as her bedchamber door shook with a flurry of heavy knocks.

"Emma Georgiana Montclair. Are you in there? Speak now, or forever grow carbuncles on your backside."

Her lips twitched. Come in, Lucy!

The door burst open and her sister-in-law sailed into the room. Eighteen years old, a sapphire-eyed, ebony-haired beauty, Lucinda Montclair was the beloved sibling she’d never had and the person she would miss beyond all once she was no longer living here with the family.

I cannot believe you are sitting up here so calmly, Emma. How can you be so serene? I feel like...like I’m going to fly around the room. Or my belly is going to split open and release a thousand butterflies into the air.

Then you really must cease pilfering your father’s brandy.

Lucy widened her eyes. "Moi? Those days are quite behind me. Well, suspended at least since Father caught me topping up his decanter with water and blathered for a full hour. But that is by the by. Why aren’t you dancing? I thought you would be just as excited as I am."

"Excited about what? Have you received a particularly coveted invitation? An offer of marriage?

No, silly, said Lucy, perching on a low chaise then immediately springing back to her feet. The wonderful news! Richard is coming home from Brussels.

Emma grinned. Not a certain Captain Sir Richard Freeman, the man you’ve been besotted with since, oh about age twelve?

I’d say closer to eight. But yes, that very Richard.

"And he’s finally, finally admitted to returning your ardent admiration tenfold, and we’ll shortly be celebrating a betrothal?"

Pah, muttered Lucy, shoulders slumping, and Emma’s heart ached for her. She knew that look.

Oh dear.

I know deep down Richard is madly in love with me. He just doesn’t know how to show it. Or say it. But this time he shall be home for a while at least. Convalescing.

He’s hurt?

Cal’s note said a minor leg wound from a skirmish with some French mercenaries. And fortunately I shall be right here to nurse him back to full health, her sister-in-law finished with the determined look so typical of a Montclair.

A strange twist of disappointment gouged Emma’s insides. Caleb wrote to you? There was no, ah, message for me?

Lucy frowned. Why would he...?

Well—

...when he’s coming home also? You shall be talking face to face by tomorrow evening. And I wager a whole lot more, if the past is anything to go...Em? Are you well? You’ve gone frightfully pale.

Black dots danced before her eyes and she swayed, overcome with the promise of a different future.

Caleb was on his way home for a visit!

Tomorrow she could calmly and clearly outline all the reasons their marriage must change, gain his permission to leave London for good.

Tomorrow she might regain some peace. Happiness.

Finally.

How much longer do you think, Cal?

Major Caleb Montclair smiled grimly at Captain Sir Richard Freeman, and firmly suppressed the words ‘not long enough’. To him, the luxurious, well-sprung carriage hurtled toward London like a comet. To the pale, perspiring, seriously-injured man opposite, it probably felt like a square-wheeled cart drawn by elderly goats with an uncanny eye for ruts and rocks.

Not long, old man. An hour or so and you’ll be tucked up in cool linen, barking orders at London’s best physicians while a dozen beauties fight to nurse you back to full health.

You should have told them the truth in your letter.

He raised an eyebrow. And have everyone fret for weeks, able to do nothing? I think not.

They’ll be expecting a few scratches, a slight limp for a while. The fact is, I can’t walk. I’ll be in a damned wheeled chair the rest of my life.

Caleb gritted his teeth as agony clawed through him. Just as he had failed as a brother and husband, he had failed Richard, his second in command and oldest friend. All the bloody dispatches to England, all the speeches raving about the heroic Major Montclair’s skill and bravery in saving the lives of ten men after the company was set upon by French mercenaries during an early morning exploratory mission: Utterly false.

He had been lucky, then so damned cocky and foolish after cutting a swathe through the blue jackets, thinking the danger over. But one man remained hidden in the trees, and Richard paid the price of two bullets to the thigh.

No, Caleb bit out. You’ll walk again. Decent food, good doctoring, plenty of rest and you’ll be waltzing ‘til dawn in no time.

A ghost of a smile touched Richard’s lips.

You could always waltz in my stead.

Caleb instantly recoiled as chills iced his spine, the kind that crept up and mercilessly shredded any hard-won partial peace. One long-ago day, one shocking event tore two brothers apart, and no matter what he did to atone for his terrible mistake, the wound had never healed.

It would be a cold