Never Fall for Your Fiancee

What to do?

He wished he had killed off Minerva long ago exactly as Giles had said. His fake fiancée was only ever meant to be temporary—a way to stall his mother, avoid falling out with her and hurting her feelings yet again, and to give himself some time off. He hated arguments more than he hated introspection, and he hated disappointing people. And he particularly hated hurting people. Especially his mother.

Aside from her irritating habit of matchmaking, he adored the woman. She didn’t deserve any of this. All she had ever wanted was the best for Hugh, and she had sacrificed herself tirelessly for the sake of his happiness. He’d practically had to force her to marry the love of her life, because she was so dedicated to Hugh—something that doubtless drove her to push for him to do the same. She felt guilty for snatching some happiness of her own; ergo, to lessen her guilt, she needed to see him happy, too.

Which in her book meant marriage, although heaven only knew why. Despite the apparent success she had made of her second trip up the aisle, the legacy of her first still lingered in Hugh’s mind and always would. How could it not when he and his father were two peas in a pod?

Or almost two peas.

Dear Papa, like his father before him, had managed to sleep at night whilst Hugh knew he never would. To be the cause of all that hurt … Unconsciously, he shuddered and found himself shaking his head as he marched forward. Unlike his philandering father and grandfather, he had standards. A man should only enter into a marriage when he had every intention of honoring his vows. Such a noble undertaking obviously required two attributes that, thanks to his ancestors, Hugh was fairly certain he didn’t possess: eyes that didn’t wander and a heart selfless enough to be capable of great love.

He had loved a great many women in his thirty-two years on the earth, and not one of them had ever made either of those fickle organs work as a good husband’s should. Besides the Standish male’s penchant for deceit, that wayward, womanizing Standish blood ran through his veins and always would. No indeed, the path of matrimony wasn’t for him.

As much as he didn’t want to end up like one of those sad, old, crusty bachelors who only went to White’s because they had nobody to go home to, Hugh was resigned to his eventual fate. He would inevitably be in a wingback at White’s next to Giles, and the pair of them could moan about the state of the world together. Until one of them died …

And there he was, being all maudlin again, mapping out a sorry future for himself when he wasn’t anywhere near his dotage and was still a carefree young buck enjoying sowing his wild oats.

Or at least he had enjoyed it. The bloom had faded off the rose a little in the last year, and he often had to force himself to go out purely to keep up appearances amongst his friends who were still dedicated to the sport. That worried him. It signaled his dotage was doggedly shuffling ever closer despite his fear of those depressing wingbacks at White’s.

Hugh had promised himself he would make more effort to enjoy his bachelorhood fully; however, more often than not, he made excuses nowadays. He tended to avoid the hells he’d been so dedicated to when he had first invented Minerva and hadn’t made any effort to chase any game women either. He’d dallied—of course he had—but the awkward truth was his carefree bachelor lifestyle wasn’t quite as carefree as it used to be.

Deep down, in the most cavernous, honest recesses of his soul, which he liked to pretend didn’t exist unless he was forced into introspection, he knew he had clung on to the idea of Minerva to avoid admitting to his mother that he was too much like his father to ever consider settling down. A tragic truth that would break her heart. He was very mindful of breaking hearts. Broken hearts healed over—they did not mend fully. Hugh knew this firsthand because his had been ripped in two when he had finally discovered that the father he worshiped and had always emulated wasn’t quite the great man he had always assumed him to be. And while he had accepted that he shared all of those same flaws, he was damned if he would use them as weapons to wound others as well.

But in clinging to his self-righteousness for too long and avoiding the conversation that would make the need for Minerva obsolete, he’d made a mess of it. He hoped the solution miraculously materialized once his belly was full; otherwise, he truly was doomed.

He was halfway down Sackville Street when he witnessed the altercation.

“I’ll pay you when I am good and ready, madam, and not before.” The older gentleman stood on the top of the short stack of steps outside a front door. Judging by his attire, he was either on his way out or had just arrived back. Below him, on the pavement with her back to Hugh, was a woman. Like the gentleman, she wore a heavy winter coat, although hers had seen better days and she had paired it with a thick woolen scarf and mismatched knitted mittens. Both looked homemade. Her head was swamped in an enormous velvet bonnet.