Never Fall for Your Fiancee

“She doesn’t hate you. The thing is…” Hugh took in her granite posture and sighed. “Horses are sensitive creatures who take their lead from us. You need to relax for Marigold to relax, too.”

“And how, exactly, does one relax on the back of a skittish horse!” The snippy tone made Marigold snort and chomp on the bit.

“For a start, you could think about loosening your arms. Look at me.” Hugh made sure he was practically lounging in his saddle. “As you can see—I have a firm hold of the reins should I need to quickly take command.” He shook them for effect. “But the muscles in my arms and wrists are soft. Galileo doesn’t need to feel the bit tight at the back of his mouth to know I am in control, because we trust each other.” To prove his point, he used his left hand to tug gently, and his mount instantly responded by moving a little farther away from Minerva on the narrow lane. “Relax your arms, Minerva.”

She took a deep breath. “Is this better?”

Not even slightly. “A little—however, you do still resemble a woman with a couple of sturdy broomsticks shoved up her sleeves.”

She looked down at her arms, ruler straight and raised almost horizontal from her body, and made a conscious effort to bend them. “Will the terror lessen, do you suppose?”

Maybe it would if he took her mind off what she was doing?

“It occurs to me I have been very remiss in my attentions. I’ve been so wrapped up in teaching you how to be my Minerva, I’ve hardly learned anything about the real one. All I know is your parents are no longer alive and your father was a scholar.”

She frowned, her eyes never leaving the road ahead as she concentrated too hard at relaxing. “I said he was gone, not dead.” She risked flicking him a quick glance. “And I saw no evidence of him actually being a scholar, although he frequently claimed to be one. But then my father often claims to be a lot of things.”

“He’s alive?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged, then wobbled some more. “He wrote us a letter one day saying he was going away for a little while and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”

Hugh was appalled. “He never came back! Even after your mother died?”

“My mother died when I was nine. My father abandoned us promptly after my nineteenth birthday. He left no forwarding address.” She said it so matter-of-factly. “I cannot say I miss his presence much. He was more hindrance than parent, especially in the later years.”

“That is outrageous!” For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to turn his horse toward London, hunt the wastrel down, and then beat the bounder to a pulp. “What sort of a gentleman behaves like that?”

“I never said he was a real gentleman either.” She looked troubled. “Again—he claimed to be. He was an engraver—like me. Oh dear … Is that why you asked me to pose as your fiancée? You assumed I am a proper gentleman’s daughter?”

“It was an easy assumption to make. You are well educated, well spoken. You have a genteel bearing.”

“Those come from my mother, who also claimed to be a gentleman’s daughter.” She winced. “But again, I have no proof of that either. They were estranged from their respective families.”

“It makes no difference to me in the grand scheme of things.” He liked her exactly as she was. “So long as you can convince my mother you are a tiny bit genteel…”

“There may be some tenuous link somewhere—although I sincerely doubt from my father’s line.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. “He was as convincing a liar as anyone I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have made it all up.” She risked another quick glance sideways and offered a pained half smile. “He was quite clever that way.”

“But he lacked the moral fiber to do his duty by his family?” Such a thing seemed unbelievable to Hugh. A chap did not shirk his responsibilities!

“He was a terminal wastrel with questionable morals who preferred an easy life to hard work. He managed to make the minimal effort while we were younger—or at least I assumed he did because he just about managed to keep a roof over our heads. He was a woodcutter, too. A reasonably good one. He taught me, actually. Which ironically freed him to spend more time socializing in the local public houses or with his lady friends as I got older—until he abdicated all his parental responsibilities entirely.”

“And left it all to you.” She nodded. “That’s unconscionable.”

“Yes, it is—but that was Papa. He ran with a very bad crowd by then, and in the final days, and the weeks after, several unsavory characters and more than one Bow Street Runner came looking for him. Clearly he was running away from more than just his familial responsibilities.” She shrugged, resigned, and barely wobbled at all. “The Standish male does not have the monopoly on untrustworthiness, Hugh. In my experience, most men are untrustworthy. It’s in their nature, but my father was in a league all his own. In fact, I would go as far as to say that whatever misdeeds any man in your family has done in the past, I’ll wager my dear papa probably did worse.”