Never Fall for Your Fiancee
- Автор: Heath Virginia
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- Жанр: Исторические любовные романы
Электронная книга - «Never Fall for Your Fiancee». Краткое содержание книги:
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Virginia Heath's fun characters and situations will have you laughing out loud! Don't miss this wonderful read! - Sabrina Jeffries, *New York Times* bestselling author**
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The first in a new historical rom-com series, a handsome earl hires a fake fiancée to keep his matchmaking mother at bay, but hilarity ensues when love threatens to complicate everything.**
Having a plan and executing it were two different things, and as they set off toward the house, Minerva naturally lagged behind Hugh, who rode a little ahead of her because his control on his temper was hanging by a thread and not all of that was her fault. But every time he turned back and had to slow his horse for her to catch up, his temper simmered more. Even Galileo was becoming annoyed at the sedentary pace and, like Hugh, wanted his legs. Hugh went around a bend, looked over his shoulder, and then had to stop yet again when she wasn’t there. As the seconds ticked by and there was still no sight of her, he had no choice other than to turn Galileo around and angrily retrace his steps.
“What the blazes are you doing?”
She was stationary, hanging at an odd angle from the saddle, yanking at her skirts, which had wrapped themselves around her legs. “I’m getting down!” She glared at him, her face scowling. “I’ve had enough! I hate riding! I told you I’d be useless at it, yet you forced me to do it regardless! And then you galloped off!”
“Galloped? The chance would have been a fine thing.”
“Trotting then! Or cantering! All I know is it was at a pace significantly quicker than you promised!” The heavy burgundy velvet finally gave way, giving him a very unwelcome show of her silk-clad legs all the way to the knees as she awkwardly slithered down to the ground and glared again. “I’ll walk Marigold back and then I’ll never sit on a stupid horse again!” With exaggerated haughtiness, she marched to the front of the horse and grabbed the reins, then shooed him away with one imperious gloved hand. “Go! And while gone, you can use that vivid imagination of yours to conjure up a good reason why Miss Landridge regrets she is unable to ride when your mother asks!”
It was the shooing that ultimately did it, sending all the morning’s frustrations careening out of his mouth in one sarcastic snarl. “Miss Landridge is unable to ride because she doesn’t listen to a damn word I’ve said! You sit on the poor horse as stiff as a board, choke the poor thing on the bit, and then expect it to walk along compliantly at the speed of a snail! Poor Marigold is bored senseless!”
“Don’t take your bad mood out on me!”
“Why not? You’re the one responsible for it!”
“How dare you!” She had the nerve to look down her nose at him. No mean feat when he still sat on Galileo and a good six feet off the ground. “I’ve been nothing but pleasant to you all day, despite your having a face like thunder throughout luncheon.” Then off she went. Nose in the air, distracting hips swaying as she stomped, the very picture of outraged self-righteousness.
“And that was your fault, too!” Because looming over her didn’t feel right even when he was rightly fuming, he jumped off his horse and trailed after her.
“Oh yes! Of course it was! It had absolutely nothing to do with Mrs. Sarah Peters, did it?” Minerva turned to wag her finger. “Just admit it! You’ve been in a sulk since we collided with her in the square.” Her hands went to her hips as they stood, now practically toe to toe. “And it hasn’t escaped my notice you were absolutely no help during that nonsense over dinner. That actress is a menace!”
“At least that actress is doing exactly what I’m paying her for!”
“Surely you are not suggesting I haven’t? On what grounds?” For a woman who had no idea if she possessed any blue blood at all, she displayed indignation like a snooty duchess. “I have done absolutely everything you’ve asked. Absolutely. Everything. Why, I even sat on this stupid horse when I expressly told you I had no talent for it.” She shooed him again and stuck her self-righteous nose back in the air. “How dare you!”
“Oh I dare, Minerva!” The lid finally exploded off the seething cauldron of emotions, and they all spewed out in a rush. “You and your bloody family have pushed me to the very edge of my patience and I’m done with it!”
“Don’t bring my sisters into this…”
“Why not? You did. In fact, you insisted upon bringing them and I have been nothing but patient with the pair of them. Diana is rude, convinced I am a debaucher, and cannot keep her big mouth shut, and Vee is a petulant child who frankly cannot cope with any of what I expect her to do!”
“Vee’s outburst had nothing to do with coping and everything to do with Lucretia! The woman is mad! All her bosom clutching and expostulating. Oh my dear husband.” She clutched her own bosom with one hand, dragging his eyes there before the back of her other hand went to her forehead. But the damage was done, and the unwanted lust reared its ugly head again. “Why, oh, why did he have to die?” Then as if she had made her point, she dispassionately shrugged. “Get rid of her, Hugh. She’s spoiling everything.”
“Actually—it’s Vee I’m getting rid of.” Her mouth fell open. “She’s the one spoiling everything and it cannot continue.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I shall assign her a responsible maid as a chaperone, and she can sit out my mother’s impending visit in my house in Mayfair, where she cannot cause any more trouble!” Hugh ignored the urge to stamp his foot. “In fact, she can leave tonight.”
“Over my dead body!”
“Oh, be reasonable! She’s a child and she’s taking up far too much of everyone’s time. Especially yours. When I agreed you could bring your sisters to Hampshire, you made no mention of the fact she is so young or so…” Was “whiny and irritating” too harsh? “Needy.”
“She is seventeen!”
“She can’t even master cutlery, for pity’s sake. She wanders around looking permanently startled and overwhelmed, and then rewards us with regular bursts of histrionics when anyone dares mention a parent of any sort—even a fictional one! And you”—his own finger had started to wag of its own accord—“indulge her every whim. The cutlery debacle yesterday is a case in point! You mastered a table setting in under five minutes on the first day. So did Diana. But because poor, sensitive Vee didn’t know her soup spoon from the carving knife, you made Payne waste a blasted hour teaching her again while all she achieved was a giant soup stain on the tablecloth!”
Haughty disdain was replaced with wounded dismissal. “She will improve.… I will help her.”
“I am not paying you to help her, Minerva. I am paying you a very generous fee to help me!”
“That is very mercenary!”
“Mercenary be damned! You seem to have conveniently forgotten I am paying you to do a job and I deserve my money’s worth. From now on, I insist you give that task your single and undivided attention until the job is done. That is what we agreed.”
“If Vee goes, then so will I. On Saturday. As we also agreed.”
“If you think I’m paying you twenty pounds because you deign to stay till Saturday on sufferance like a martyr—think again. It’s Friday and by childishly stating your intentions to leave a day before you actually do, you have rendered our bargain null and void. If you choose to renege on our bargain, I won’t pay you a single penny! How’s that for mercenary!”
It was Hugh’s turn to spin on his heel and storm off. He’d said his piece. Perhaps not quite how he had intended—he wasn’t particularly proud of himself and hated the fact he’d had to hurt her feelings in the process—but it was said, and that was the end of it.