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.**
“Well, after we met, he called upon me…”
“Oh, don’t start it there!” Hugh’s mother seemed crestfallen. “I want to hear the whole thing from your perspective, especially now I know my son’s version of events cannot be entirely trusted. Let us not forget he told me you fell in love with him the second you saw him. If he got that pertinent detail wrong, heaven only knows what else he has. I think we should start with the carriage, don’t you? The one my son apparently rescued you from.”
“Yes … of course…”
Hugh came to her aid. “It was a high-perch phaeton. Your father’s … in Chipping Norton.” His mother glared at him with narrowed eyes.
“I asked Minerva to tell me the story, Hugh—or am I to assume she doesn’t know it?”
“I had taken my father’s phaeton against his knowledge and, as it turned out, against my woeful skill at driving it. I was going down the lane a tad too fast and something spooked the horses…”
“What spooked them?”
Hugh had neglected to tell her that bit. “I am not entirely sure. It could have been anything. Horses are difficult creatures at the best of times. All I can say for certain is they went off like a shot and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I dropped one of the … er”—What was the stupid word?—“ribbons.… While I was scrambling about trying to reach them, the carriage started to rock quite alarmingly on its axle. As it hurtled toward a dense copse of trees, I thought I was done for, then out of nowhere appeared Hugh on the back of Galileo…” A nice believable detail she was quite proud of. “He galloped alongside and tried valiantly to grab the ribbons himself. When that didn’t work, he leapt into the carriage.”
“From a speeding horse? About to careen into a dense copse of trees?”
“It was quite a feat of derring-do. Very heroic…” And Minerva was in danger of over-egging it and losing her audience. “But thankfully, he managed to grab them and then he wrestled the horses to a stop in the nick of time. My very own knight in shining armor.” A comment that would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. That it hurt was her own stupid fault. She knew better than to expect anything from a man. Knew, too, her taste in them couldn’t be trusted. Once again she had had her foolish head turned by a fine pair of shoulders and a twinkling pair of eyes, and worst of all, she couldn’t really blame Hugh for being like all the rest of them, because he had warned her what he was.
Repeatedly.
She took a fortifying sip of her tea, both to calm her bouncing nerves and to avoid huffing in frustration at her own stupidity, then smiled at Hugh, hoping she appeared sincere rather than fuming. “And that, as they say, was that.”
“But I thought you just said it wasn’t love at first sight?” There were obviously no flies on Hugh’s mother.
“It wasn’t.” How on earth did Hugh keep track of all his lies, when Minerva was already struggling? Because he was shallow and selfish, the wretch, and she had substance. Or at least she did—before she had stupidly allowed him to mine through her defenses! The false smile began to slip, so she ruthlessly nailed it back in place. There were forty pounds up for grabs, and there would be time aplenty to castigate herself for the mistake later. “After he stopped the carriage, he escorted me home, and unbeknownst to me, asked my father’s permission to call upon me again before he left Chipping Norton.”
Hugh’s mother sipped her own tea a little too casually for Minerva’s liking, then turned to her son. “You never did explain how you came to be in Chipping Norton in the first place, dear.”
“Oh yes I did, as well you know it. You just want to see if Minerva knows all the gory details.” He took a sip of his own tea, his even stare never leaving his mother’s. “But Minerva does know all the gory details. There are no secrets between us. She knows I was at a questionable house party in Long Hanborough hosted by Lord Ashby.”
The older woman turned her nose up. “I have always disapproved of Lord Ashby. I especially disapprove of his questionable house parties.”
“Which is exactly why I always went to them. And it was a jolly good thing I did, too, else I never would have met Minerva and fallen instantly in love—and would probably still be at a highly questionable house party as we speak.”
“How long did it take for Cupid’s arrow to strike you, Minerva?”
Hugh had said they were inseparable immediately, but it suddenly galled her he never had to work for anything. Life came too easily to undeserving men like him.
“Several visits over many, many weeks.” She took another sip of her tea and smiled winsomely over the rim as if remembering it all fondly. “He even proposed before I agreed to allow him to court me.”
“He did?”
“Indeed. Twice.” She held up two fingers. “I turned him down on both occasions.” She had the satisfaction of seeing his normally twinkling eyes narrow. “I didn’t want to rush into something I might bitterly regret afterward. Marry in haste and all that … and I needed to be sure he wasn’t the man I read about in the scandal sheets. I knew I could never love—or even particularly like—a bounder that … mercenary.”
“What a sensible girl you are, Minerva.” Hugh’s mother seemed impressed. “Most young ladies would have jumped at the chance of being a countess. In fact, I’ll wager they wouldn’t have looked past his title.”
“Perhaps they wouldn’t—but wealth and status alone have never been enough to impress me. I believe in judging a man by his measure rather than the size of his purse.” And like every other man who had disappointed her, Hugh now fell woefully short.
“I raised all my daughters with a strong moral code.” Lucretia nodded sagely, shamelessly taking the credit for Minerva’s pragmatic restraint. “I always told them never to settle for anything less than the very deepest, most abiding, all-consuming love. The sort I shared with their father…” Her voice caught, and her eyes clouded convincingly. Minerva had to give her that. “God rest him…”
“Well, anyway.” Unchecked, they’d have to suffer through another one of the actress’s emotional monologues, and they had suffered through at least three already. There was only so much Vee could take, and it would be prudent not to test her limits after what happened at the inn. “After he rescued me so selflessly, then diligently courted me despite my blatant indifference, Hugh gradually wore down my justified reservations and I began to see his true worth.”
That made him sound almost noble, drat it. “The poor thing was quite desperate by the time he proposed for the third time. He was so persistent and so hopeful I came to realize he truly did love me if he was prepared to put himself through endless torture simply to win me, and I came to believe he did intend to change his selfish ways.”
“And thanks entirely to you, he turned over a new leaf.” Hugh’s mother sighed and nodded, then beamed at her son. “How very romantic.”
That little devil inside her couldn’t resist one final dig. “Besides, I couldn’t bring myself to turn him down again, could I? He was so besotted, I firmly believe another rejection would have crushed him.”
“Oh, it would have!” She found an unlikely ally in Lord Bellingham. “He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Could barely function in those dark days after Minerva refused his second proposal. It was tragic to watch. But I told him—Hugh, old boy, nothing good comes without hard work. Prostrate yourself on the altar of remorse and beg that girl to take a chance on you.”