Never Fall for Your Fiancee

Chapter Fourteen

“What do you mean you have to go?” Hugh gripped Giles by the lapels and seriously considered shaking him. “You can’t!” Because Hugh had kissed her, practically ravished her, and the only hope he had of not kissing her ever again was if she left tonight. “I need you!”

“It’s an emergency, old boy.” He waved the note in his hand, then snatched it away when Hugh tried to grab it. “Ask Payne. It came by express fifteen minutes ago. I have to go.”

“But Giles…”

“It shouldn’t take long.”

“‘Shouldn’t take long’? What sort of a woolly answer is that? When will you be back, damn it?”

“A few days…” Good grief! “A week at most.”

He did shake him then as blind panic took hold. “A week! A bloody week! What the hell am I supposed to do with them all for a week!” He had a million ideas what to do with Minerva, all of them wholly inappropriate. Each and every one had stopped him from sleeping last night, then necessitated an icy wash followed by a brisk gallop across the fields before the sun even rose first thing this morning. Neither had done anything to dampen his ardor. “You need to take her today!”

“Well, I can hardly elope with her now, can I? She’s eating breakfast with your mother!”

“They are planning my wedding! Have you any idea how much planning my mother is capable of in a single week?” Hugh let go of Giles to pace, trying to focus on his own misery and not to notice his friend’s suddenly gray pallor and fraught expression. Something was wrong. Very wrong. So wrong it stopped him from lusting after Minerva. “What is it, Giles? Can I help?”

“Nothing serious, old boy—rattling skeletons which urgently need my attention, that’s all—but thanks for offering.”

He could tell by his friend’s closed expression he would hear nothing more. And Minerva accused Hugh of being secretive, which of course he was with good reason, but he’d known Giles for over a decade and sometimes wondered if he knew him at all. He frequently disappeared with little explanation, always claimed rattling skeletons but never confided what those persistent old bones were. “I shall be back as soon as I am able. You have my word. As I said, it shouldn’t take long…” Although even Giles didn’t look convinced by that half-hearted statement. “Or at least I hope it doesn’t. In the meantime, try to avoid getting married, there’s a good chap.”

“Easy for you to say. My mother is doubtless writing the guest list as we speak. The banns will be read on Sunday…” Fresh panic gripped him. “Bloody hell, Giles! How do I stop the banns from being read?”

“They have to be read three times before they’re official and I’ll definitely be back before that happens.”

“Hardly reassuring.” Aside from putting off his mother, Hugh couldn’t imagine being able to resist Minerva for one week, let alone three. She had been so passionate. So magnificently wanton. If her kisses alone made him lose his head, anything more didn’t bear thinking about. Except he kept thinking about it. Those long legs, the gauzy nightgown, the dusky nipples beneath it he was now desperate to see properly. Touch … taste …

“Look on the bright side, while she is occupied with wedding preparations, she won’t have the time or inclination to be suspicious. Just maintain the status quo, act besotted, let your mother have her fun, and before you know it, I shall be back to sweep your fiancée off her feet and scandalously steal her from under your nose.” Giles attempted to smile, then shook his head in apology. “I really do have to go, old boy.”

“Then go, damn it! The quicker you do, the quicker you can come back and the quicker this sham will be over.”

If Hugh survived it—and that was a very big “if” indeed. If his mother didn’t kill him for his duplicity, his lust for Minerva would. Perhaps, in this instance, death would be a blessing? He had never been so consumed by a woman before. So tempted to ignore all of his hard-and-fast rules about the sort of women he wooed. This morning, as soon as he saw her, he had wanted to flirt with her. Pick her flowers. Spend all day with her. Talking, kissing. Getting to know her in every possible way. He blamed the nightgown, the firelight, and all that seductive hair for his idiotic lapse in judgment. But unfortunately, last night his wayward Standish blood had fired his loins to such an extent, the pragmatic, reasonable, and noble part of his brain had stopped working and he had completely forgotten all his deeply ingrained principles.