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.**
“Which do you prefer?”
“It hardly matters, does it?” She looked at him as if he had gone mad. “My point is, I have stupidly set a snowball rolling down the hill and already it is a speeding boulder.”
“The first thing we need to do is slow my mother down and tell her we do not want a Christmas wedding because…” He flailed his hands about, seeking inspiration.
“Because … I want my father’s relatives to come down and traveling in winter is always difficult in the Cairngorms?”
“An excellent idea! And hardly fair this close to Christmas…”
“And on such short notice…”
“They would be distraught to have missed it. As will you, of course. We could propose a February wedding.”
“Valentine’s Day?” She grinned and he grinned back, pleased their thoughts were so aligned.
“Exactly! My mother will adore the romantic symbolism—Valentine’s is nearly three months away, thus preventing her from running too far ahead of herself. With any luck, Giles will be back well before the week is out and no real harm done. After all, even my mother cannot plan an entire wedding in a week and she will insist on doing it properly.”
“But what about the modiste? She said she was going to write to her as a matter of urgency.”
“I think it’s best to let that happen, don’t you? It adds credence to it all.”
“But we’d be wasting the poor woman’s time.”
“Hardly wasting. Madame Devy is a canny businesswoman and will insist on payment for services rendered whether you wear her dress or not. Not to mention the fact my mother will thoroughly enjoy the whole process. That dress will keep her busy. Especially if you become quite particular. Everything else can easily be canceled well in advance of being made. All the accounts will be going through me anyway, so I can see to all that without her noticing. It is the sensation of purchase my mother enjoys, not the payment. So long as she thinks she is spending, she won’t bother to check the receipts.” He smiled in what he hoped was his most reassuring manner. “And I shall be with you—remember? We are in this together.” He liked that part, at least.
“You cannot be with me all of the time, Hugh. However, if she happens to ask one of us something unexpected as she did this morning, we must ensure we are singing from the same hymn sheet. We are going to need to find a way to alert one another to ensure our stories are straight. It will need to be a better system than having Payne practically leap on me the second I left the room to retrieve my shawl from the breakfast room. I have been gone far too long. Lord only knows what the others must be thinking?” She made a face. “I hope they don’t think I am purposefully avoiding them.”
“They will assume you went to the retiring room regardless. Because nobody ever says that is where they are going. Ladies are always going to retrieve a shawl or a book or their lost handkerchief.”
“That is even more embarrassing.”
Hugh couldn’t help but laugh at Minerva’s awkward mortification. “So embarrassing, in fact, everyone will be at pains not to mention it, because nobody ever mentions such things.”
“Apart from you. I do wish you hadn’t mentioned it. Now I shall feel doubly self-conscious when I return.”
“Knowing Lucretia, she’s probably waxing lyrical and everyone will simply be too relieved you have finally returned to give your absence a second thought.”
“Let us hope. But in future, let’s not use any of that as an excuse to hold a covert conversation. I shall spend forever blushing.” A very tempting image. She looked delightful when she blushed. “Perhaps we could have some sort of word we could casually drop into conversation? A code between us which necessitates a meeting. Something which won’t sound odd in any context.”
“How about an endearment? Two hopelessly in love engaged people would use endearments when conversing with one another, wouldn’t they?”
“It will need to be something specific. Something we wouldn’t accidentally say in the normal flow of conversation.”
“‘My darling’?”
“No good.” She shook her head dismissively, and he couldn’t help but notice how the weak winter sunlight made the loose tendril of hair hanging near her ear shimmer. “I call Vee ‘darling’ all the time. ‘My love’ would be better. I never say that to anyone.”
For some reason, Hugh rather liked the sound of that.
“‘My love’ works well for me, too. I’ve never had cause to say that either.” Nor had anyone ever said it to him. A suddenly depressing thought, which suggested he had missed it without realizing. His glanced to the walls as he cursed his ancestors for their bad blood. To make it wayward yet saddle him with a conscience was doubly cruel.
“All right … ‘my love’ it is.” She was pacing now, and those long legs made her rounded hips undulate with every step. “‘My love’ will be our emergency endearment … to be uttered only when we urgently need to meet. Then we shall quietly slip away as soon as it is convenient without arousing suspicion. Where shall we meet?” She stopped abruptly to stare at him, and Hugh realized he was still staring longingly at her legs.
“Er…” What had possessed him to kiss her? Now he couldn’t get the damned thing out of his mind despite the need to focus on more pressing things. Like the survival of this elaborate charade. “Here is probably the most prudent place. It’s out of the way, rarely visited, and we will have ample warning someone is coming long before they can hear us whispering. Besides, it negates the need to worry about the weather.”
“Very well. Up here it is.”
“And there is also a handy servants’ staircase which allows one to avoid the main thoroughfare. Do you think we should meet here every night, too, once everyone has gone to bed?” Why had he asked that? Meeting her in the dark, when the house was quiet, was surely the path to serious folly. “To catch up on the day and to plan the next, perhaps?”
“I suppose it is a much more prudent place than my bedchamber.” As soon as she said it, she blushed, and bizarrely Hugh did, too. “Although it would be better to meet here first thing … rather than when it’s dark … because … well…”
“Because we cannot allow … um … what happened last night to … er … happen again?”
“Precisely. It was … a mistake.”
“Brought about by exceptional and fraught circumstances. I’ve been meaning to apologize…”
She held out her hand to stay him, her lovely cheeks glowing crimson. “No need … We must both take an equal share of the blame for what occurred. We had argued, made up and then I thought it was … well … a harmless goodbye.”
“As did I.” Hugh sighed and, in the absence of knowing what to do with his body, rocked on his heels. He felt intensely stupid doing it while wondering why he was also aggrieved Minerva was so sensible about it all. “The trouble with goodbyes is one doesn’t usually need to consider the implications of them … or the subsequent awkwardness they can create when … they get out of hand.”
“Well, we certainly did a very good job of making things awkward, didn’t we? But I am glad we have spoken about it. Ignoring it and pretending it hadn’t happened only seemed to make the discomfort worse.” She peeked up at him shyly through her lashes while drawing her frustratingly kissable bottom lip through her teeth. “I think it would be easier if we simply blame the heat of the moment and say no more on the matter, don’t you? I mean, it is not as if that kiss meant anything, did it?”
“Yes … I mean no—of course it meant nothing!” The urge to pace was now overwhelming because his toes were curling in his boots, and any moment they were likely to cramp. It had meant something, damn it! This wouldn’t hurt so blasted much if it hadn’t.