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.**
Diana rolled her eyes at those choices. “Vee is the bluestocking of the family. She likes her literature old and crusty. The older and crustier, the better.”
Vee surprised Hugh by taking this criticism well. “Diana is simply jealous I understand the intricacies of those texts and she doesn’t. It must be galling to have a younger sibling with superior intelligence.”
“What do you like to read, Minerva?” Jeremiah was pouring glasses of sherry on the sideboard.
“Minerva loves romance.” Diana clasped her hands to her heart and fluttered her eyelashes disparagingly. “Sickly Byron poems, damsels in distress. Knights in shining armor.”
Hugh’s gaze flicked to Minerva’s just as hers flicked to his, before she turned away to sip from her sherry glass, pretending she wasn’t blushing a little. It was obvious they were both thinking the same thing. She had referred to him as her knight more than once, and the main reason she was here was because she had been a damsel in distress. “Although she is less of a hopeless romantic nowadays, ever since her despicable first love cruelly broke her heart.”
Beneath his fingers, Hugh felt the fragile stem of his port glass snap. “First love?” It was obvious from all three sisters’ faces, Diana had inadvertently let something slip she shouldn’t have.
“More sweetheart than love, truth be told. For a little while they made eyes at one another across the pews at church.” She waved it away with impressive nonchalance. “But we do like to tease her about it. As sisters do.”
His mother was having none of it. “How did the scoundrel break your heart, dear?”
“He didn’t break it.” Minerva, too, was doing a good job of brushing it away. “It was my first foray into flirting. We exchanged a few meaningful looks over the course of several months—but he left Chipping Norton before they could develop into anything more. Which is just as well.” Her gaze sought his once again, and he could tell she desperately wanted him to change the subject. “Else I never would have fallen for Hugh.”
“A knight in shining armor always trumps a few stolen glances.” His mother squeezed his fake fiancée’s hand. “Especially when you have a lifetime of stolen glances ahead of you.”
He should change the subject.
“What was his name?” Jealousy had apparently taken over his vocal cords.
“I don’t recall.…” Minerva was lying. “It was a long time ago. I was what? Eighteen? Nineteen? It really was nothing. In fact, I barely remember the fellow’s face.” More lies. She both recalled it and regretted the loss of it. The faceless fellow had meant something, had hurt her, and Hugh hated him regardless.
“Good grief…” His mother had a look of awe and wonder on her face as she pointed to him. “Look at his expression! Hugh’s jealous!”
“Merely curious, I assure you.”
“Does curiosity pinch the features quite so much, Hugh? Or make you grind your teeth and glare? I think not.” She nudged Minerva. “I’ve never seen my son jealous of anything before. It is quite the sight to behold.”
He was going to strangle his mother, just as soon as he could stop his teeth from grinding.
“It’s very romantic, isn’t it? And also very funny.” She pinned him with an innocent stare he knew from experience was merely a precursor to a good skewering. “Hugh, darling—seeing as Minerva has come to terms with your shocking reputation, you can hardly be jealous of a few stolen glances on her part. Even the most sensible ladies are not immune to having their heads turned and she is a very beautiful woman.” Something he was only too painfully aware of. “Therefore, it stands to reason many, many men would have previously tried to stand in your privileged shoes.”
What was he supposed to say to that? “Their loss is my gain.”
“Indeed it is, my darling. And that is what you should focus on. Try not to allow Minerva’s past loves to consume you. And whilst a little jealousy flatters a lady’s ego, too much is unbecoming.”
“I am not the slightest bit jealous.”
“Then relax your eyebrows, dear. A scowl like that will only bring about premature wrinkles.”
“Some sherry, Mrs. Landridge?” Jeremiah purposefully placed his body between Hugh and the vile tormentor who had given birth to him.
“No, thank you. I rarely drink anything stronger than tea.” Lucretia’s theatrical voice filled the entire room, giving Hugh an idea that just might save him from his current predicament.
“Do you play the pianoforte, Mrs. Landridge?” Please say yes. “Or any other instrument, perchance?” He’d have a couple of sturdy footmen cart the enormous harp from the music room if it came to it.
Lucretia blossomed. “My voice is my instrument!” Of course it was. “If somebody plays the pianoforte, I should be delighted to sing a little ditty for you all.”
“My mother plays.… In fact, she is a virtuoso on the pianoforte.” He leaned past the barricade of his stepfather to offer her a sickly grin. “I am sure she would be delighted to accompany you.”
“I should be delighted.” Thwarted from embarrassing him, her returning smile was just as sickly. “I suppose I could play a quick song. Do you have one in mind, Mrs. Landridge?”
“Do you know any Mozart?”
He wanted to hug her. Without realizing it, Lucretia had become his unwitting accomplice. He suppressed the urge to grin. “My mother adores Mozart, Mrs. Landridge.” She wasn’t the only one who could give a good skewering. “In fact, she can play most of his pieces from memory…” Each and every one drove her mad. Especially the operettas. Dear Mama had a deep well of loathing for Mozart’s operettas.
“I really can’t.… It’s been so long since I played, Hugh, I cannot remember any of them.”
“No matter, Mother dearest … fortunately, we still have all the sheet music.”
“I am quite sure we don’t, dear.”
“Oh yes we do, Mama! Don’t you recall I bought you the entire works several years ago?”
She had been livid. The month before she had departed for Boston, she had invited every single eligible woman from Land’s End to John o’Groats to a ten-day house party at Standish House, which she had neglected to tell him about. He arrived home expecting a quiet week to focus on estate business and instead had suffered through the most interminable ten days of his life with the most rabid, most husband-hungry young ladies he had ever had the gross misfortune to meet. They simpered, they flirted. More than a few tried to kiss him, and one tenacious debutante had brazenly arrived at his bedchamber door in her nightgown offering him a free sample of the goods. After that, he had resorted to barricading his bedchamber at night for the duration in case he found himself ruined!
Hugh, obviously, had rewarded his mother for her treachery by sending a messenger to London to purchase every piece Mozart had ever written, then producing it with a flourish one evening, declaring he adored it, so she could play it while her gaggle of prospective daughters-in-law warbled out every aria directly next to her shoulder. It had been a magnificent piece of revenge. She had retired that night with a throbbing headache, and the very next day had ordered every page be burned on a bonfire. Not being stupid, Hugh had rescued them just in case he ever needed to torture her again. Clearly that day had come.
He gestured to his hovering butler across the room.
“Payne—fetch the Mozart from my study, would you? The complete works. It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk. There’s a good chap.” He toasted his mother and the actress with his broken glass, gripping the stem with his little finger so that nobody would be able to see it was now detached. “I do love a bit of Mozart. Especially the operettas. And perhaps, if I may be so bold, Mrs. Landridge, you could honor us with more than the one song.”