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.**
“No, she won’t.” He hoped. “She’s stepping into the breach to save us from Mrs. Landridge.” Who drunkenly believed she was back in a theatre in front of a paying audience. As if Minerva knew he was staring at her, her emerald gaze lifted to his. Those lovely eyes were narrowed, but her own mouth was curving into a smile. She knew she was awful, too, yet she had done it anyway to save him. Nothing seemed to daunt Minerva. He loved that about her.
“Can I pour anyone else some more sherry?” Lucretia had abandoned the safety of the sturdy wingback Hugh had put her in to top up her glass. She took a healthy swig, then tripped over her own feet. “Whoops! Silly me!” Although she managed not to spill a drop.
“She’s definitely drunk.” Jeremiah grinned at Hugh. “And she’s definitely your problem.”
“Hark! The herald angels sing…”
He managed to get to the actress before she tripped again, but as Hugh tried to grab the sherry out of her hand, she snatched it sideways and sloshed it all over Jeremiah, something that made Minerva stop midchorus.
“Brava, Minerva!” His mother practically slammed the lid of the piano down. “What a rare talent for music your family has.”
“Oh, thank you, my lady!” Lucretia believed the compliment was for her, basking in it as if it were the sun. “Thank you!” Her hand fluttered near her ample bosom, then to Hugh’s horror, she bowed. “Music has always been a passion of mine.” She beamed as he tried to lead her to the doorway. “My dear Lord Fareham—did I ever tell you I played the Queen of the Night on Drury Lane?”
“No … really?” Hugh patted her arm as he tugged her along, before turning to the rest of the room, which had gone ominously quiet. He rolled his eyes, mimicking drinking with his free hand and mouthing the words “too much sherry” slowly in case anyone missed it.
“Yes indeed … It was a triumph!”
It was like watching knitting unravel, and there was nothing he could do about it.
She was now leaning on him like a deadweight, making it difficult to maneuver her with any speed. “If you don’t mind me saying, you look a little unwell, Mrs. Landridge. Perhaps the sherry was off?” Because she was wonderful, Minerva had come to assist him. Even so, the sizable Lucretia proved impossible to budge.
“Come, Mama … It’s late.… Let’s get you to your bedchamber.”
“The critics called me ‘mesmerizing’ … said my performance completely stole the show.… Drury Lane”—she slurred the word “Drury”—“has never seen the like since.”
“You performed at Drury Lane?” Clutching the now-haphazard stack of the complete works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, his mother bustled over. “The actual Drury Lane?”
“I did indeed. Many, many, many times…”
“My mother was an actress in her youth.” Minerva’s expression was apologetic. “Before her marriage, of course. Since then she has been entirely respectable. Surely Hugh told you about that?”
“We don’t tend to talk about it—for obvious reasons—but, alas, Mama is not used to sherry and has quite forgotten all her normal inhibitions,” said Diana, stepping into the breach, too. “But it caused quite the scandal when Papa asked her to marry him, as I am sure you can imagine. Actresses are few and far between in Chipping Norton and country squires are certainly not supposed to marry them.”
“You did tell her, didn’t you, Hugh?” Minerva rolled her eyes in mock irritation.
Then his mother joined her. “Of course not. It is yet another interesting detail my son omitted to mention.”
“But I specifically told you to tell her, Hugh.” Minerva glared at him, exasperated, shaking her head, clearly getting her own revenge for his forcing her to sing. “You promised me! I wanted there to be no secrets from your family. Your mother deserves to be forewarned in case Mama’s past causes another scandal.” She then turned back to his mother, acting better than any thespian he had ever seen at Drury Lane. “I am so sorry this is how you had to find out, Olivia. What must you be thinking of us?”
“It is quite all right, dear. This family is quite used to its own share of scandals. My evil son is one of them.” Without warning, she whacked him on the back of his head with the Mozart. “As I said earlier, during Hugh’s obvious fit of jealousy over your former beau, the past is the past and best left there. Whatever Mrs. Landridge did before her marriage to Mr. Landridge is nobody else’s concern except her husband’s. And as he is no longer here, the topic is dead and buried with him.”
“Dead and buried … my beloved Mr. Landridge!” Lucretia suddenly listed sideways, finally remembering who she was supposed to be. Her inebriated pointed finger waggled directionless. “My darling husband, Mr. Landridge, forgave me for my scandalous past because he loved me with all his heart. He was my soul mate … my one true love…” She screwed up her face and clutched the front of Minerva’s dress. “Oh, why did he have to die?”
This was disintegrating quickly into a farce.
The sort of catastrophic farce Giles had predicted—and there was nothing Hugh could do about it.
“I think it is long past your bedtime, Mama.” Both Vee and Diana simultaneously relieved him of his burden, and the three of them managed to propel her forward.
“That sherry is strong stuff.…” Lucretia swayed as they led her to the door. “It has gone straight to my head…”
“Good night, ladies.” Jeremiah was holding the door. “Thank you for an … enlightening and entertaining evening.”
“I am so sorry.” Minerva winced at Jeremiah, then Hugh, then his mother as they bundled past. “This is all so mortifying.” With impressive speed, they maneuvered Lucretia across the hallway to the staircase.
They were barely out of sight when he felt the full force of the now-rolled-up Mozart again across his cranium.
Chapter Eighteen
“It is such a shame your mother won’t be joining us.” Olivia daintily spread jam on her triangle of toast. “I do hope she feels better soon.”
She was also being very polite about the root cause of Lucretia DeVere’s absence at breakfast—the impressive consumption of almost an entire decanter full of sherry in a scandalously short period. It had taken all three of them to get her up the stairs. By the time they had dragged her to her bedchamber, she was singing again, and they had needed the help of both Payne and a maid to lift her bulk onto the bed.
This morning, she had been much as they had left her last night. Fully clothed and snoring.
“I wonder where my idiot son is?” Olivia had also been hideously polite about Minerva’s cringeworthy performance last night, taking her to one side before they reached the breakfast room and apologizing for her son’s warped sense of humor and for unconsciously embarrassing her by insisting she sing.
“If he’s not quick, he will have to leave for church without having any breakfast. Which will serve the scoundrel right. That reminds me, I need to speak to Cook before we depart for church. I want white soup served at every meal. Including breakfast. And there is to be absolutely no seasoning added to Hugh’s. My son needs to learn I will not be trifled with.”
“Payne—are you sure you checked everywhere for Hugh?” He was probably still waiting patiently for Minerva in the portrait gallery for their early morning rendezvous, unaware she had been intercepted by his mother on the landing.
“He is not in his rooms or study and the stable hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him, Miss Minerva.”