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:
**
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**
**
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.**
One down.
Two to go.
But his bloody interfering mother had started the process, and unless his friend came back soon to steal his fiancée away, things would be even more official next Sunday than they were today.
“And they used my real name.” Minerva was slumped on the marble bench, looking miserable. “Poor Vee is beside herself with remorse.”
In her desire to have the deed done without his knowledge, his mother had caught the youngest Merriwell off guard in the library and prized the middle names of all three of the sisters out of her. The glaring inclusion of “Merriwell” had, according to Minerva, leaked out toward the end of the interrogation due to nerves. The mistake had, she had been assured, been quickly covered up as a traditional ancestral family name that all three of the sisters had been baptized with. He had to give Vee credit for coming up with something so plausible in a crisis—but the fact that Vee had waited until it had been said aloud in church before admitting to her mistake bothered Hugh immensely.
“Now your mother can trace my lackluster lineage, and she’ll discover I’ve never been to Chipping Norton. I’ve never even set foot in Oxfordshire. I am a big fat fraud who never should have agreed to do this.”
“If my mother had the slightest inkling there was anything incendiary in the name ‘Merriwell’ or had any doubt about Vee’s explanation, she would have started her digging yesterday. Instead, she hasn’t so much as mentioned it—and that is because she is too busy feeling smug at having the banns read when I least expected it. Remember—her only mission is to send me to the altar, and today’s machinations have sent me several steps closer to it than I was yesterday.” Minerva looked so wretched, Hugh had the devil of a job resisting the overpowering urge to envelop her in an embrace, and settled for patting her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. Put the accidental slip of your surname into a little box marked ‘revisit if required’ and then store it away. I daresay it will never come up again.”
“How can you be so blasé? Yesterday that mad Lucretia let slip she was an actress and it took some hasty explaining, a swift extraction, and some very humiliating singing to distract your mother. Today, Vee inadvertently revealed another secret. At this rate, your mother will soon know everything. We are living in a house of cards, Hugh—and the wind is blowing. It is only a matter of time before your mother puts all the pieces together and our flimsy house tumbles around our ears.”
“Well, she hasn’t put them together yet.”
“But what if Vee slips up again? Or Lucretia? Or Diana?” She pointed to the pair of them. “Or either of us? And what if Giles isn’t able to get back soon? Do you seriously think we can maintain this charade for another week, let alone two?”
Of course he didn’t. Any more than he would be able to keep his hands off her for that long. “We have managed it so far.” But he could see his false optimism wasn’t helping. She’d had a pinched look on her features all day. She looked tired and worried and at her wits’ end.
This was harder for her than it was for him, and that truth shamed him. All Hugh had to do was pretend to be himself, keep a close eye on his mother, and herd her in a different direction if necessary. Minerva had to remember the complicated story of their courtship and her illness, and behave like a lady of the gentry. All while keeping her sisters in line, being the consummate diplomat, and forever thinking on her feet.
Feeling incredibly selfish, and phenomenally grateful for her persistent and selfless diligence, he raked a hand through his hair and sat next to her, then against his better judgment, wrapped his arm around her shoulders. As he expected, the contact was pure torture. “It will be all right, Minerva.… Whatever happens, you will have tried your best.”
Instinctively, she rested her head against his, and he tried not to think of how lovely that felt. He had missed this. Missed it being just her and him. Fate and, more importantly, his mother, meant this stolen, midnight meeting was the first time they had been properly alone since yesterday. Yet so much had happened in the intervening hours, there was so much still waiting to be said. He hadn’t broached the subject of the Romeo who had broken her heart. He hadn’t slept a wink last night obsessing about that little love affair, and he wouldn’t sleep tonight unless he did.
“I don’t want to let you down, Hugh. You’ve been very kind to all of us.”
“And you have been wonderful—I am still in awe of how you and your sisters were able to move Lucretia from the drawing room last night at lightning speed when I could barely budge her.”
“The secret is to lift them slightly off the ground…” She shrugged, dismissive. “We have extensive experience of removing a drunk from the premises when they are no longer welcome.” Yet another aspect of her life he didn’t want to have to picture. “It was no bother.”
“You take too much on yourself.” And that needed to change. “But as grateful as I am for your interference, I recognize I have been remiss in relying on you too much these past few days when you have quite enough on your plate already.” He kissed the top of her head. He couldn’t help it. Minerva needed looking after. “Too many people—myself included—constantly take advantage of your good nature.”
“You are not taking advantage, Hugh. Nor is anyone else.”
He cuddled her closer and took her hand, the contact suddenly as necessary as breathing. “I have eyes, Minerva. The more I get to know you, the more I realize you pull yourself in every direction trying to be all things to all people. A mother to your sisters, a pretend fiancée to me, a gracious hostess, a good friend. Your intrinsic niceness is humbling…” It certainly made Hugh want to be a better man around her. “There is no need for you to run yourself ragged or worry yourself sick in the process. What will be will be … and I will be with you all the way.”
“Except when I have to take tea with the Standish Ladies’ Society tomorrow, or be measured by Madame Devy…” His mother was making a flurry of plans for Minerva that excluded him. More weight on her already-overburdened shoulders. “And then there’s the local assembly she has committed us to attending. Where I shall be expected to dance—when I cannot—and everyone, including your mother, will know I am a fraud.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I can teach you to dance.”
“Nobody can teach me to dance, Hugh, because I cannot hear the music like everyone else hears it—remember? Dancing requires a level of balance, coordination, and rhythm I simply do not possess. Look what happened when you tried to teach me to ride a horse.”
He had forgotten all those things. The broomstick arms. The lack of empathy with the horse’s movements. The wobbling. “Perhaps you could suffer another injury which precludes you from dancing?”
“Your mother is dubious of my torn shoulder as it is. She offered to have the physician look at it this afternoon … to see if I am fit to ride again, because it appears quite fixed. I’ve been attempting to wince each time I lift a teacup in the hope she will believe me. She will call him for sure if I feign a sprained ankle, and I am bound to forget I am supposed to have it at a crucial moment and start limping on the wrong foot. Or worse—not limp at all.”
“And there I was, worrying about the inconsequential things—like our impending marriage.” He was trying to lighten the mood but instead managed to make her look more miserable—if that were indeed possible.