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.**
“All we have is us.” She squeezed her baby sister’s hand, feeling cruel and frustrated at having to be so. “That is why I am doing this awful thing—for us. Because Lord only knows, if we don’t help ourselves, nobody else will. I couldn’t turn down forty pounds! Just think of all we could do with it. Decent food, a better roof over our heads, new shoes. Pretty new spectacles for you, Vee, and perhaps even a new dress or two each.”
“Unless we are murdered.” Diana’s pessimistic streak put Minerva’s to shame. “A man who can maintain an outright lie to his own mother for nearly two years is, in my opinion, capable of anything. After all, who would suspect an earl of murder, especially so far from London? As you rightly said, Minerva, we are nobodies. Nothings. Faceless and easily forgotten. The perfect target. He probably approaches distressed and impoverished young ladies all the time, being all chivalrous and charming and helpful, lures them into his vile world with the promise of easy money, and then”—she sliced her finger across her neck—“mutilates you in your sleep before he buries your unidentifiable remains in his garden. Or his woods. Fancy country estates all come with their own woods. Those poor grouse and deer the aristocracy shoot have to live somewhere. I bet this den of iniquity we are headed to is positively surrounded by woodland. And it will be conveniently remote.”
Vee frowned. “How does remoteness make anything convenient?”
“Because nobody will hear our screams.”
Minerva glared at Diana and, feeling defensive, pulled rank in the hope the pair of them would stop badgering her, when her unease and her conscience were doing that quite enough already.
“Girls—I don’t mean to be flippant about the peculiarity of the situation or its potential dangers. Nor do I want to sound mercenary or callous, but dismal facts are facts nonetheless. We are in dire need of money and he has pots of it which he is clearly happy to share in exchange for a brief bit of dishonesty. I confess, I didn’t really consider much else beyond the forty pounds when I agreed to assist him. The forty pounds and the promise of greener grass.” And perhaps his eyes and the odd way he made her feel also had some bearing on it. It had been rather nice to be the one rescued for a change. “I dragged you both along because I knew you’d only worry about me if I didn’t. If you would prefer not to be part of it, I fully understand. Say the word, and I shall have you dropped at the next inn and you can take the post home.”
She reached into her reticule and took out the two silver shillings and the two dirty pennies, holding the paltry amount in her outstretched palm as a reminder of the full extent of their current wealth. They all stared at the coins in silence for a moment. “Or perhaps you have a better idea to get us so much money swiftly, because Lord only knows if things continue as they are, we’ll all be destitute and sheltering under bridges before winter is over.”
Of course, neither sister did.
“Now, kindly stop moaning and criticizing and let’s make the best of things. If nothing else, at least the actual grass is greener in Hampshire.”
The coachman’s knock on the roof above their heads punctuated her outburst with the stamp of finality. “Standish House!”
Then the fancy carriage turned, its well-sprung wheels suddenly crunching on the gravel of the driveway. There was no turning back now. Minerva inhaled a slow, deep breath, hoping it would calm the butterflies in her stomach. It didn’t work. She glanced out of the window and saw nothing but thick, dense trees lining their route.
“I told you there would be woods.” Diana was like a dog with a bone. “Nobody knows where we are, so nobody will come to our rescue.” She slowly sliced her index finger menacingly across her neck again.
“Papa will save us if we need rescuing.” Vee’s cheerful assertion brought her other sisters up short. “I left our forwarding address at the Dog and Duck in case he comes home for Christmas and asks after us.”
Diana shot Minerva a look. It was the usual look when their youngest sibling deluded herself into believing their wastrel father would return. The look that said, “You can deal with this because I’ll only put my foot in it.” Which was true. Diana was reliably blunt, and that bluntness would only upset Vee, who always felt things far too deeply.
“Darling, he’s not coming home for Christmas.”
“How do you know? Has he written to say he isn’t?”
It was tragic to listen to, but Vee had been very young when he had left and still had enough childish hope to believe he had meant what he said in his final letter to them all those years ago. She had taken “See you soon” as a promise to return rather than a means to sign off his blunt missive telling them he was going away for a little while—something he often did—before he made it permanent. It was the main reason they stayed in Clerkenwell, in the cramped, damp rooms they had lived in with him. Vee wouldn’t hear of moving in case their father decided to venture back to the horrid place he had abandoned them to. Yet moving was one of Minerva’s first priorities once she had the forty pounds. The hopelessness of Clerkenwell was killing them. As much as they had cosseted and protected Vee as the youngest, it was long past time they all moved on from the awful legacy he had saddled them with.
“He hasn’t written in five years, Vee. Perhaps it’s time you faced the fact he’s never going to.”
“Of course he will. Just as soon as he’s able.” The youngest Merriwell turned her head stubbornly to watch the scenery go past, her way of terminating the unwelcome conversation. All at once her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness! I can see the house! It’s huge!”
All three of them pressed their faces to the window to get their first glimpse of their home for the next few weeks or so.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Even Diana couldn’t stop herself from grinning at the spectacle. “It’s practically a palace.”
It was indeed. A vast, symmetrical Palladian mansion made of white stone stood in stark contrast against the twilight sky, its sparkling windows already glowing with candlelight, illuminating the soaring columns. Minerva had never seen anything quite like it. Or felt quite so out of her depth. When he had said he had a country estate, never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this. It was another world. A world she had no understanding of and little in common with. Yet soon, she would have to pretend all of this didn’t intimidate her in the slightest and that she was betrothed to its handsome, charming, and titled owner in front of an audience made up of his nearest and dearest.
Oh dear.
Instinctively, she gazed down at the skirt of her best dress. It was old and faded despite the new ribbon she had recklessly bought to liven it up for this charade. No amount of ribbon in the world could turn this old thing into a gown fit for Standish House. The butterflies in her stomach turned to panicked, flapping birds as she forced herself to face the reality she had been avoiding ever since she had sold her soul for forty pounds.
What in God’s name had she been thinking?
Chapter Four
Hugh heard the carriage arrive and ignored the fizzing nerves that had plagued him since he had proposed his plan to Miss Merriwell.
“She’s here.” He found himself standing and straightening his coat because he had no earthly idea what to do with his hands. “We should greet them.”