The Reluctant Bride Collection Read online

  Miss Blackstock froze, then whirled around to stare at George. “Is that a requirement nowadays for the Church of England? I hadn’t realized.”

  “I hadn’t realized there were any requirements at all. They approved me, a man who doesn’t even pray,” he confessed. Because he wanted her to know.

  “A vicar who doesn’t pray?”

  “I suspect there is a range of vicar and they all have their own vices. Ingratitude is mine.”

  He came to stand right in front of her and she chuckled softly. “Is that what you call your failure to pray? Ingratitude?”

  “I call it a great many things. Necessary being the most important.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the last thing I prayed for was the death of my brother. God doesn’t need to hear anything more from me.”

  She lifted her hand and grazed the side of his cheek with one finger and when he caught it gently, he held it to his chest.

  He looked into her bright eyes– how could he have ever compared them to mud– and asked, “Does that make you hate me?”

  She flattened her palm over his heart and said softly, “It makes me feel a great many things for and about you. None of them are hate.”

  “You should know what kind of man I am, Miss Blackstock. I want you to know.”

  She smiled at him. “And you’re the wicked vicar? Mr. St. Clair, I already knew you were. It was a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you.”

  He closed his eyes and she whispered, “George?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you going to kiss me?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Stop thinking.”

  “If I kiss you, Miss Twiggy, I will then have to deposit myself in front of your uncle.”

  “You want to kiss him, too?”

  “If I have to.”

  He opened his eyes to find hers smiling back at him, and George hadn’t realized eyes could.

  She said, “I don’t think he will require it.”

  “I’m relieved. And unafraid.”

  “That’s. . .odd.”

  “Do you want to know why I am unafraid?”

  “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

  “Your eyes are not shy and your smile is not demure. Your eyes are determined.”

  There was no giving Miss Blackstock to anyone. She would choose, her alone. She would choose. . .him?

  “And I try so hard to hide the determination. What a pity I did not succeed. But tell me, Mr. St. Clair. What of my smile? What does that say about me?”

  He looked at her lips and said softly, “Twiggy. So very twiggy.”

  Her lips opened and her determined eyes softened and George said, “Perhaps a short engagement. I can’t wait to find out what I’ve married on my wedding day.”

  She agreed with a nod. “A short one.”

  George smiled. “Was that a yes?”

  “Was that a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then. . .yes.”

  George’s heart started beating again and he leaned toward her.

  “It was a wicked thing to do, Twiggy. To make me fall in love with you.”

  She whispered, “Did I?”

  He put his lips against hers and whispered back, “Oh, yes. My Letitia.”

  Her uncle did not require kisses, though George did offer one to her aunt.

  Letitia kept her arm linked tight with his as they celebrated with glasses of wine and when Collin congratulated them, there was real happiness in his voice.

  “I think you will make my friend very happy, Miss Blackstock.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Clarke.”

  And when they left too late that night, Miss Blackstock’s uncle returned the favor and distracted Collin while Miss Blackstock followed George out into the darkness, shutting the door softly behind her.

  Her hand found his, her skirt brushed his leg, and her breath puffed against his cheek.

  He closed his eyes, wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her, and he was happy.

  When he opened his eyes again, they’d adjusted to the darkness and he could see the smile on her face. See her happiness as well.

  “Letty?”

  She pulled back. “Yes, Georgy?”

  “Twiggy?”

  Her fingers grazed his lips and she whispered, “I like Twiggy.”

  “So do I.”

  “I like you.”

  “I rather gathered that when you agreed to marry me.”

  “I don’t know why I like you. And to be honest, I don’t know why you like me. Not this me, the real me.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure either. Except he thought she might have been made just for him.

  Made to stand toe to toe with him.

  He said, “We’ll think on it, and perhaps have an answer before we actually wed.”

  She leaned against him, whispering in his ear and slipping something into his hand. “Maybe this will help. You did say a short engagement?”

  He nodded, feeling her cheek slide smoothly against his own and realizing the item she’d given him must have been the twig that had once again been in her hair.

  He let go of her, putting her bodily away and reminding himself that he was a man of the cloth and the walk home would do him good.

  Reminding himself yet again that they were going to have a very short engagement.

  Twiggy called out softly, “I’ll dream of you tonight. And figure out why.”

  George decided abruptly that he and Collin would take the long way home.

  Honora stayed outside in the dark.

  Stayed outside and pretended she could see him walking down the lane for far longer than she actually could.

  She closed her eyes and remembered how he’d told her he’d fallen in love with her.

  Not the first time a gentleman had proposed the idea to her, not even the first time she’d believed it.

  She remembered his non-proposal, and she believed for the first time that sometimes no words were needed.

  She was still smiling when she went inside, still smiling when she bid her aunt and uncle a good night.

  Her aunt stood. “Honora?”

  “Yes, Aunt Gertrude?”

  “Aunt Beatrice. Uncle Arnold. Have you forgotten?”

  “Of course not. You know I try to stay in character.”

  “I don’t think you’ve been in character for quite a while.”

  Honora hadn’t been. And it was as if she could breathe for the first time in years.

  “I don’t need to be in character as Miss Blackstock. This is who he knows me as.”

  “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you. You are forgetting that this isn’t real.”

  Aunt Gertrude glanced at her husband and he rose, saying, “I think I’ll go see about some tea.”

  Uncle Hubert shut the door behind him and Honora remained standing, the smile on her face and in her heart fading.

  The silence lengthened and both women waited for the other to speak. When Honora finally did, it was with gut-wrenching honesty.

  “I don’t want to play the game with him, Aunt Gertrude. He’s not. . .he’s not like the rest.”

  The older woman closed her eyes. “No, he’s not. His father is a viscount.”

  The son of somebody. Somebody important.

  Honora had known just by how he expected the world to fall into line around him.

  She said softly, “We don’t have to swindle him,” and her aunt opened her eyes.

  “Good, good. Call it off. Tomorrow. Tonight!”

  “I mean that I could marry him.”

  She remembered his lips on hers and her hand in his. The countless afternoons they’d sat next to each other, bickering and trying not to laugh, and Honora thought a lifetime of that would be wonderful.

  It seemed like a future one could welcome.

  Her aunt sat suddenly, heavily.

  “Honora, you can’t
get married as Miss Letitia Blackstock. It wouldn’t be legal. She doesn’t exist.”

  “It wasn’t legal for me to become engaged under countless names, to collect reparations under those names.”

  Her aunt whispered, “You must see that this is different. Must see the consequences of such an act would not mean disaster for us but for your children. If it were found out that you’d married under a false name, they would be illegitimate. They would have nothing. Be nothing. And there would be no hiding it, not like last time.”

  Oh, it hurt. As it was meant to, and Honora could only forgive her aunt because there was just as much pain shining in the older woman’s eyes at that hateful reminder.

  The woman who had cried with Honora when first her mother had died– Honora only fifteen and still in need of a mother even if she wished she didn’t. The woman who had cried her own tears over the death of her sister.

  The woman who had held Honora again when her father had remarried– those tears hot and angry.

  And then, finally, when Honora had discovered that a man could lie and take advantage of that loss and anger and guilt, promising the sun and moon and stars only to steal her virtue and her honor. Leaving her to discover that he was already married and that her child would never have a last name.

  Those tears had been filled with fear. Those tears had been helpless. And her aunt had wiped them away gently, crying her own even as she made plans to protect her niece. Even as she stood between Honora and Honora’s father as they screamed and shouted at each other for months, the whole family hidden away in the country until the birth.

  Honora had stopped screaming when her stepmother had taken the baby from her body.

  Had stopped shouting when the baby was given a last name and a family. A mother and a father and sisters. A future.

  But Honora hadn’t stopped crying, not for a long time. And when her father and stepmother had finally moved back to town, her littlest “sister” nearly six months old and her stepmother pregnant again, Honora had talked her aunt and uncle into renting a cottage far, far away.

  They’d lived simply on the small portion Honora had inherited from her mother and when the tears had finally stopped, anger had taken its place. White-hot rage at a world that made women helpless and useless and worthless, and Honora had sworn she would never be helpless again, even if she had to steal her security pound by pound and man by man. Again and again until she could only remember who she was in the midst of strangers.

  Until she’d accidentally found a man who could love her as herself.

  She hadn’t believed such a man existed.

  Honora whispered to her aunt, “He knows me. He likes me. Loves me. It shouldn’t matter what name I go by.”

  “Then tell him the truth.”

  Honora closed her eyes and the lies she’d been happy believing came crashing down.

  He wouldn’t love her if she told him the truth. And that must mean he didn’t love her now. Couldn’t, not when he didn’t really know who she was.

  Aunt Gertrude said, “We love you. We have sold our very souls to the devil for you. But this we can not do for you. We will not, because it is not our souls we would be casting away but your children’s.”

  Honora opened her eyes and whispered, “I can’t tell him the truth. He’ll hate me.”

  “I know it. Know he won’t forgive you the lies no matter if he finds out now or in twenty years. Know that his father won’t forgive us.” Aunt Gertrude clutched at her neck. “You should have said no. You can’t marry him and we can’t swindle him, not without risking swinging from the nearest tree.”

  Honora should have said no when she’d realized he was different from the rest.

  But she’d wanted him. Wanted him still.

  Wanted to marry him. Wanted to have children and a home with him.

  Wanted him to call her by her real name.

  “You’ll have to call it off. Tomorrow. Tell him–”

  Honora turned toward the door. “I know what to tell him.”

  All she had to tell him was the truth.

  She’d had a child out of wedlock.

  No good man would marry her after that. No vicar either, even one who didn’t pray.

  Her aunt said quietly, “We’ll leave this dreadful town. Go somewhere warm and dry.”

  Honora didn’t answer, merely opened the door and left, climbing the stairs without a lamp and shutting herself up in the darkness of her room.

  She didn’t throw a tantrum. There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth. It wasn’t a Miss Blackstock performance.

  And she didn’t go downstairs to be comforted by her aunt. To have the tears wiped away gently by someone who loved her despite everything.

  Because this was a private release of all the despair a woman could hold within herself.

  A woman who had been forced to accept the truth. A woman who had lost any hope of a family and a future for herself.

  This was how Honora cried now.

  In the dark. Quietly. With her tears sliding so slowly down her cheeks it was as if she was loathe to let them go at all.

  Honora didn’t sleep.

  She tossed and turned, and came to the conclusion sometime near morning that she only had two options.

  One, call it off. Tell him she didn’t love him and never had and end it.

  Or two, tell him everything. The child, the lies, her name. And hope that he loved her more than all of that.

  And the only reason she could think any sane woman would pick option two was if she was pathetically and hopelessly in love.

  Because if she did tell him, there were only two reactions he could have.

  One, he would refuse to have any contact with her ever again.

  Or two, he would hate her and do everything in his power to destroy her.

  There wasn’t even a sliver of a chance that he wouldn’t care that she had lied every moment they were together. Had lied about who and what she was. Had lied to half a dozen men before him.

  Not a prayer that he would take her hand and say, “Honora? I never liked the name Letitia anyway.”

  She steepled her fingers over her flat stomach. The stomach that had bulged with another man’s child.

  All she had was a single flickering hope that he truly loved her and would forgive her her sins.

  And the only reason she would risk everything for that hope was because she was quite pathetically in love with him.

  George didn’t come in the morning, and Honora paced. Wishing he would come sooner rather than later, and then wishing that he wouldn’t come at all.

  Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold– there was no reason to stay in character now– packed the rest of the house up, leaving the sitting room for last. For after.

  Whether Honora decided to tell him the truth or just simply end it didn’t matter to them. They would all be leaving Manchester anyway.

  It was only Honora who had a choice to make. Only Honora who had any options and it made her laugh when she realized it.

  A woman with options.

  It was as horrible as having none because she couldn’t decide. Telling herself one minute that she couldn’t tell him and the next that she couldn’t not tell him.

  Her stomach was a mess and her temper was thin and she waited impatiently.

  It was her experience that a newly engaged man visited his fiancé the day after. Always.

  So she waited, and paced, and flung her hands out wildly as she fought an invisible foe, and when his knock finally came, she fell into a limp pile on the sofa, exhausted before it even began.

  Her aunt and uncle entered the room, came to stand with her in her time of need as they’d always done, so Honora pushed herself to her feet, as ready as she’d ever be.

  The housemaid led George into the room and then Mr. Moffat walked in right behind him.

  Aunt Beatrice gasped and Uncle Arnold took a step forward.

  Honora stared at George and he stared back, not sayi
ng a word.

  Mr. Moffat said, “Good day. I almost feel as if introductions are in order again. Or for the first time, really. I can’t call you Miss Blackstock, can I?”

  Honora’s stomach dropped.

  Mr. Moffat continued on conversationally, “I received a letter a while back on behalf of Mr. St. Clair, wondering if I had could spare any information regarding a Miss Letitia Blackstock. Apologetically, of course, considering our sad history but any help would be appreciated and might lead to a happy ending for the lady. What gentleman wouldn’t jump at the chance to redeem himself?”

  He smiled. An ugly and frightening lifting of his lips that showcased the anger in his eyes.

  “I sat down to answer it at once and realized just how little I knew of you. I didn’t know your father’s name, only your uncle’s. I didn’t know where you were born besides that it was someplace north of London. Did you know that quite a bit of England resides north of London?”

  He laughed hollowly. The sound of a man who finally knew what a fool he’d been.

  “And the more I tried to remember about you and us, the more I wondered why I didn’t know where my fiancé was from. I certainly remembered where your solicitor was located.”

  There was anger in Mr. Moffat’s eyes and righteous fury in his voice. They’d played him for a fool; they’d stolen his honor and his money.

  Honora looked only at George.

  Mr. Moffat said, “I thought it was only because we hadn’t yet finalized the marriage settlement. We would get around to it and in the meantime you were enjoying shopping for your trousseau and discussing flowers, and I was happy to accommodate you because I was marrying a nearly perfect woman.”

  George moved then, blinking rapidly. His eyes softened and Honora almost thought that he was going to smile at how “perfect” Miss Apple Blossom had been.

  She almost imagined he might smile and laugh and call her Twiggy.

  Mr. Moffat turned to George. “Has she started throwing tantrums and baking–” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Has she started baking yet?”

  “Not yet,” George said and the smile stopped before it started.

  He looked at Honora and she closed her eyes against the anger filling them. She wouldn’t get a chance to explain.

  Wouldn’t get a chance to choose.