The Earl's Mistaken Bride. Abby Gaines

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      Chapter Three

      “Who the blazes are you?” Marcus snapped the moment they attained the privacy of the carriage.

       The girl—the woman—his wife, blast it!—shrank back against the seat, her bonnet with that veil, that—that instrument of deception, askew.

       “You know who I am.” Her voice quivered as she rubbed her elbow where he’d gripped it to escort her from the church. “I am Constance… .”

       She stopped. As if she had been going to say Constance Somerton, but that was no longer true, because now she was—

       She could not be Lady Spenford.

       Outside, the villagers cheered and shouted good wishes as the coach pulled away, headed for the rectory, for the wedding breakfast.

       Thoughts and images whirled in Marcus’s head, blurred by fatigue. Could some artifice—cosmetics, perhaps?—have made her look so different last Monday? Her voice was slightly altered, but in the church he’d attributed that to nerves.

       “Remove your bonnet,” he ordered.

       She clutched it to her head. So much for that promise she’d made not five minutes ago to obey.

       He leaned forward; she gasped as his fingers closed around the ribbon beneath her chin. Then she froze as he worked the knot, careful not to touch her.

       He lifted the bonnet from her head, tossed it to the floor of the coach. Which elicited another gasp.

       “Your bonnet is the least of your worries, madam,” he said roughly. His gaze raked her face. Not at all the same. Brown eyes, not violet-blue, a perfectly ordinary nose in place of the charming version he’d seen on Monday. Thinner lips, a chin that might be described by someone in an uncharitable mood as pointy.

       Marcus was in a very uncharitable mood.

       In place of ink-black curls, this girl’s hair was a drab brown, drawn up in a knot, with a few tendrils curling around her nape.

       “What is this trick?” he growled. “You must have planned it before I even arrived in Piper’s Mead. I swear, if your holier-than-thou father played a part in this—”

       “You will not say a word against my father,” she blurted.

       And now she dared issue orders to him!

       Well, that wouldn’t last, nor would this marriage. He’d been duped into marrying this plain-faced fraudster, and fraud was grounds for annulment. There’d been the case of Baron Waring, some years ago…Marcus couldn’t remember the details, but the woman involved had misrepresented herself, and the bishop declared an annulment.

       The girl, Constance, or whatever her name was, picked up her bonnet. As she settled it on her lap, it slipped through her trembling fingers and fell to the floor again.

       Instinctive courtesy had Marcus reaching to retrieve it at the same moment she did. His fingers brushed hers, and she flinched.

       “I would like an annulment,” she announced.

       Marcus jerked backward, the unfortunate bonnet once again hitting the floor. He hoped the infernal thing was damaged beyond repair.

       “You want an annulment?” He’d heard of women hatching preposterous schemes to entrap a titled husband, but he’d never heard of a scheme that included a request for an annulment.

       She tilted that chin—definitely pointy—at him. “On—on grounds of insanity.”

       “You admit to a weakened mind?” So much the better!

       She blinked and her brown eyes widened. “Sir, you are the insane one.”

       Marcus’s mouth opened and closed, and he had the uncomfortable sensation that he looked like one of the carp in the Japanese pond at Chalmers, the main Spenford estate.

       He suspected such an expression did not convey complete, calm rationality.

       She knotted her fingers in her lap, which seemed to firm her voice. “I have heard married ladies talk of an illness that gentlemen can acquire as a result of—of dissolute living.” Her cheeks flamed. “It drives them mad.”

       “You accuse me of dissolute living?” he said dangerously.

       Her gaze dropped, then rose again. “Papa warned me your reputation is…not quite spotless.”

       Marcus felt himself reddening. Outrageous! What kind of man was Somerton to talk to his daughters in that way?

       She didn’t realize how perilously she trod, for she continued. “It occurs to me that perhaps you chose a bride from Piper’s Mead because…”

       She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. Her implication was clear: because no lady of sense in London would СКАЧАТЬ