Marguerite Kaye - The Earl's Countess Of Convenience

He listened with half an ear as they completed their circuit of the garden. Her love for her sisters was genuine and profound, her affection for Lady Elmswood evident too. ‘Are you sure leaving here won’t be too much of a wrench?’ he asked, steering her towards a convenient bench.

‘It will be odd, but it will be good for us all in the long run. We can’t be together for ever, huddled up like hothouse flowers.’ She sat down, staring distractedly out at the gardens, biting her lip. ‘Alexander, I have no wish to embarrass either of us, but there is a topic of a delicate nature that I feel I must raise.’

He waited, for it was obvious from her expression that she was girding her loins.

‘I’ve told you that I am not—I told you that I would not consider a real marriage because that sort of—that aspect of marriage doesn’t—isn’t for me.’ Her cheeks were bright red, but she held his gaze steadfastly until he nodded. ‘But that doesn’t mean that you cannot—you might wish to find some comfort in someone else’s arms. I would not—’ She broke off, completely flustered. ‘Goodness, this is mortifying. Please, I beg you, forget what I said. Let us change the subject.’

He happily would, but unfortunately she was in the right of it. ‘It’s better we discuss it now, don’t you think, no matter how awkward it is?’

‘Awkward is rather an understatement.’

‘Then let me see if I can make it easier for you, now that you’ve been brave enough to bring it up.’ Though how to do so, Alexander puzzled. He ought to have anticipated this, but he hadn’t, principally because it was a facet of his life that had been a closed book for almost precisely two years. He couldn’t tell Eloise the truth, but he owed her a version of it.

‘There have been women in my life,’ he said. ‘though my affaires have always been extremely short-lived. I am by nature a loner, and have never wished for any more intimate arrangement.’

And, even if he had, it would have been contrary to every rule in the book. He’d known that, and yet to his eternal regret he’d allowed it to happen anyway, telling himself it didn’t matter because he didn’t care enough, succumbing to temptation because he was heartily sick of being alone in a foreign land. He’d taken comfort in her admittedly beguiling company. If only he had put an end to it sooner. Or better still, before it started. The entire episode had been a mistake. The biggest mistake he’d ever made. He’d learned the hard way that the rules he’d so cavalierly broken were there for good reason. The guilt he had carried with him ever since made his chest tighten. He would never risk a repeat. Never!

Perhaps now was not the time for subtlety, after all. ‘Love,’ Alexander said bluntly. ‘That is what I mean. I am not interested in love, I have never been in love, and have no ambition whatsoever to change that. Love is anathema to me.’

Eloise blinked at his fierce tone. ‘Well, you are preaching to the converted on that subject.’

‘As to the idea of my finding comfort in another’s arms—all I can say is that at the moment, I have absolutely no interest or intention to do so.’ Which was the truth, and not one he could imagine changing. Was it a life sentence? At this point, Alexander decided the question irrelevant. ‘Does that answer your question?’

‘Yes,’ Eloise said, though she looked unconvinced.

‘What is it?’

‘The thing is, I can’t help but wonder what your family and friends will think of your sudden and dramatic conversion to conjugal bliss, given that you so adamantly do not wish to be married. I expect that this cousin of yours, who stands to inherit all, will be counting the days now, until he lays his hands on a fortune.’

‘According to my lawyer, Raymond has been counting the days since Walter died, and for some months now has been borrowing heavily against his anticipated windfall. With only a few weeks to go until my birthday, he will think he is home and dry. He will get a very nasty surprise when he reads the notice of my nuptials.’

‘Will he have grounds to challenge your inheritance if he can prove that the marriage is one of convenience?’

‘Hardly, considering that half if not more of every marriage which has property at stake is arranged for the convenience of the families concerned. But I’ve been thinking, Eloise, about what you said.’

‘I’ve said a lot. One might argue that I’ve said too much. Which of my many utterances in particular has struck you?’

‘I should warn you, I have one of those minds which registers every word. Don’t say anything to me you’d rather I forgot.’

She laughed, mock horrified. ‘Now you tell me! Good grief, I shall have to wear one of those contraptions like a muzzle that they used to punish women who talked too much. What was it called?’

‘A scold’s bridle?’

‘That’s it.’

He burst out laughing. ‘What on earth will you say next! I am going to be hanging on your every word, not silencing you, if we are to persuade the world that we have fallen madly in love.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I think it would be best all round, if we had a—what do they call it?—a whirlwind romance.’

‘To have met and married in a matter of weeks is not so much a whirlwind as a tornado.’

Alexander grinned. ‘We’ll need to concoct a suitably credible story.’

‘We’ll need more than a story. Are you saying that we will have to pretend to have fallen in love?’

‘How difficult can it be, people do it all the time.’

‘You never have. I most certainly have not. Why would we do such a thing? You said that marriages of convenience...’

‘Are common, and they are, and I meant it when I said that my cousin would have no grounds to challenge our union, but I’d far rather he did not waste my time or my lawyer’s time by trying.’

‘And if he believed it a love match, you think he wouldn’t?’

‘I can’t be sure, but if everyone else believed us too—do you see?’

‘Yes, but...’

‘And then there was your remark about the world accusing you of being a gold-digger. I know it couldn’t be further from the truth, but—I’m sorry...’

‘I’m a nonentity from the sticks with no dowry,’ Eloise said wryly. ‘Of course it’s what they will think.’

‘So we must persuade them instead that we are genuinely in love.’

‘In love! I am not sure I would know where to begin. How does one stare in a besotted manner, for example?’

He studied her, smiling uncertainly at him, and found himself, wholly unexpectedly and entirely inappropriately, wanting to kiss her. Properly kiss her. Which would be a catastrophic mistake. Because he also wanted, very much wanted, Miss Eloise Brannagh to become his convenient wife.

‘I think,’ Alexander said, ‘that we can discount any besottedness.’ He took her hand, lifting it to his lips. ‘Small demonstrations of affection will suffice.’ He kissed her fingertips. ‘There will be shared glances, times when our eyes meet, when it will be obvious to everyone that we are counting the seconds until we are alone.’

‘I am not sure...’

He turned her hand over, kissing her palm, felt the sharp intake of her breath, the responding kick of excitement in his gut, and met her eyes. Her lips parted. Dear God, but he wanted to kiss her.

‘There will be other glances.’ He leaned closer, his voice low. ‘Glances that speak of pleasure recently shared, rather than pleasure hotly anticipated.’

‘I don’t know anything about such things.’

‘You don’t have to. It will be an act. You have an imagination, don’t you?’ He ran his fingers up her arm to rest on the warm skin at the nape of her neck. ‘Pretend, when you look at me, that we have been making love.’