Lily George: A Rumored Engagement

Her Once And Future Fiancé

It was a bold plan—become engaged to one man to avoid marrying another. Three years ago, Susannah Siddons had little choice. But with no communication since, she considers her alliance with Daniel Hale entirely ended—and her heart well and truly bruised. Until new gossip jeopardizes the Siddons sisters’ millinery shop, and Daniel proposes once more.

To court one’s own fiancée…how does a man even begin? Daniel owes it to Susannah—and to the shambles he has made of his responsibilities so far—to start again. In truth, marrying Susannah would be far more than just a duty; it’s his dearest wish. If he can only persuade her to say “yes” a second time.

“I’ve come to ask you to marry me, Susannah.

“In truth, this time. Not an extended farce with a decidedly bad ending.” He gave her a crooked grin.

Was this his attempt at making things right? Or was it merely a joke in poor taste? She gave her hands a final wrench and set them free. “You are talking nonsense. And I wish you would stop. It’s bad form. And moreover, if anyone sees that you are here, then I might as well lock up my shop forever and wander the moors as a beggar.”

“I don’t care what other people think.” Daniel lowered his brows and fixed her with his piercing green gaze. “I only care about—” He broke off abruptly, his expression clouded.

Susannah’s heart pounded in her chest. “Of course you don’t care about other people, Daniel! You’ve never had to.” Oh, this selfishness. His cocoon of wealth and privilege. When would he ever learn?

LILY GEORGE

Growing up in a small town in Texas, Lily George spent her summers devouring the books in her mother’s Christian bookstore. She still counts Grace Livingston Hill, Janette Oake and L. M. Montgomery among her favorite authors. Lily has a B.A. in History from Southwestern University and uses her training as a historian to research her historical inspirational romance novels. She has published one nonfiction book and produced one documentary, and is in production on a second film; all of these projects reflect her love for old movies and jazz and blues music. Lily lives in the Dallas area with her husband, daughter and menagerie of animals.

A Rumored Engagement

Lily George

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.

—Psalms 139:14

This book is dedicated to my teachers over the years, especially those who encouraged me to write.

I was a terrible student, terrified of school and often absent—I couldn’t have been easy to deal with. These women went above and beyond to motivate me at a time when others would have given up on me. I certainly had given up on myself.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

“Well, here we are.” Susannah Siddons injected a false note of cheeriness into her voice. After all, it fell to her to convince her sisters that she had matters well under control. Not always an easy task when one was only twenty and the head of the household. “It’s not much, but we’ll give it a good cleaning and it will look much better.”

She turned to face her sisters, Hannah and Rebecca, whom she had long ago nicknamed Nan and Becky, her stair-step sisters, as she called them. Becky two years younger and Nan four years younger—yet despite that difference, they clung together close as twins. Their faces, as alike as two profiles on the same coin, reflected doubt and disgust as they glanced up at the tumbledown building before them.

“It’s awfully small,” Nan ventured, biting her lip in a distracted fashion. “Where will we live?”

“On the top floor, silly,” Susannah answered with a bright smile. “There are two rooms up there and a small kitchen in the back of the shop area.”

“It’s rather far off the main road, wouldn’t you say?” Becky scanned the street with a rapid glance. “How can we attract shoppers if we don’t have anyone strolling by our windows?”

“Well...” Susannah hesitated. Becky had a point. They were at the far end of the main road, where the gravel path trailed off into the nearby meadow. The hustle and bustle of a daily market crowd—or as much of a crowd that ever gathered in a small village like Tansley—would be down at the end of the road. Still, this shabby storefront was all her slender purse could afford. “We’ll just have to give them a reason to seek us out. We’ll make our windows so alluring, so stuffed with beautiful goods, that our shop will become a destination.”

She tucked a stray lock of deep auburn hair back under her bonnet and leaned forward to get a better look at the store through the dirty glass window. But all that she saw was a reflection of herself—the dark circles under her gray-green eyes, her pale skin with its light dusting of freckles. No one, looking at her, would be deceived. Her life was a shambles, and though she might try to hide it from her sisters, ’twas writ plain across her face and her person.

She drew back from her reflection sharply. It didn’t matter. No one cared what she looked like, anyway. “Shall we go in? Father’s solicitor said he’d leave the key under a stone.”

Becky dropped her satchel on the grass and pushed back her bonnet. “I don’t see a stone.”

Nan walked up to the front doorway and parted the long moor-grass with her fingers. “Neither do I.”

Perfect. How absolutely, positively, perfectly perfect. They had been traveling for weeks now and finally reached the end of their journey—only to find the door locked. ’Twas a metaphor for her entire life. Tears stung the back of her eyelids and a hysterical desire to laugh bubbled within her. What could they do? The solicitor lived back in Matlock, a day’s journey away. The mail carriage they’d ridden in on was long departed. People came and went down at the other end of the street, their faces and forms blurred by the distance.

She could go and ask one of the other shopkeepers for assistance, or one of the townspeople. But a sudden and unreasonable wave of stubbornness assailed her, holding her in its grip. She was here to start a new life for her sisters, and it would be intolerable for anyone to know she was making such a poor start. She would find a way to open that door on her own. “I’ll look around back. Perhaps there’s another door to the shop, and he hid the key there.”

With masterful nonchalance, straightening her spine and holding her shoulders back, she marched around to the rear of the building. There was another door, to be sure, but no key there, either. Nothing even remotely resembling a stone graced the back porch. She clenched her fists and bit her tongue, willing herself not to lose her temper completely and utterly. ’Twould be a blessed relief to roll about in the long moor-grass and flail her arms and legs as she had as a child. But it would do no good. Giving vent to her temper wouldn’t change their present circumstances.