Virginia Heath - Miss Bradshaw's Bought Betrothal

You see, Stepmother, I loathe my life with you almost as much as I loathe you. You are a mean, money-grabbing bully and I am tired of being your victim and of being Invisible Evelyn. Pitied, shapeless, plain and dull Invisible Evelyn. I feel as though I am dying inside.

No matter how many times Evie had thought a version of those words they had never seemed quite right so she had bitten them back. Hyacinth was her father’s second wife. He had loved her, perhaps, and he had made Evie promise to be a good daughter to her. Unfortunately, if he had made a similar request to Hyacinth, her stepmother did not feel duty-bound to honour it. This separation would give her the distance she needed to pluck up the courage to say them. Probably by letter. Almost definitely by letter. One day...

Out in the hallway, she heard the distinctive sound of a male voice and steeled herself to greet her fake fiancé’s rude twin brother. Under the circumstances, she had no choice but to rely on his hospitality until she had sorted out the mess, if the gentleman in question was prepared to extend his hospitality that was. Last night he appeared to be as enamoured of Fergus as she was, which was a worry and made her new situation precarious.

He strode into the room looking just as dark and foreboding as he had last night and regarded his uninvited guests with an air of disgusted resignation. ‘Good morning, ladies. Miss Bradshaw.’ His eyes flicked from her face to her plain green frock and then back again shamelessly, making no attempt to disguise his disappointment with what he saw. Evie felt the blush creep up her neck and suffuse her face as she recalled his ridiculous claim to have seen through her nightgown and wondered if his disappointment was merely because she was intruding on his privacy or because he really did know what lay beneath the yards and yards of silk. He inclined his head towards Aunt Winnie and took her proffered hand. ‘I am Finnegan Matlock, Fergus’s brother. I have not yet had the pleasure of your acquaintance.’

‘This is my Great-Aunt Winifred. She has accompanied me as my chaperon.’ Even as she said it Evie could see the disbelief in his dark eyes. He was probably wondering what use an eighty-nine-year-old woman with a walking stick was as a chaperon, but then again, as Evie was highly unlikely to ever need the true services of a chaperon to protect her virtue, she tried not to be offended. Aunt Winnie was her only living blood relative and, despite the innate difficulties of transporting an octogenarian with rheumatism across the entire length of the country, Evie could have hardly left the poor woman alone with Hyacinth. Even though Winnie always gave as good as she got.

‘Welcome to Matlock House, madam.’

‘You are better looking than your brother, sir.’

One eyebrow quirked with what she assumed was amusement at Aunt Winnie’s forthrightness, although he did not smile. ‘As we are identical twins, madam, I find that highly unlikely.’

Aunt Winnie would not be swayed. ‘Yes, yes. I see the similarities well enough, young man. I am old, not blind. But there are distinct differences. I have always thought your brother looks untrustworthy. His eyes dart around too much when he talks. Yours are steady. And you wear your breeches better. Do you like to ride, Lord Finnegan?’

Evie’s level of mortification ratcheted up a notch and she gave Fergus’s brother an apologetic smile. ‘Aunt Winifred is very outspoken.’ Her plain face was very probably glowing scarlet and that was a colour that had never suited her. Typically, like most people, he ignored her.

‘Yes, I do ride. Aunt Winifred—would you care to take a gallop over the fields with me?’ Although his face remained impassive his eyes appeared to be smiling. He definitely had better eyes than Fergus. Clearer. Not bloodshot. A little intriguing. The old lady giggled and swatted him with her hand.

‘And you are more charming than your brother. Talking of which, where is Fergus?’

‘As it is still morning and I dare say he has enjoyed his evening at the inn, unless he has changed his ways in the three years since I last saw him, I assume that he is still asleep. He never was one for daylight.’

Three years? That seemed an excessively long time for any siblings to have not visited one another, let alone twins. ‘I take it that you and Fergus are not close, Lord Finnegan?’

He answered with his back to her, more intent on loading his plate with the delicious steaming bacon than being polite to Evie. ‘To be honest, Miss Bradshaw, we are virtual strangers. Even as children we had vastly different characters. The only thing we have in common is the same face and the fact that we once shared the same womb.’ He balanced a piece of toast on top of his mountainous breakfast and carried it back towards the table. ‘Our parents often commented that we were as different as chalk and cheese.’

Which probably accounted for the fact that Fergus had never mentioned that he was one of twins. Finn ate his breakfast heartily, but suddenly paused his fork halfway to his mouth as he noticed Evie’s slice of toast. ‘Are you not eating?’

The familiar lie spilled out. ‘I am not particularly hungry.’ In fact, she was starving. She spent a great deal of her life starving in a pathetic attempt to become slimmer and thereby miraculously more attractive. Her excessive weight was one of the many things Hyacinth was merciless about. Unfortunately, even if Evie did manage to reduce her figure by a few inches, the moment she succumbed to temptation and ate a cake she was right back where she started. And she so loved cake.

‘Then why you are staring at my bacon so intently? You do not look like a woman who could survive on one piece of toast.’

Horrified and mortified in equal measure, Evie stared back at her toast and tried to think of a pithy retort. As usual, none came so she sat silently and wished she really was invisible as she squirmed under the intensity of his gaze.

‘Tell me how you came to be engaged to my feckless brother.’

Evie focused every bit of her attention on the rapidly cooling and unappealing piece of toast and trotted out her practised line. ‘We collided at various functions last year, found that we rubbed along well enough and, after a few months, he proposed.’ The story was purposefully short and dull because that was easier. Besides, everyone expected Evie to be dull so few asked for further clarification. Lord Finnegan tilted his head to one side and simply stared.

‘Are you sure?’

Nobody had ever queried the tale before and it flustered her. ‘Well, of course I am sure. Do you think that I would make something like that up?’ Already her palms were moist and her heart was racing guiltily. No doubt her neck was already blooming in unbecoming pink blotches. She never had been a particularly convincing liar.

‘To be perfectly frank, Miss Bradshaw, I have no idea. You completely bewilder me. You are definitely not Fergus’s usual type and the brother I know is about as likely to settle down into marriage of any sort as I am to suddenly sprout wings and soar majestically through the clouds.’

‘You, yourself, said that you had not seen your brother in three years. People can change a great deal in three years.’

He snorted his disbelief. ‘The sort of change you are suggesting would take a miracle to achieve. Fergus likes to drink, gamble and whore. You do not strike me as a woman who fits any of those criteria. That leads me to believe that there is only one reason why he is marrying you and that reason has to be money. Are you obscenely rich, Miss Bradshaw?’

Her mouth hung slack. Had he just used the word whore in front of a lady? And more importantly, he had just insulted her in the most horrendous manner. Nobody had ever spoken to her quite like that, apart from Hyacinth. Evie’s gaze flicked to the fork lying on the table to her left and for a moment she considered picking it up and using it as a weapon. Perhaps Lord Finnegan’s manners would improve if he suddenly found himself with a piece of cutlery embedded in his hand. Or his forehead.