The Reluctant Bride Collection - The Complete Box Set

by Megan Bryce

  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 saying 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.

  And then she opened her eyes and took a step toward him because she had to try anyway. “I wanted to tell you.”

  Mr. Moffat snorted. “Lord, how many times have you done this? Every move rehearsed, every contingency accounted for.”

  George said, “Is this rehearsed, Letitia?”

  Mr. Moffat fingered a silhouette portrait hanging on the wall. “Oh, not Letitia. Not Blackstock. She was Dorine Calmly in Edinburgh. I don’t know who she was before that, yet. I don’t know her real name. Yet. But I believe a man should know the name of the woman who ruined his life.”

  Honora watched him walk around the room, fingering every picture. He picked up a book and flipped the pages, and Aunt Beatrice’s hand went to her throat.

  George apparently agreed with him. He said, “Your real name.”

  She met his increasingly angry eyes and said nothing. She couldn’t tell him, not with Mr. Moffat ready to take that real name to the nearest magistrate. She couldn’t put her aunt and uncle at risk.

  George’s hat crumpled between his fingers. “You won’t tell me.”

  Honora said softly, “She’s no more real than Miss Blackstock.”

  He turned away, heading for the door.

  Honora opened her mouth and he stopped suddenly, not turning around but saying over his shoulder, “I wondered, you know. Why you never said it.”

  Why she’d never said she loved him. Last night when he’d declared himself.

  “Georg–”

  “Too late, Twiggy,” he said, and he left.

  Miss Blackstock and her entourage had disappeared during the night, Mr. Moffat felt it important to come tell George early the next morning.

  The man ranted and railed against the injustice in the world, swore he would get back his money if not his honor, and swore yet again that they would pay. She would pay.

  George sat in front of the fire and wondered if he’d feel less tired and more angry in a few months, when the shock had worn off.

  He thought maybe if he’d lost money along with his heart that it would have been easier.

  Money and a broken engagement, that must have been the plan all along, and he scolded himself for feeling even a smidgen of regret that they hadn’t got to that part.

>   Rehearsed. Everything had been rehearsed.

  And he couldn’t believe it. Not yet.

  Collin finally shooed Mr. Moffat out and then set a cup of tea down beside George. He tiptoed out of the room without making any kind of snide remark about Miss Blackstock, and George knew he must look pitiful.

  Again.

  Love had destroyed him again.

  Mr. Moffat returned a few more times but when he could get nothing useful out of George, returned to London to interview anyone She had talked to– George didn’t know what to call her. Not Miss Blackstock, obviously. Not Twiggy, too familiar for a woman he hadn’t been properly introduced to. So she became She.

  She.

  Woman.

  Deceitful, lying thief who’d stolen his heart and hadn’t given it back before disappearing into the night.

  George wondered if that had been the plan– to collect as many hearts as she could along with pecuniary payments.

  Weeks went by. And then months.

  George felt no less pitiable but he must have hidden it well since Collin began to act his normal self again.

  Mr. Moffat kept Collin apprised of his progress. George didn’t care, didn’t want to know anything.

  But when Mr. Moffat wrote from Bath telling the story of a haberdasher who’d got himself engaged to a woman who had loved hats, a woman who’d lived with her aunt and uncle, a woman who had been so excited to help but whose energetically awful designing abilities had made the haberdasher fear for his livelihood, a woman he still had fond memories of, and a woman he’d paid a nice sum to for breaking off their engagement and ruining every chance for her to have a happy and fruitful life, George was forced to accept the fact that Twiggy hadn’t been the real She, either.

  Another part, another character, and it was most likely she didn’t even know who the real She was. Simply became whatever a man needed to secure his love, and then twisted that need until it was impossible for him to actually marry her.

  George said dispassionately, “I wonder what she would have turned in to with me,” and Collin gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and offered him tea.

  George sent Collin away with wave of his hand, realizing he must still look a little pitiful.

  He must still feel a little pitiful because oh, how he wished she’d been real.

  Wished that the woman who’d been everything he needed really existed.

  St. Clair,

  Forgive my penmanship. The twins insist that day is night and night is day, and will not believe a word I say on the matter. I suspect that one day, I will sleep a whole night through again…suspect it, but am far from assured of it.

  Have you found a bride for your father yet? No, that’s not quite… Have you found a bride for your father to happily object to? …you know what I mean. Write to me and tell me all that I am failing to ask.

  Elinor sends her love, and don’t snort at me like that.

  Your friend, when he remembers his own name,

  …er, Sinclair?

  Megan BryceTo Tempt The Saint

  Seven

  It would not be an exaggeration to say that Honora’s father was surprised to see her.

  He’d walked into the drawing room with his mouth open and his face turning red. His greeting consisted of, “No notice that you were coming to visit? Has the post stopped delivering and I am unaware of it?”

  “My letter must have been lost. I assume that’s what happened to every one of yours these last ten or so years?”

  Honora’s stepmother, Fanny, stepped forward to hug her gently and interrupt their feud before it had a chance to start. “You look well, if tired. Was it a long journey?”

  Honora nodded. “From London. On the train. My aunt and uncle could use a bath and a long nap.”

  Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold could use a few meals and a few weeks uninterrupted sleep.

  They’d run from Manchester, leaving what they couldn’t carry and catching the train to Birmingham and then from there, to London.

  They hadn’t stopped looking over their collective shoulders until they’d been lost in the crowds and even then they’d hardly dared to venture out of their cheap and seedy lodgings for bread.

  They’d argued and worried for weeks. Unsure of where to go. Unsure of just how much Mr. Moffat had found out.

  They hadn’t dared contact any of their banks and when the last of their funds ran out, they knew they’d have to leave London. Close an account and leave that day.

  And go where no one could accidentally recognize them. Where they could have a warm bed and plentiful food and not spend any money until they knew they were safe.

  Home.

  And if Honora couldn’t say the word without wanting to both sneer and cry, it didn’t mean she didn’t still have one.

  Even if both she and her father wished it otherwise.

  But The Very Reverend Charles Kempe was gracious to his dead wife’s sister, their family beneath him but at least respectable, and he was grateful to them for taking over the care of his eldest daughter after her fall from grace.

  He said to them, “You are welcome to stay while you are in York.”

  “How very welcoming you are, Father. I thank you for your condescension.”

  He pinched his lips together and she said quite convincingly, “We won’t stay long. Adventure awaits us in Brighton but when I saw the train now came to York… I wondered what else had changed.”

  Not him, she didn’t have to say.

  Fanny took the older couple in hand, directing the housekeeper to prepare a room and send a tray up, and it was then that eleven-year-old Temperance came rushing through the still open door and skidded to a halt. She blinked and blinked, staring at Honora hopefully. Her blond hair fell in ringlets down her back and her blue eyes were framed with long lashes.

  She was beautiful, like her mother, and though Honora hadn’t seen her since she was a toddler, she’d been described enough by her jealous younger sister.

  That sister, ten-year-old Chastity, rushed in just behind her. Brown hair, brown eyes. Not beautiful but her inquisitive personality made up for it.

  She was the one to ask, “Honora?”

  She was the one to jump forward, to wrap her arms around the sister she’d only ever written to, only ever been told about.

  And then Temperance came forward, too, and Honora could drop to her knees, squeeze the two young girls in return, and wonder how she would ever be able to force herself to leave them again.

  Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold retired gratefully and her father escaped his female brood the moment he could, but the girls hung on her and when Honora collapsed onto the nearest piece of furniture, Chastity squished herself between Honora and the arm of the sofa, refusing to move away.

  Honora didn’t mind, not in the least, even when Chastity turned to scowl at her and say, “You forgot my birthday this year.”

  “I am sorry, my darling. It was last week, and I did not forget, but the packing” –the rushed and fearful packing– “forced it completely from my mind. I will make it up to you now that I am here.”

  She’d written every birthday since she’d left. From Bath, from Edinburgh, London, even Wales. When they had been far too young to even realize that she had left, that she had even existed, and Honora had always wondered if her father and stepmother told the children about her at all.

  But as they got older, the return letters from her stepmother began to include snippets from the girls, and then snippets written by the girls themselves, and then individual letters that Honora had to assume never saw a parental eye.

  Temperance complained about Chastity, and Chastity complained about Temperance, and Honora had known that they were truly sisters. That they were both loved and cared for. They were both safe and fed and warm.

  Temperance, on Honora’s other side but not squished against her, said, “Was Manchester a grand adventure?”

  “Er…”

  Nine-year-old Faith,
her hair blond and her eyes a warm chocolate brown, leaned against her mother’s legs and said, “Did you find a husband?”

  “I wasn’t looking for one.” And then she paused because all three of her young sisters looked disappointed. “But yes, I did find someone.”

  Chastity jumped up and grabbed Temperance’s hand, pulling her from the sofa and dancing around the room with her.

  “Did you dance with him?”

  Temperance tried to keep up and say at the same time, “Was he handsome?”

  They laughed at each other and at the idea of Honora dancing with a man.

  Honora said over the laughter, “No. Handsome men are too much bother.”

  “Oh.”

  “But he wasn’t ugly, either. He was normal looking. A man you would walk by without tripping over your own tongue.”

  They flopped onto the floor in front of her, excited and wistful, and seven-year-old Frederick Charles sat down cross-legged next to them. He looked like a little miniature version of their father, brown hair and brown eyes, and Honora could only be thankful that his appearance made Chastity look less like a changeling.

  Fanny moved closer, joining Honora on the sofa and putting Faith between them. “Is this why you’ve finally come home, Honora? To get your father’s permission?”

  Honora looked down at the ten-year-old sister who was not a sister and didn’t look at her stepmother.

  “No.” She sighed theatrically. “Because I do not have a love story to share with you, only a tragedy.”

  Freddy’s eyes got very round. “Did he die?”

  “He did not die. He was a troll. A sour, grumpy troll and he is still living under the bridge where the beautiful princess found him.”

  Beautiful, blond Temperance looked skeptical. “Was the beautiful princess you?”

  Honora leaned forward and spoke so softly that the children had to scoot closer to hear her.

  “There once was a not-beautiful-but-not-ugly princess who loved picnics. Especially picnics on bridges with her feet dangling over the edge and water rushing beneath her. And every week she would find a new bridge and eat her bread and cheese and smoked ham and listen to the loud water. So loud it drowned out the rest of the world.”