Her Reluctant Groom (Groom Series, BOOK 2)

by Rose Gordon

  “No,” she said flatly. “I’m sorry, Marcus. You know how I feel about you, but I cannot break my word.”

  Jaw clenched, Marcus took Emma’s hands from Sir Wallace. “Emma, I know this isn’t the ideal situation, and I know you’d prefer not to be embarrassed nor embarrass Sir Wallace by such a display, but it’s the only option left now. Please, call off the wedding and marry me.”

  “Why?” she asked in a voice that bordered on hysterical excitement. “Why now? You’ve had more than five weeks, and I’ve heard nothing from you. Why now? Why today when it’s too late? Why?”

  Marcus squeezed her hands and stroked the back of her knuckles with his thumb. How many times in those weeks had he started writing her a letter only to never finish it? How many times had he wanted to come for her but stopped himself? If only he’d posted one of those letters or given in to the temptation to come for her. His heart hurt anew at the realization of how much easier it would have all been for them if he’d done something sooner. He swallowed convulsively. His new understanding of just how he could have done things differently was immaterial. He hadn’t acted soon enough, and now he needed to be honest and bare his soul to her in hopes she’d forgive him.

  “I realized what a fool I’d been,” he began softly. “I know it took me a while to sort things out, but I did. I finally realized that maybe your love for me could be enough. And if it’s not…” He trailed off and swallowed hard. “If it’s not, I don’t know what we’ll do, but the time we can be happy together is worth the risk.”

  Staring down at their hands, Emma slowly pulled her fingers from his. “You cannot just come in here, profess to all of a sudden believe I truly love you, and expect me to marry you today instead of Wallace. It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry, but I cannot marry you now. You’ve waited too long.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said more fiercely this time. “You’re not married yet, and until you take your vows you can change your mind. Now, who will it be? The man you love or the man you don’t?”

  Emma’s emerald eyes flashed fire. “How dare you! How dare you just march in here in the middle of my wedding and tell me you’ve decided I do love you enough, and then push me to jilt my groom in front of all of our guests due to your sudden, but-slow-in-the-making grand revelation? Just who do you think you are to do such a thing?”

  “A man who loves you very, very much,” he said simply. “A man who didn’t know what he had until it was gone. Wait. That’s not true. I knew what I had. I—”

  “Then why did you relinquish it?” She clasped her trembling hands together in front of her.

  “Because I thought—”

  “That’s just it, Marcus. You thought. You didn’t believe me when I told you I loved you, you thought I couldn’t truly love you enough. You also thought it would be the easiest course of action to send me away so I’d marry someone else to have whatever happiness it is you thought you couldn’t give me. But that’s where you were wrong, you didn’t really think. Not about me anyway. You thought only about yourself.”

  “I did think about you. That’s why I—I—” He waved his hand around the room as if to indicate what he’d tried to do for her without exposing everything about their past to this room full of curious and gawking guests.

  “No, you didn’t,” Emma said sharply. “You were thinking of yourself when you sent me away. You couldn’t accept that I loved you in spite of your scars and your past with my sister. You couldn’t accept that I would love you whether or not we could build a family together. Instead, you thought only of yourself and sent me away, so I could marry another man and not grow to resent you for the things you couldn’t accept about yourself—the things that I loved you in spite of. But do you know what? I did love you. And I still do. But I’ve made a promise to Wallace to marry him, and if you’re angry with anyone in all of this it should be yourself.”

  Swallowing, Marcus reached his hand forward to once again hold one of hers but she pulled away from his grasp. He blew out a deep breath and closed his eyes, waves of emotions swept through him. She was right, of course. She’d told him she still wanted to marry him even after he’d told her of his inability to have children. And yet, he’d sent her away. He’d sent her away with the direct order to find a man to marry. And she had. She may not love that other man, nor he her, but she had made him a promise, and she’d be no better than Louise if she were to break her promise now.

  “Very well, then.” He leaned forward to brush one final kiss on her tearstained cheek, fighting the impulse to accidentally let his mouth graze hers. He pulled back and turned to Sir Wallace. “Take care of her,” he whispered brokenly before spinning around and facing her small group of wedding guests.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, his right fingers curling around that blasted ring he’d found while digging in that chest the first time he’d tricked Emma into staying with him. Optimistically, he’d foolishly brought it with him to London. A tidal wave of regret and remorse washed over him as he squeezed the ring so tightly the prongs cut into his fingers. Blinking rapidly so as not to give in to the emotions he was inwardly fighting, he placed one foot in front of the other and slowly walked down the aisle, trying to look anywhere but at the faces of the wedding guests. Coming here today would result in a bit of scandal and nasty gossip, no matter which way the outcome fell. Nobody actually interrupted a wedding. Ever. It wasn’t done. It went beyond scandalous. It was indecent!

  But he’d still wanted to try. He wanted to make one final appeal and beg her to forgive his foolishness and take him to be her husband.

  He no longer cared about the scandal this would produce, and he anticipated hearing whispers about his past with Louise as he walked down that carpet-covered stone aisle that would take him to the door of the church. But nothing prepared him for the deathly silence that greeted him as he walked that seemingly never-ending trek. About halfway through, he glanced up just in time to glimpse the sympathetic faces of Drake and Alex. He nodded curtly to each of the men before averting his eyes.

  Reaching the wooden doors at the back of the church, his hand closed around the door handle. He spun it and gave the door a slight shove. Stepping through the doorway, he froze when he heard loud and clear the words, “I don’t.”

  Chapter 25

  Emma’s heart literally stopped for a few seconds when she heard Sir Wallace start to speak. He didn’t what? “Pardon?” she asked weakly, the priest echoing her word.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Green, but I don’t and he does,” Sir Wallace said as if that was all the explanation necessary.

  “Pardon?” she repeated, her heart now beating wildly inside her chest.

  Sir Wallace shrugged, and for some odd reason, he looked decidedly more comfortable. “Miss Green, I relinquish all rights. Go on, marry him if you wish.”

  “Pardon?” she said again, realizing, but not caring, that she sounded like that colorful parrot Olivia used to keep until Marcus gave it away when he found out she was plucking the feathers to wear in her hair.

  Sighing, Wallace gave her hands a gentle, affectionate squeeze before letting them go and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Miss Green, it doesn’t take a great mind to know where your affections lie.”

  Emma licked her dry, cracking lips. “Wallace,” she said quietly, so quietly she almost didn’t even hear her own voice.

  He shook his head. “You don’t love me, and quite frankly, I don’t love you. That’s the way of it. This isn’t a love match. I didn’t expect it to be, and neither did you.”

  “I know.” It was no use lying to Wallace, or herself for that matter. She’d always love Marcus—even if she married Wallace.

  “Then marry him. I’m giving you my permission.”

  “No,” Emma said with a quiver. “I’ll not embarrass you the way Lady Silverton did.” Closing her eyes to dam up the tears forming in her eyes, she swallowed the sob that lodged in her throat. “Please continue,” she croaked at the priest.


  “No.” Wallace turned back to look squarely at Emma. “If Lord Sinclair had come yesterday, would we be standing here just now?”

  “I—I—don’t know,” she stammered, her face flushing at her lie.

  “Yes, you do.” His warm brown eyes were as calm and gentle as his voice.

  Not daring to chance a look at Marcus, who was standing rigidly in the back of the church waiting for some sort of final answer, Emma swallowed as hard as she could to push down the lump that had lodged itself in her tight throat. “That matters naught, now. I’ve given you my promise, and I mean to hold to it.”

  Grinning, Wallace shook his head. “You’re rather stubborn, aren’t you? Emma, I’ll go through with this ceremony and marry you if you wish it. I have no problem making you my wife. But I don’t think you want it, do you?”

  “No,” she whispered, searching his eyes for any condemnation or reproof, and found none.

  “Then marry him.”

  “I can’t,” she protested weakly. Regaining some of her earlier starch and stubbornness, she further explained, “I’m betrothed to you. I’ll not be known as a woman who gives her word to one man then turns around and marries another.”

  Wallace sighed. “Emma, this is one of those moments in life when you have to put your foolish pride aside and do what’s best for you, even if you break a number of rules along the way. Now, I’ll save you the exact number of rules you’d be breaking, but I will tell you that if you marry me today, you’ll be stuck with me a long, long time. Not only are all of my grandparents still alive, most of their parents are, too.”

  Emma tried not to smile despite herself. “But—”

  “No buts. A good portion of my relatives are octogenarians. Not too many young widows, I’m afraid. Are you prepared to be married to me for at least the next fifty-three years?” He idly scratched his jaw for a minute. “I know you’re angry with him for what he’s done to you, and he deserves nothing less than to see your fury, but you cannot punish yourself, too.”

  Emma bit her lip and risked a glance at Marcus. She did love him in a way she could never love Wallace. Even if Wallace was the father of her children, she couldn’t love him as much as she loved Marcus.

  “It’s your decision,” Wallace repeated softly. “I’ll marry you right now if that’s what you want. But you have to choose. You have to be the one to decide everyone’s fate.”

  Her lip trembled and she tried in vain to bite it enough to keep it steady as she looked over the crowd of people who had come to witness her wedding. Several of them looked like they could hardly wait to leave the church to start spreading this tale. Others looked at her with disgust and contempt that she’d even entertain the idea of jilting her groom this way. Some, mainly her sister and Gregory, looked furious. She glanced at Drake and saw an unusual gleam in his eye, then turned her gaze back to Wallace. “I—I—I’m so—sorry, Wallace. I pick him.”

  “Then what are you doing still standing here with me? Walk back down the aisle to your rightful groom.”

  Flashing him a watery, apologetic smile, Emma ran down the aisle and straight into Marcus’ waiting arms.

  He lifted her off the ground and spun her with excitement. “Oh, Emma, I’m so, so sorry,” Marcus whispered against her hair as he held her tighter than ever before. “I love you so much and…and…I shouldn’t have let you go. Every day you were gone was pure torture for me.”

  “I know,” Emma said. She wiped away her tears when he set her back down in the corridor of the church, out of view and earshot of the wedding guests.

  “Will you marry me?”

  Emma blinked at him. Did he mean in general or right now?

  “Right now,” he clarified. “I don’t want to go another day without you.”

  “But we can’t marry today,” she objected. “We have to post the banns or at least get a special license.”

  Marcus grinned. “No we don’t. We’ll just scratch Sir Wallace’s name off the license,” he teased.

  “We will do no such thing. It is bad enough we’ve humiliated him and made him the object of gossip, I’ll not go so far as to—to… I can’t even put voice to it.”

  “No matter,” Wallace said, coming up behind her. He handed Marcus a piece of parchment. “I already took care of it.”

  “You what?” Emma questioned, her voice squeaking a note.

  “I already scratched out my name and wrote his.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Probably not,” Wallace confessed with a lopsided smile. “But you’ll always have this paper to show in the circumstance someone questions it.”

  Marcus grinned and shoved the license in his breast pocket. “Thank you, Sir Wallace. Thank you for everything.”

  “No need to thank me. I truly never wanted to marry. I would have, of course, but my heart wasn’t in it, just like Emma’s wasn’t. As you’ve probably heard, I enjoy being a bachelor. That’s why my family paid Lady Silverton’s father so handsomely to convince her to jilt me all those years ago.”

  Emma gaped at him. “Pardon?”

  Sir Wallace shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t really wish to marry her, but after I inadvertently ruined her reputation at a garden party, we quickly became betrothed. Fortunately, another man had an interest in her...”

  Emma blinked at him. “You knew she was going to jilt you?”

  “Yes. It was planned,” he admitted with a simple nod. “She didn’t enjoy the company of the man who was pursuing her, so she found a way out by following me into Lord Flannigan’s back gardens.”

  “Oh.” Emma blushed. Lord Flannigan was rumored to have some very naughty statues hidden throughout that very overgrown garden behind his house. A young lady’s reputation could be ruined just by being seen stepping through the doors that led to that garden. No telling what would happen if she were caught, especially alone with a gentleman.

  “Indeed. Lord Silverton found us and threatened to expose her fall from grace if she didn’t accept his suit. She didn’t, of course. She would gladly accept mine, instead.” He shifted uncomfortably again, then rocked back on his heels. “I didn’t accept her suit though. Perhaps I should have, but I was far too interested in someone else at the time and I foolishly thought—” He broke off and waved his hand dismissively. “The details aren’t so important. I didn’t wish to marry her, so my family bribed her father to persuade her to marry Silverton instead. She didn’t want to, but her father’s lack of funds coupled with whatever he might have said to her in private changed her mind, and she followed through with the plan to leave me at the altar and marry Silverton instead.”

  “Then why did she—” Emma broke off abruptly and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, it’s not my business.”

  He waved her off. “She was just trying to bait you into saying something rash in an effort to rankle me. Lady Silverton and I shared no love for each other whatsoever, but if she could ensure I ended up in the parson’s mousetrap after all, she’d be satisfied.”

  “You’re truly not disappointed?”

  He shook his head. “No. I know I must marry some day to procure an heir. I would have married you to do my duty, but I’m still young. Surely another will come along.” He shrugged carelessly again. “And if not, then I’ll continue to enjoy my bachelor freedom.”

  “One cannot be divided,” Emma quipped with a watery smile.

  “Well, actually it can,” Wallace corrected. “But I won’t bore you with decimal points or fractions. I know what you meant.”

  “Thank you,” Emma said.

  Wallace tipped his hat and was gone.

  “We cannot marry here,” she said after Sir Wallace’s carriage rolled away. “That would be very awkward for me.”

  “It would be awkward for me, too.”

  “Emma!”

  Emma jumped, and her hands fisted at the sound of Gregory’s roar.

  “You get out there and—”

  Crack!

&nbs
p; Emma’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in surprise, but she felt not a bit of sympathy. At least none for the vile man moaning in pain and spilling blood—and teeth—at her feet. Her eyes swung to Marcus. His knuckles were red with blood and his face hard as stone.

  “Hampton,” he barked.

  Gregory moaned.

  “To your feet.”

  Gregory groaned.

  Marcus reached down and fisted his fingers in Gregory’s clothes, then jerked him to a standing position and pulled him close. “Don’t so much as think of her again, or I’ll kill you.” The rancor in his voice was so sharp everyone within earshot froze.

  Except Gregory. He whimpered.

  A second later, Marcus loosened his hold on Gregory’s clothes and brought his knee up just in time to connect with Gregory’s bloodied face once more on his fall to the floor.

  Marcus turned back to Emma, his eyes growing warm yet again. He lowered his lashes and when he spoke again; his voice was thick and rough. “I should have come sooner.”

  “Yes, you should have,” Emma agreed.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t change the past, but I want to make a future with you. A future filled with love and happiness.”

  “And you doing everything I ask to make up for your stupidity?”

  “That, too.” He swallowed. “You never answered my question. Will you marry me?”

  Emma smiled at him. “I’ll marry you, Marcus. Tonight even.” At his wide, broad grin, she amended, “But only if you can hunt down a special license. We’re not using that.” She patted the outside of his breast pocket so he couldn’t feign a misunderstanding later like she knew he would probably try to do.

  “All right, we won’t use that one,” he said with a chuckle. He reached into his other breast pocket. “What about this one? Will it suffice?”