One. Two.
‘As you know, fairy tales begin with once upon a time and they end with happily-ever-after.’
Three. Four.
‘Not because a man held a ball and found a woman who checked off certain boxes on his list or because her father had wealth and standing, although it often starts out that way.’
Five. Six.
Bax arched a devilish eyebrow. You’re running out of time, Cuz. Will you risk it all on whoever is in the hallway?
Seven. Eight.
The ballroom held its breath. Sutton continued, his own breath catching, ‘But because a man found true love instead.’
A little ripple of ‘ahs’ ran through the ballroom. The flash of blue was closer now.
Nine.
‘In between the beginning and the end, however, fairy tales are often full of surprises and trials.’
Ten.
Hurry, his mind cried.
‘The Prince and the Princess in those stories aren’t always who we think. There are mistaken and false identities along the way with other sundry items designed to obscure the heart’s truth. That has been the case here as well, but, as in all good tales, love has won the day and torn away veils that might mislead.’
Eleven.
She stood in the doorway, breathing hard, a hand pressed to the tight waist of her gown. She’d run. Her prettily styled hair had come down, dirt clung to her hem, but Elidh was here. Elidh was here! Sutton’s throat constricted and he took a moment to collect himself.
Twelve.
‘So, my choice is this. I will marry Elidh Easton and I will renounce my claim to my uncle’s fortune in the name of true love.’
He held out his hand to her as the stroke of midnight faded. Amazement swept the ballroom in whispers and disbelief as Elidh swept through the crowd, cutting through the rumours and speculation. Who was she? Had she been at the party? Where did she come from? She hadn’t been here all night. Dust-covered and dishevelled, she’d never looked lovelier to him, her head held high, her eyes fixed on him alone. Sutton smiled. That particular thought might become a recurring theme. He distinctly remembered thinking it before, down in the stables. He’d probably think it again, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, then again on their wedding day, their wedding night; the day after, and every day that followed; the day their first child was born, their second...and on ad infinitum. Sutton took her hand, drawing her up to the dais beside him, where she belonged.
‘I didn’t think I’d make it,’ she whispered breathlessly.
‘You made it just in time, that’s all that matters.’ He beamed. Bax was beaming, too. He had the fortune. But not for long, Sutton vowed. He would stop Bax’s corruption. Some way, somehow. All things were possible with Elidh beside him. He turned to the solicitor who was rummaging madly through his valise at this turn of events. ‘Mr Barnes, if you would please do the honours and read the legal paperwork here in front of witnesses.’
‘Yes, I have the letter now.’ Barnes brandished a document and made his way to the dais and cleared his throat. ‘Sir Leland Keynes left two envelopes. One of which would be opened if Sutton Keynes, his designated heir, met the conditions of the will. Another, if he failed to claim a noble bride in time.’ He held up the envelope and opened it, making a great show of unfolding the paper. ‘Dear Nephew, if you are reading this, congratulations are in order. You have passed the test.’ Barnes looked up, signalling a murmur of confusion around the room, and disappointment, to be honest. Sutton was well aware there were a few fathers in the room who would take pleasure in seeing him get his comeuppance for not choosing their daughters. Below him, in front, Bax’s face had gone livid and then pale. But he hadn’t time for Bax. He, too, was listening intently, confused along with the rest. And fearful. Elidh’s hand tightened in his and Sutton froze, fearing another of his uncle’s games. What more could his uncle do?
Barnes continued. ‘If you have shunned my fortune in order to make your own choice, it can only mean you have chosen love over money. A very wise decision which I can attest to from the vantage point of my age. By doing so, you have shown the strength of your convictions and your courage in standing up for them. Your bride should be proud in knowing she is to marry such a man and she should rest easy in the knowledge that she is treasured for who she is and not what she likely doesn’t bring to the table as a representative of her family’s social standing. I am sure many bridal candidates were thrown your way shamelessly on the grounds of wealth and status.’ There was a certain amount of foot shifting at the words. His uncle had delivered an excellent scolding to those who would turn marriage into an auction of brides to highest bidders. ‘Because of this decision, I am awarding you full possession of the fortune regardless of your bride’s birth along with the addition of the London town house and trust funds for each of your children. I also wish you something that eluded me in my lifetime—all happiness for as long as you both shall live.’
The ballroom was silent, expressions varying from soft looks of emotion, to harder, sterner looks of disapproval from fathers whose daughters wouldn’t being going home with a husband or a fortune tonight. Sutton’s mother took the dais, champagne glass raised. ‘A toast, then, to the happy couple. It is clear they have found their happy-ever-after. Cheers!’ She gestured to the orchestra to strike up a waltz. ‘Dance with your bride, Sutton,’ she whispered. ‘Show them what happiness looks like.’
But Bax wasn’t ready to give up. At the bottom of the steps he stopped Sutton, a hand firm on his arm. ‘How dare you have both love and money? For as long as you both shall live?’ he growled. ‘How long do you think that will be if I have my way?’
‘Quite a while, Cousin,’ Sutton answered evenly. ‘If any unnatural harm befalls either of us, you will be the first one suspected. You are our very best insurance policy for a long life. You can’t spend a fortune when you’re dead and you’d surely hang for murder.’ He inclined his head. ‘If you’ll excuse me? I am going to dance with my bride.’
‘This is not over, you bastard.’ Bax stepped back, melting into the crowd. No, it wasn’t. But for now, Sutton had something more important to do. He led Elidh out to the dance floor and swept her into the opening measures of the waltz, his happiness brimming over. ‘I didn’t think you were going to come,’ he confessed. Around them, others joined in, filling the floor. He hardly noticed.
‘I knew after you left I’d made a terrible mistake, not once, but twice. I feared the Viscountess’s letter.’ Elidh was breathless and flushed with joy. He wanted her to always look this way. He would do his best to ensure that she did. ‘I almost didn’t make it. The wagon I hitched a ride on broke an axel outside Fordham.’
‘What did you do, then?’ Sutton grinned.
‘We looked for another wagon, but when we didn’t find a ride, we walked.’
‘From Fordham?’ Sutton was amazed. ‘That’s six miles. That was dangerous in the dark.’
‘Only five. I ran the sixth. I would have walked further for you, Sutton.’ Elidh looked up, love shining in her eyes, and he saw his world reflected there.
‘You ran a mile?’ He was incredulous. ‘In the dark?’
‘Yes, I did. What choice did I have? You were here. I was nearly too late as it was.’
‘Do you have another dress?’ he asked, taking her through the turn at the top of the ballroom.
‘Yes. Should I change?’ she asked worriedly.
‘No, you’re fine the way you are. I was just wondering how long it would take you to have a dress ready.’
‘For what?’
‘For our wedding. I want to marry you as soon as possible. For the beginning of happy-ever-after.’
Elidh beamed, her eyes twinkling in mischief. ‘Oh, that. I thought it had already started the first day I met you.’
Sutton laughed. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t the day you chucked
my croquet ball into the woods?’
She cocked her head and pretended to contemplate the idea. ‘Come to think of it, I’m not sure. It might have been the day you showed me the caves on the island, or the day we delivered the foals.’ She gave a mock sigh. ‘Your hypothesis might need further study, Mr Keynes.’
He kissed her then, his beautiful Elidh, his goose girl, his Princess. His everything. His world was in his arms. He didn’t care who saw, didn’t care what people thought. He knew what he thought, what he believed. Love never failed. It was empirically true. They’d proven it, together.
Epilogue
London—eight months later
The chandeliers dimmed overhead. The floodlights at the foot of the stage came up. The crowd inside Covent Garden’s newest theatre, The Italian, quieted in the anticipation. In the richly appointed box to the right of the stage, Elidh and Sutton sat, hands linked in anticipation, a warm look passing between them.
‘Do you think your father’s play will be any good?’ Sutton enquired, studying the playbill. ‘It sounds dubious. The Fraudulent Bride?’ He read the title with mock concern in his voice, teasing her.
Elidh laughed. ‘I have it on good authority it’s based on real events. A girl goes to a house party to which she’s not invited, pretending to be a princess, and ends up married to the rich host.’
‘After many twists and turns, of course,’ Sutton supplied and she blushed.
‘Of course, with many twists and turns. The path of true love never runs straight.’ She sighed. The past eight months had been her own fairy tale come to life. The wedding had been a whirlwind affair, large and beautiful. Large to satisfy society’s tongues that all was indeed legitimate. Beautiful to satisfy Sutton, who insisted on spoiling her. They spent their days at Hartswood with the animals, walking the property. Sutton taught her to ride and had bought her an agreeable horse for a wedding gift. They bathed in the hot springs. Spent the winter in the warmth of the barns with the foals.
It was a happy, idyllic life. But it wasn’t for everyone. Like Sutton’s mother, her own father preferred the excitement of London, and Sutton didn’t disappoint, becoming the chief patron of a theatre where her father could write and direct to his heart’s content, and where Rosie could dress a new generation of actress. She and Sutton had come up to town to celebrate the opening of the new play, her father’s second since the theatre had opened its doors in December for the holidays.
‘Would you like to stay in town for the Season? We have the town house at our disposal and things will get underway in a couple of weeks.’ Sutton asked, his thumb caressing her gloved hand. ‘We can have a new wardrobe made up for you.’
Elidh slid him a sly smile. ‘I’m ready to go home. Besides, we’d only have to have the dresses remade.’
Sutton wrinkled his brow. She loved catching him off guard, loved surprising him. ‘Why is that? Do you not like the seamstress? We can find another. My mother could recommend someone.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, her smile widening. ‘Nothing’s wrong with the dressmaker. It’s me. I am planning on getting much bigger.’
Recognition flared in Sutton’s eyes. ‘Are you saying...?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. I—we—are expecting a child.’
Sutton reached for her, kissing her hard and long, not caring who might see. She didn’t care either. She was long past worrying over what others thought. She knew what she thought: she was the luckiest woman in the world because she was loved.
‘Are you happy?’ She laughed softly between kisses.
‘What do you think?’ Sutton smiled. ‘Since we already know how this play ends, might we leave early?’
Elidh nodded. They might indeed. The curtain was rising on a whole new chapter in their lives. She wasn’t worried. Love never failed.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story
be sure to read the other books in
Bronwyn Scott’s Allied at the Altar miniseries
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount
One Night with the Major
And whilst you’re waiting for the next book check out
the Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries,
starting with
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Keep reading on for an excerpt from A Debutante in Disguise by Eleanor Webster.
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A Debutante in Disguise
by Eleanor Webster
Prologue
1812
It was one thing to be named after a leafy green vegetable, but quite another to resemble one.
Letty stared morosely at her reflection. Her mother had read somewhere that green flattered auburn hair and green eyes. In her opinion, this in no way compensated for the gown’s vibrant colour nor its plenitude of ruffles. Moreover, her eyes were largely obscured by the wire spectacles she wore.
She sighed, tugging at the stray curl her mother’s maid had forced into her stick-straight hair. If only her father was still alive. Of course, he would not have directly opposed the enterprise. He had never directly opposed her mother in anything. But they would have laughed. Together they would have poked fun at the marriage mart, the ludicrously complex dances, the trite conversations and endless rules of etiquette.
And the thought of standing surrounded by pretty girls in their pretty gowns making their pretty speeches would not have seemed so daunting.
Of course, if she were six inches shorter, with natural waves and pleasantly brown hair, pretty girls, gowns and speeches would have been considerably less daunting.
‘Gracious, Letty, must you frown so?’ Her mother bustled into the bedchamber, making a tsking sound to signal her disapproval. ‘You will turn the milk sour and I am certain neither Lord Randolph nor Sir Edwin wish to sit across the breakfast table with someone having a disagreeable disposition.’
‘Any more than I wish to breakfast with anyone having Sir Edwin’s Adam’s apple or Lord Randolph’s whiskers.’
‘Sir Edwin can hardly help his Adam’s apple.’
‘It bobs. And Lord Randolph could certainly do something about his whiskers,’ Letty retorted.
‘You could part him from his whiskers were you to marry him.’
‘Except I do not plan to marry him, not even to save the world from his whiskers.’
Letty kept her voice light, but her stomach plunged somewhere near her feet
at the very mention of marriage. It wasn’t even that they needed the money. Her father had made a gadget, which had greatly expedited the manufacture of cloth, leaving them financially secure.
Unfortunately, it had in no way guaranteed their social status and her mother hoped that an advantageous match would serve where her father’s ingenuity had not.
Besides, in her mother’s mind, marriage was a woman’s only choice.
Mrs Barton made a second tsking sound. ‘Lettuce, stop frowning. You are old enough to be realistic. What other option do you have unless you wish to be the unwanted spinster in your brother’s home? Not an enviable position, I assure you. Your father too greatly indulged you, allowing you too much time on science which has a most deleterious effect on the female mind.’
Letty did not bother to reply. She did not even hope to explain how articles about science and medicine had opened up her world, transporting her from this sleepy village to ancient ruins, battlefields and the cosmos beyond.
Her mother could not understand. It wasn’t that Mrs Barton did not wish to, rather that she could not. Her world revolved around her husband, family and society. The concept that such a life might not be enough was foreign to her.
‘And do leave your spectacles here. You look so much better without them,’ Mrs Barton added briskly.
Letty groaned. ‘Except everything becomes annoyingly blurry.’
‘Then you will not be bothered by either Lord Randolph’s whiskers or Sir Edwin’s Adam’s apple, will you?’
With this statement, Mrs Barton firmly removed the offending spectacles, closed her lips with a final tsk and marched from the room.
* * *
Two hours later, Letty leaned against the wall at Lady Entwhistle’s ballroom. The heat had made her carefully placed curls frizz except for those now plastered to her forehead and dangling into her eyes.
Tempted By His Secret Cinderella (Allied At The Altar Book 3) Page 22