An Unexpected Husband by Jo Ann Ferguson

Author:Jo Ann Ferguson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504009133
Publisher: Open Road Distribution

Ten

Bethany answered when required as Reverend Sullivan read the marriage rite. She kept her gaze in the center of his surplice until he asked, “Who gives this woman in marriage?”

“I do,” her father said.

She looked at him in astonishment. She could not mistake the emotion in his voice. Not embarrassment, not anger, not even relief, but quiet pleasure. She gazed into his eyes that were so like her own. A sob caught in her throat. For whatever transgressions he believed she had committed, her father had forgiven her.

He kissed her cheek. “I hope you will be happy with Eric, daughter.”

I hope so, too. She prayed she had not said those words aloud. No one must hear the doubts clamoring within her.

Eric repeated the wedding vows in a clear voice, but hers trembled as she promised to love him forever. When he took her left hand in his, she gasped as she watched him slide an ornately twisted ring onto her fourth finger.

“Where did you get this?” she blurted out.

He grinned. “A good peddler always has every kind of gewgaw on his wagon, even things he could not imagine needing himself.”

Reverend Sullivan smiled as he pronounced them man and wife and added, “Congratulations.”

Bethany’s fake smile made her face ache as she thanked him. She was glad for anything which gave her an excuse not to look at Eric. At her husband!

His hand on her arm warned her that he refused to be overlooked. He brought her to face him and said softly, “Bethany Pennington. A wife is something I did not expect to find when I offered you a length of silk in exchange for a night’s lodging for me and my horse.”

As he rubbed his finger over the wedding ring, she whispered, “I am so sorry that—”

“Sorry?” With a laugh, he tugged her into his arms. He lifted aside her veil. His lips stilled her answer as he teased her to recall the rapture of stolen kisses. When his tongue surreptitiously teased the corners of her mouth, his breath swirled through her mouth.

She struggled not to dissolve into the seductive fire. As he raised his lips, his fingers caressed her cheek, lingering on the curve of her mouth. She could read the craving in his eyes. A quiver ran along her back.

“Don’t look so frightened,” Eric teased. He kissed Bethany lightly again, resisting the need to claim her lips until every yearning within him was sated. “I shan’t be an ogre of a husband.”

“You shall be only as impossible as you’ve been up until now?”

He laughed, hoping his hoaxing would ease the fear in her eyes. “I suspect you may be right.”

His efforts were in vain. Her smile was brittle when her family came forward to congratulate her. He stepped back to give them a moment alone as a family and to let him observe how the baron reacted. Whitcombe’s rage was gone. Instead, relief seemed to surge through his father-in-law.

Father-in-law!

You are a leather-head. The condemnation was not in his own voice, but it might as well have been.

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