Someone to Wed by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

• • •

And so the chance of getting married quietly within two days of the Earl of Riverdale’s proposal, almost before she had time to think about it in order to have second and twenty-second thoughts, had disappeared, entirely through her own fault. She was going to have to wait a whole week. Worse, she had agreed that the Westcott and Radley families would be invited to both the wedding and the breakfast afterward at Westcott House. She had even agreed to St. George’s on Hanover Square as the venue, the church attended by the fashionable world during the spring, though the congregation would be small. There was no point, after all, in seeking out an obscure little church on some equally obscure back street, as the Duke and Duchess of Netherby had done last year, since there was to be nothing secret about their wedding.

Their betrothal was announced in the morning papers two days after their walk in Hyde Park—Miss Wren Heyden to Alexander Louis Westcott, Earl of Riverdale. On the society pages, no less, where the whole fashionable world would see it and half that world, no doubt, would mourn the loss of the earl from the ranks of eligible bachelors.

The afternoon brought a steady stream of visitors, all of whom Mrs. Westcott and Elizabeth entertained in the drawing room while Wren cowered in her room, writing to Philip Croft to tell him how gratifying it had been to see for herself the displays of their glassware in fashionable London shops. Elizabeth tapped on her door, however, just when she thought everyone must have left.

“Cousin Louise and Jessica and Anna are still here,” she said. “They know how reclusive you are and will understand if you do not come down, but Jessica begged me to come and ask you anyway. It is entirely up to you, Wren.” Her smile held a hint of a twinkle. “I know that such a lead-in is usually followed with a but . . . In this case it is not, however.”

Wren sighed and set down her pen. “Do they know?” she asked. “Has Lady Jessica told them? Or you or your mother?”

“About your face?” Elizabeth asked, coming right into the room. “No. Why would we?”

Why indeed? Wren thought as she got to her feet. She was beginning to be a bore even to herself. So she had a very unsightly birthmark covering most of one side of her face. So what? Anyway, she was curious to meet the famous Anna—full name Anastasia—who had grown up in an orphanage only to end up a duchess with a fabulous fortune of her own. The famous Anna, who all unwittingly had caused havoc within the Westcott family.

“Lead the way,” she said with a huge sigh that only made Lizzie smile more.

Within minutes there were two more people to add to the growing list of those who had seen her without her veil. And though Wren suspected that Lady Jessica had indeed told them about her

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.