Her Sudden Groom

HER SUDDEN GROOM

Rose Gordon

HER SUDDEN GROOM

Amazon Edition

Copyright © 2011 C. Rose Gordon

Cover image copyright LFD Designs

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, events and locales are product of this author’s overactive imagination. If any name, event and/or locale did exist, it is purely by coincidence it appears in this book.

This book may not be reproduced by any means, including but not limited to, mechanical, Xerox, digital, auditorial and/or in print.

If you obtained this copy illegally, please respect the author and her time enough to purchase a copy.

It should also be noted, this book was not written with the intention of being submitted for consideration to be converted into a history textbook. Please do not treat it as such. If you do, your education will be sorely lacking.

Other Titles Available

SCANDALOUS SISTERS SERIES

(Now Available)

Intentions of the Earl (Book 1)

Liberty for Paul (Book 2)

To Win His Wayward Wife (Book 3)

GROOM SERIES

(Now Available)

Her Sudden Groom (Book 1)

(Coming Soon)

Her Reluctant Groom (Book 2)

Her Secondhand Groom (Book 3)

Her Imperfect Groom (Book 4)

For Grand Paw 1938-2011

Definitely the most unique individual I’ve ever met. One who could always be counted on for an outrageous story guaranteed to leave you doubled over in laughter and who often coined the most bizarre, yet fitting, words for all sorts of unusual situations.

And for my husband. One of the few who can put up with my scientific tendencies and doesn’t complain about my rocket talk or temperature conversions—especially during our first (and only) game of croquet!

Chapter 1

Watson Estate

April, 1814

Alex Banks sat paralyzed as the cold fingers of death closed around his neck, choking the life right out of him. Gasping for breath, he reached one tanned hand up and slipped two fingers under the cravat-turned-noose that hung around his neck, then jerked, loosening its suffocating hold. Who knew that little scrap of fabric he normally wore only to appease the females in his life could transform into such a deadly weapon?

Well, it hadn’t really, but it might as well have become a hangman’s noose for all it mattered to Alex. He’d just been given a death sentence, as far as he was concerned.

“
Are you certain?” he rasped when he’d loosened the garment enough to catch his breath.

“
Quite certain,” his father told him apologetically.

Alex took his spectacles off and rubbed his eyes, pressing them so hard bright shapes burst in front of him.

Edward Banks, Baron Watson, put his glass of water on the nightstand beside him. Readjusting himself in his bed, he blinked then reached for the stack of papers on the bed next to him. “Here.” He handed the papers to Alex.

Alex jerked the papers from his father’s limp grasp with far more effort than necessary. “Sorry,” he murmured as he thumbed through the life-altering—nay, life-shattering—documents.

Leafing through the papers, his panic didn’t ease like he’d hoped; instead it escalated with each page he scanned. There
had
to be a way out of this mess. He exhaled a deep, shaky breath and patted the ends of the papers against the tabletop to straighten them back into a neat, even stack.

Placing the papers on his father’s bedside table, he slouched in his chair and ran a hand through his unkempt hair, giving it a hard, painful tug to make sure he wasn’t in a nightmare. No such luck. The nightmare was a reality, and he was only at the start of it. He glanced to his father, who was having yet another nasty sounding coughing fit.

“
There might be a loophole,” Father said when he was done hacking. His voice was weak and uneven.

Alex’s ears perked up, and he impaled his father with his eyes, waiting for him to divulge
anything
that would allow him to escape the equivalent of an innocent’s lifetime sentence in the Tower of London.

Father patted his aching chest and tried his best to swallow a gulp of water before looking at Alex. “You could marry another.”

Alex looked at his father, dumbfounded. He could have sworn he’d just read a betrothal agreement that linked his name to Lady Olivia Sinclair. How could he possibly marry another without: one, creating a scandal; two, being termed a cad; or three, being called out by her brother?

Father coughed again. “You only scanned the agreement. You missed the contingency part.”

“
Thank goodness,” Alex muttered. “What page is that on?” He thumbed back through the papers.

“
It’s on the final page,” Father said with a harsh cough. “This whole fiasco is all contingent on your being single on the date of your thirtieth birthday.”

Alex frowned. “Why?” He moved his eyes slowly over each word on the last page, making sure not to miss a single word.

His father at least had the good manners to look somewhat guilty. As guilty as one can possibly feign when one is on one’s sickbed, that is. “Well, you see, son.” He flickered a glance at the wall just past Alex’s left shoulder before meeting Alex’s eyes again. “Joseph, the former Lord Sinclair, and I were good friends. We went to Eton and Cambridge together and remained close ever since. We thought it would be ideal to have our children marry.”

“
Without their consent,” Alex muttered, irritation bubbling inside him.

His father frowned. “Marriages oftentimes are arranged. Mine was.”

“
I know.” Alex had always had sympathy for the plights of his mother and father. Neither of them had even had a chance to find a spouse of their choosing. Apparently, he was about to endure the same fate. How fortunate for them, his parents had received a much better bargain than he was destined to have.

“
Anyway,” Father said, breaking into Alex’s thoughts, “when Lady Olivia was born, I joined Sinclair at his house to celebrate, and in a drunken state, we marveled at the irony that she was born on the same day as you. Well, eight years later, of course.”

“
Of course.” Alex vaguely remembered the night of his eighth birthday. That was the night he’d snuck out to see his first mare and witnessed his father coming home foxed, singing the Hallelujah Chorus, and claiming to have some excellent news.

Hell’s afire The “excellent news” Father was exclaiming about had been this confounded betrothal contract, binding him to Lady Olivia for life.
Lady Olivia
. Nobody could be a worse match for him than Lady Olivia. He swallowed hard, trying to return the bile rising in his throat back to his stomach.

Father coughed. “Sinclair and I thought it would be a brilliant arrangement. My son. His daughter.
Our
grandchildren. However, none of us knew just how shrewish Lady Olivia would grow up to become.”

A shudder wracked father and son simultaneously. “No one could have known,” Alex grumbled. Looks were one thing; personality was another. Alex considered himself mature enough to see past her always-tangled, fire-orange hair, rotund figure, horrid teeth, and absurd fashion choices. Her physical appearance, however, paled in comparison to her personality, which was enough to test the patience of a martyred saint. She was whiny, clingy, hateful, and suffered more ailments than he was aware even existed. Everything she did was completely self-serving in one manner or another. If anybody believed otherwise, they were a fool.

Clearing his throat, Father said, “That’s of no account now, son. Either you’ll have to marry her, or go ask her brother if he’ll honor the last page of the agreement.”

Alex’s eyes flew to his father. “Why wouldn’t he?” It was right here, combined with all those other suicide-inducing papers. There was no reason for him not to.

“
Because that was an addendum added some eight years later. It was the only page not originally part of the agreement, and it isn’t signed by a third party,” Father explained after a brutal coughing fit. “The originals—” he grabbed the stack of papers and pointed to the bottom of each page as he flipped through— “were all signed by Sinclair, me, and Richard Barnes. Barnes is a mutual friend who was there celebrating with us, and who happens to be a solicitor. As you can see, the last page has only mine and Sinclair’s signatures on it.”

“
If he signed it, it’s legal,” Alex argued flippantly.

“
Not exactly,” his father rasped. “It could be contested, and it might not stand. Now that Joseph is dead and Marcus has taken his place, it would be my word, which won’t mean anything in a few weeks, I’d wager, versus a court.”

Alex gulped. He hated to think that in a matter of weeks, or even days, his father might be gone. Six months ago, Father had become ill, and since then his health had been declining rapidly. After several fruitless attempts to cure him, the physician concluded his condition was internal and medicine wasn’t going to help. Father took the news in stride and continued to read, talk about science, go down to dinner, and even ride his horse. It wasn’t until the past week he’d taken to spending most of the day in his bed, too frail and exhausted to do much more than read and go down for dinner. Watching Father’s illness progress in the past months had been terribly painful for Alex. “All right,” Alex said softly. “I’ll see what can be done for it now.”

Father pulled the covers up to his chin. “Son, I’m sorry I made that agreement. But if you can get Marcus to honor the contingency, you’re halfway there.”

“
Yes, then I just have to find a lady to agree to marry me in a month’s time.”

“
Considering that you’ll have to marry Lady Olivia if you don’t, I think you’ll find a way.” His father flashed him his best attempt at a smile.