The Stand-In Bride

The Stand-In Bride
Lucy Gordon

Don Sebastian Santiago's fiancée may have publicly betrayed him at the town's Christmas celebrations–but that doesn't mean his wedding is off. He blames his fiancée's tutor, Maggie, for what has happened–so it's Maggie who will be his stand-in bride!In this emotionally intense novel from award-winning author Lucy Gordon, there's power, pride and passion. Read on to find out how Maggie must confront her troubled past before she and Sebastian can learn to trust–and love–each other….

“Don’t be stupid, Maggie. The answer must be as obvious to you as it is to me. I have arranged to be married on the sixteenth, and that’s what I mean to do.”

“But you haven’t got a bride,” she said incredulously. “What are you going to do? Call in one of your conquests? Will any woman do?”

The strange light was there in his eyes again. “Not any woman,” he said. “You.”

Something caught in her throat and she forced herself to give a brief choking laugh.

“I’m not laughing,” he said quietly.

“You’re right. It’s the unfunniest joke I’ve ever heard.”

“I was never further from making jokes in my life. You don’t understand Spanish honor. The one who does the injury is the one who makes reparation. You have injured me, and it is you, and nobody else who must make it right.”

Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books.

She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days, and have now been married for twenty-five years. They live in the Midlands with their three dogs.

Two of her books, His Brother’s Child and Song of the Lorelei, won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award in the Best Traditional Romance category.

The Stand-In Bride

Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

CHRISTMAS weather had come early. Although it was only the first day of December there was already the promise of snow, making the air sparkle and the street decorations gleam. High over London’s West End they shone against the darkness, multi-coloured confections of angels with long golden trumpets, elves, fairies dancing with long streamers, silver bells hanging in clusters.

But the two young women hurrying along the glittering street had no attention for the beauty overhead. They were arguing.

‘Catalina, please don’t be unreasonable,’ Maggie begged for the third time.

‘Unreasonable!’ Catalina snapped. ‘You want me to spend an evening looking at men wearing nighties and little skirts, and I’m unreasonable? Hah!’

‘Julius Caesar is a great play. It’s a classic.’

Catalina made a sound that might have been a snort. She was eighteen, Spanish and looked magnificent in her blazing temper.

‘It’s Shakespeare,’ pleaded Maggie.

‘That to Shakespeare!’

‘And your fiancé wants you to see it.’

Catalina said something deeply uncomplimentary about her fiancé.

‘Hush, be careful!’ Maggie urged, looking around hurriedly, as though Don Sebastian de Santiago might appear from thin air.

‘Pooh! I am here in London; he is in Spain. Soon I shall be his prisoner, and behave myself, and say, “Yes, Sebastian,” and “No, Sebastian,” and “Whatever you say, Sebastian.” But until then I do what I like, I say what I like, and I say I don’t like men with knobbles on their knees wearing skirts.’

‘They probably don’t all have knobbles on their knees,’ Maggie said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

Catalina let forth a torrent of Spanish and Maggie hastily seized her arm and steered her along the road, weaving in and out of the seething crowd. ‘It was supposed to be part of your English education,’ she said.

‘I am Spanish; he is Spanish. Why I need an English education?’

‘Why do I need—’ Maggie corrected her automatically.

‘Why do I need an English education?’ Catalina repeated in exasperation.

‘For the same reason you needed a French education, so that you can be a cultivated woman and host his dinner parties.’

Before her rebellious charge could answer, Maggie steered her into a teashop, found a table and said, ‘Sit!’, much as she would have done to a recalcitrant puppy. The young Spanish girl was delightful but exhausting. Soon Maggie would see her off to Spain and retire to the peace of a nervous breakdown.

For the last three months it had been Maggie’s job to perfect Catalina’s English and share chaperoning duties with Isabella, her middle-aged duenna. The two Spanish women lived in one of London’s most luxurious hotels, courtesy of Don Sebastian, who had also arranged the highlights of their schedule, and paid Maggie’s wages.

The whole thing had been arranged at a distance. It was six months since Don Sebastian had last found time to see his fiancée, and that had been on a flying visit to Paris, during which he seemed to have checked the improvement in her French, and little else.