Bride For A Night

She turned to pace across the carpet, unwilling to admit that she often used her position as a forgotten wallflower to eavesdrop on the latest gossip. It made it difficult to explain how she was aware that Harry Richardson was a lecher who kept a string of beautiful and extremely expensive mistresses.

“And a gentleman incapable of providing either a home or pin money for his wife,” she instead pointed out.

Silas shrugged, obviously willing to overlook his potential son-in-law’s numerous faults so long as he could provide the necessary pedigree for his grandsons.

“Which is why I have informed him that I will be using a portion of your dowry to purchase a suitable house in Mayfair as well as to set aside an allowance for you.” He deliberately paused. “There, now you can’t be saying I haven’t done my best by you.” Best?

Talia abruptly turned to meet her father’s belligerent glare, anger burning through her at the ridiculous words. It was bad enough that Silas was willing to sacrifice her to satisfy his frustrated lust for social acceptance. But to hide behind the pretense that his only thought was for her was beyond the pale.

“Why would you choose a younger son? I thought you were determined that I should wed a title?”

“After three seasons of waiting for you to bring even one gentleman up to snuff, I accepted I had set my sights too high.” He drained the last of his brandy, his gaze sliding from her too-pale face to study the tips of his boots. “Just like when I wished to sell that chestnut nag this past spring. A man has to bear the occasional loss when he’s bartering.”

She flinched. Her father was always willing to trample her pride as well as her feelings to force her to do his bidding, but he was rarely so cruel.

“I’m not a nag to be bartered.”

His jaw tightened with determination. “Nay, you are a young lady who has a great deal too many sensibilities considering you’re close to being put on the shelf.”

“Would that be such a tragedy?” she asked softly.

“Don’t be daft, Talia,” he barked, lifting his gaze with an expression of impatience. “I have not acquired a fortune only to have it end up in the hands of some nitwitted nephew when I cock up my toes.” Stepping from the desk, he stabbed a finger toward her. “You will do your duty and provide me with a grandson who will be the flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood. He will attend Oxford and, in time, become a member of parliament. Perhaps he will even become prime minister.” A smile of smug anticipation curled his lips. “Not bad for the son of a butcher.”

“I am surprised that you do not demand a throne,” she muttered before she could cut off the words.

“I might have if you hadn’t proven to be such a disappointment.” Silas turned to stomp toward the door, clearly finished with the conversation. He had made his decision and now he expected Talia to meekly obey his command. “The wedding will be held the end of June.”

“Father—”

“And Talia, you will make certain that it is the social event of the season,” he said, overriding her soft plea and glancing over his shoulder to offer a warning glower. “Or you will pack your bags and join your Aunt Penelope in Yorkshire.”

Talia’s stomach clenched at her father’s stark threat.

Penelope Dobson was her father’s eldest sister. A bitter spinster who devoted her life to her incessant prayers and causing others misery.

After her mother’s death, Talia had spent nearly a year in her aunt’s decrepit cottage, treated little better than an unpaid servant and rarely allowed to leave her cramped rooms. That might have been bearable if the horrid woman had not taken pleasure in striking Talia with a horsewhip for the tiniest infraction of her rigid rules.

Her father was well aware that she would toss herself in the Thames before she would once again be imprisoned in Yorkshire.

Heaven help her.

CHAPTER TWO

MUCH TO TALIA’S astonishment, her wedding day dawned with a glorious sunrise that painted the cloudless sky in shades of pink and gold. It promised to be a perfect summer day. She had expected a gray, dismal morning that would have matched the impending sense of doom that had haunted her for weeks.

Even more astonishing, she appeared almost pretty in her ivory silk gown overlaid with silver gauze and sprinkled with diamonds along the low-cut bodice and the hem that stopped just above her ivory satin slippers. Her dark curls were carefully arranged in a complicated knot on top of her head and held in place by a large diamond tiara that matched the heavy necklace draped around her neck and shimmering earrings.

Gifts from her father, of course.

He was determined that her wedding would be the talk of the season, impervious to Talia’s pleas that a lavish wedding would be in poor taste considering that all of society knew that the bridegroom had been purchased with Talia’s vast dowry.

So far as Silas Dobson was concerned, discretion was for those who could not afford to toss about their money in gaudy displays of extravagance.

Reluctantly accepting that the earth was not going to open up and swallow her whole, Talia silently entered the glossy black carriage and allowed herself to be driven to the small church where the private ceremony was to take place. After the ceremony they were scheduled to return to Sloane Square for an elegant wedding breakfast with two hundred guests.

It was only when she was standing at the altar that the disaster she had been anticipating the entire day at last struck.

The rector was attired in his finest robes with a somber expression on his round face. Talia’s father was standing at her side wearing his finest black jacket and silver waistcoat. And on the other side was Talia’s only friend, Hannah Lansing, the daughter of a baronet who shared Talia’s miserable fate as a wallflower.

But there was one notable absence.

Mr. Harry Richardson was nowhere to be found.

For nearly two hours they waited for the missing bridegroom to make his appearance, while the increasingly bleak silence that had filled the church echoed in Talia’s heart.

She felt…numb. As if the humiliation of being abandoned at the altar was happening to some other unfortunate lady.

It was a sensation that refused to be dismissed even when her father had stormed from the church, swearing that the bastard would suffer for having made a fool of Silas Dobson. And when she had been forced to return to the house and announce to the two hundred avid, twittering guests that the wedding had been regrettably postponed.

Or now, as she sat in her private sitting room decorated in soothing shades of lavender and ivory.

Perched on the edge of the window seat that overlooked the rose garden filled with guests still reveling at being in attendance at the greatest scandal of the season, Talia understood she should feel something.

Anger, humiliation, heartbreak…

Anything but the awful emptiness.

Absently she watched as Hannah paced across the Persian carpet, the swish of her rose satin gown the only sound to break the thick silence. The poor girl was clearly at a loss as to how to handle the awkward situation.

“I am certain there must have been an accident,” Hannah at last muttered, her round face flushed and her frizz of brown curls escaping from silver combs.

Talia shrugged, unable to stir an interest in why Harry had failed to appear at his own wedding.

“Are you?” she asked, her voice dull.

“Yes, indeed.” Hannah’s dark eyes held a sympathy she couldn’t entirely disguise. “No doubt the carriage overturned and Mr. Richardson and his family were knocked unconscious.”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh.” Hannah pressed a hand to her plump breasts. “Not that I would wish for the passengers to be injured.”

“No. Of course not.”

“But it would explain…”

“Explain why I was left at the altar?”

Hannah grimaced in embarrassment. “Yes.”