The Wedding Escape Read Online Free

sparkled with steely defiance. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Kent?”
    Jack shrugged. Genevieve had spent over twenty years trying to break him of that unrefined habit, among many others, with only limited success. “I suppose.” He didn’t have much experience with unions of the souls. “What did your mother say to that?”
    â€œShe said that I was just a child, and couldn’t possibly know what was best for me, but that one day I would thank her for arranging my marriage to Lord Whitcliffe. And then she never permitted me to be alone, and ordered the servants to intercept all of my correspondence, so that I would not be able to get word to Percy of what had happened, and would not have knowledge of any notes he tried to send to me.”
    â€œSo you don’t know how your viscount reacted when he heard that you were now officially engaged to marry Lord Whitcliffe?”
    â€œI know in my heart that he was devastated,” Amelia told him, “and that he would have realized that it was not by my choice.”
    Jack arched a skeptical brow. “What makes you think that he hasn’t just gone and gotten himself betrothed to someone else?”
    â€œPercy swore to me that there would never be anyone else for him, ever. I’m positive he has been heartbroken these past few months, as I have. He will be thrilled to discover I have returned to him, and that we are now free to marry as we planned.”
    His deeply rooted cynicism made Jack wonder if this viscount’s first concern might not be that by publicly defying her parents’ wishes and running away on the day of her marriage, Miss Belford had effectively destroyed her relationship with them, thereby severing any possibility of either a dowry or inheritance in the process. Lord Philmore might have originally hoped that with a secret engagement and marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Belford would eventually come to accept their daughter’s union, and would have been willing to help the newly wedded couple get settled in a manner comparable to the lavish lifestyle in which their precious daughter had been raised. But there was a marked difference between quietly eloping with an unattached heiress and marrying a runaway bride who was now at the center of a mortifying scandal.
    â€œDoes Philmore have any money of his own?”
    Amelia was taken aback by the question.
    â€œForgive me.” Jack realized Miss Belford had probably never been exposed to the tawdry business of personal finance, and might not realize that the men who had courted her so enthusiastically would have been attracted to more than her uncommon beauty. “What I meant was—”
    â€œI know exactly what you meant, Mr. Kent,” Amelia assured him tautly. “Despite what you may think of me, I’m not a fool. I have spent the last year on the marriage market in London and Paris, and I’m painfully aware of the fact that most men—Lord Whitcliffe included—look at me first and foremost as a prodigious source of income. London town houses and country estates are expensive to maintain, and many English lords currently find themselves in a position where they don’t have sufficient income to keep a roof over their heads that isn’t about to fall down about their ears. Marriage to an American heiress, even one with an atrocious accent like myself, provides them with the means to instantly eradicate their debts and support their lavish lifestyles, all while pouring new money into their precious, decrepit ancestral homes.”
    Her cheeks were heated with indignation. It was clear he had insulted her.
    â€œI can assure you that Viscount Philmore is different,” she continued emphatically. “Although I do not know the precise nature of his financial affairs, I can tell you that he is a man of honorable means and he doesn’t care about the wealth of my family. Each time we were together, Percy swore that my fortune