A June Bride Read Online Free Page B

would bring some other, er, lucky fellow up to scratch this season.”
    “Geoffrey! You’ve never meant to offer for her? I’ll have you know Jacqueline Bremcott discouraged a viscount while waiting for your offer. Her mother told me so herself.” Papa was genuinely shocked.
    “No surprise there,” Elias said. “Jacqueline Bremcott would rather be a countess over a viscountess one day, if she can manage it.”
    He was soundly rapped on the knuckles with his father’s soup spoon.
     “Ouch!” he cried as he rubbed his offended knuckles.
    “Elias,” Lord Chenmarth snapped, “you are excused.”
    “I’m not a child, to be excused from table.”
    “Then stop acting like one. This is serious, and we’ll have none of your flippancy.”
    “I can’t help m’self. Jackie’s a nice enough girl.” He hesitated, “Well, some people think so. But could you possibly see Geoffrey shackled to her?”
    “Obviously I could, and I said you were excused,” Lord Chenmarth said, fixing not one but two steely eyes on his younger son.
    “Oh, very well.” Elias stood and made a half-bow to the table at large. As he passed behind his brother’s chair, he clapped him quickly on the shoulder and said in a perfectly audible voice, “In my room. Later.”
    Geoffrey sighed.
    Lord Chenmarth took a deep breath, which he released as a long sigh. His sandy locks were worn a little longer than was the current fashion, his eyes so unlike the dark brown Geoffrey had inherited from his mother. It was, however, manifestly evident from whom Geoffrey had inherited his height and build, as well as his hair coloring. Lord Chenmarth, at age fifty, was still a decidedly handsome man, giving his son every hope of aging equally as gracefully.
    But now his father’s fine features looked rather pinched as he sighed and said, “Well, my lad, there’s nothing for it, no matter how a man looks at it. Any understanding with the Bremcotts aside, you’ll have to marry the Hamilton girl. Can’t see any way around it.”
    “The thing is, I was trying to be honorable. I was trying to assist her. We are cousins, after all. Shouldn’t there be some leniency between cousins?”
    “Not, I am afraid,” his father said with the ghost of a smile, “when it involves revealed undergarments in public places.”
    “But you’ve heard how that—”
    “Oh, don’t get in high dudgeon with me. I got the story in its entirety well enough. Still, there’s no way to save the girl’s name and reputation without continuing to do ‘the honorable thing.’ She’s got money and looks, so in truth, it shouldn’t be such a terrible hardship for you. You’ll hardly be the first pair to marry where you’d rather not,” he finished his summation with a lifting of his strong chin, so that Geoffrey could see he was trying to convince himself as much as his son. He did not mention his own marriage to a certain lady, father and son both fully aware that bonding had not turned out right and fine enough.
    “You’ll have to tell her,” Lord Chenmarth stated.
    “Tell who?” Geoffrey asked. “Alessandra? She already—”
    “Jackie Bremcott, of course. It would not be kind to let her hear it from the tattlemongers, or to read the banns in the papers.”
    “There won’t be any banns. I’ve already seen the Archbishop for a special license.”
    Lord Chenmarth looked shaken for a moment, but then he pushed back his chair and brusquely said, “Quite right. I’m sure Lord Hamilton wants this all wrapped up right and tight as soon as possible.” He sighed. “At least a marriage by special license is more seemly than an elopement,” he said, coming to his feet.
    “Decidedly,” Geoffrey nodded, mouth grim.
    “Pouting doesn’t suit you. Don’t look to blame anyone else for the bed you now find yourself having to lie in, if you’ll pardon the pun. ‘Twasn’t I who went down a side path with an unchaperoned young lady.”
    “I didn’t go down the path with