The Wedding of the Century & Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

to revive the easy companionship they had so briefly shared, he had no success. Perhaps her stiffness was caused by her mother’s rather repressive presence, but he had the uneasy feeling that there was a deeper cause.
    His fifth morning in Newport, he happened to findSunny reading in the library during a rare hour when they were at home. She didn’t hear him enter, and her head remained bent over her book. The morning light made her hair glow like sun-struck honey, and the elegant purity of her profile caught at his heart.
    It was time to make his formal offer of marriage. A flurry of images danced through his mind: him kneeling at her feet and eloquently swearing eternal devotion; Sunny opening her arms and giving him that wonderful smile that had made him feel as if he were the only man in the world; a kiss that would bring them together forever.
    Instead, he cleared his throat to get her attention, then said, “Miss Vangelder—Sunny—there is something I would like to ask you. I’m sure you know what it is.”
    Perhaps she had known that he was there, for there was no surprise on her face when she lowered her book and looked up.
    â€œAll of Newport knows,” she said without inflection.
    She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Wishing that he was skilled at spinning romantic words, he said haltingly, “Sunny, you have had my heart from the first moment I saw you at Swindon. There is no one else…”
    She cut him off with an abrupt motion of her hand. “You needn’t waste our time with pretty lies, Duke. We are here to strike a bargain. You need a fortune and a wife who knows what to do with a dinner setting that includes six forks. I need a husband who will lend luster to my mother’s position in society, and who will confirm our fine American adage that anything can be bought. Please get on with the offer so I can accept and return to my book.”
    He rocked back on his heels, feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach. Wanting to pierce her contemptuous calm, he said with uncharacteristic bluntness, “We’retalking about a marriage, not a business. The first duty of a nobleman’s wife is to produce an heir, and knowledge of which fork to use will not help you there.”
    â€œI’ve heard that begetting children is a monstrously undignified business, but didn’t the Queen tell her oldest daughter that a female needs only to lie there and think of England?” Sunny’s lips twisted. “I should be able to manage that. Most women do.”
    Damning the consequences to Swindon, he said tightly, “There will be no offer, Miss Vangelder, for I will do neither of us a favor by marrying a woman who despises me.”
    Sunny caught her breath, and for the first time since he had arrived in Newport looked directly at him. He was shocked by the haunted misery in her aqua eyes.
    After a moment she bent her neck and pressed her slim fingers to the center of her forehead. “I’m sorry, your grace. I didn’t mean to imply that I despise you,” she said quietly. “I recently…suffered a disappointment, and I’m afraid that my temper is badly out of sorts. Still, that does not excuse my insufferable rudeness. Please forgive me.”
    He guessed that only a broken heart would cause a well-mannered young lady to behave so brusquely. He had heard that Paul Curzon had been in Newport until the week before. Could Sunny have fallen in love with Curzon, who had as many mistresses as the Prince of Wales? Recalling how she had looked at the man when she was at Swindon, Justin knew it was all too likely.
    The disappointment was crushing. When he had received Augusta Vangelder’s invitation, he had assumed that she had obtained her daughter’s agreement to the marriage. He should have known that he would never have been Sunny’s choice. It was Augusta, after all, whowas enthralled by the idea of a