Never Fall for your Fiancée, page 3
Not that it would tempt her to accept his ludicrous offer.
“As a rule, Lord Fareham, I believe nobody has the right to judge others until they have walked a mile in their shoes.”
Although she pitied whoever was fool enough to want to walk a mile in her leaky boots or experience her daily hand-to-mouth existence. Unfortunately, she suspected it would take more than twenty pounds to change it. “I don’t blame you for wanting to avoid responsibility. Responsibility can wear a person down.”
As it had her. But the responsibility of two younger sisters and all that entailed had been foisted on her. Thanks to her feckless sire, she had been both mother and father to those girls since the day after her nineteenth birthday. She had had no choice other than to shoulder it and do what was necessary until the girls were safely married.
As much as she loved her sisters, at least once a week Minerva fantasized about how nice it would be to be solely responsible for just herself. Wouldn’t that be a luxury? New shoes, a few new dresses, better-quality pens and chisels for her woodcuts. A place of her own to sit and be at peace. A few hours of solitary tranquility every day . . . Was that too much to ask?
Instead, they were all bundled together in three tiny rooms, and every penny went to necessities. As if to remind her of one of those necessities, her stomach growled in protest at the absence of the breakfast she couldn’t afford to buy this morning. Or yesterday morning either, thanks to Mr. Pinkerton. With twenty pounds, she could buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all three of them for a year . . .
Good gracious! At this rate, she’d be biting his hand off to accept his outrageous proposition, seduced by just his presence and the alluring thoughts of toast and butter.
Minerva schooled her features into an unimpressed and slightly dubious mask. “You were explaining how your mother’s matchmaking became intolerable?”
“Intolerable and suffocating. I endured it for as long as I could. For years, she shoved young lady after young lady under my nose. Wherever I went, whatever I did, there would be someone there— eyelashes fluttering. Even my own house became a torture chamber.” She caught a whiff of his cologne and was sorely tempted to lean closer to inhale it. “I suffered through endless teas and interminable dinners, making small talk with determined young ladies all too eager to sink their claws into me. And some of those ladies were quite tenacious, I can tell you. They resorted to all manner of devilments, Miss Merriwell. Unimaginable machinations which my mother was often fully complicit in. That I managed to remain single is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle. Just shy of two years ago, on the spur of the moment while at my wits’ end with dear Mama, I invented Minerva to put a stop to it.”
“I see.”
Although she didn’t. Inventing a fiancée, even under such trying conditions, seemed a bit extreme. Maintaining the ruse undetected for a prolonged period of time seemed highly implausible. Especially as his mother obviously wanted to see him wed. Surely, she would have investigated his claim? Sought out his imaginary fiancée?
“I take it your mother lives exclusively in Hampshire?”
That might explain why she was yet to meet his Minerva. Unlikely, but possible, she supposed. And there she went again, believing the unbelievable. Why did she keep giving him the benefit of the doubt when bitter experience had taught her that men usually were that shallow? A silly question, when she already knew the answer: twenty whole pounds and an aesthetically pleasing broad set of shoulders. Two shameful truths that probably made her shallow, when she had always prided herself on her substance.
“She resides in Boston. The one in America, not Lincolnshire. Did I mention my stepfather is American?”
“She continued matchmaking all the way from America?” Now, that really was quite a feat and did not help to give credence to his story despite the shoulders.
“My mother is a determined woman, Miss Merriwell. And a romantic. It is her sole mission to see me settled and she wasn’t the least bit deterred by the distance. At least when she was here, I could keep an eye on things or escape well in advance if I got wind of her plans.” He pulled a face. “After she left, her scheming became much more unpredictable. Her campaign to see me shackled continued with a vengeance via correspondence, and thanks to her wide circle of acquaintances here in town, she was able to recruit an army of minions to continue the work she had started. Within a few months of her departure, I found myself inundated with invitations and daily surprise visits from every society matron or social-climbing gentleman eager to marry off a daughter. I was accosted at entertainments and harangued if I ventured outside.”
“Poor you.” How the problems of the rich and entitled differed from hers. Minerva would give her back teeth to swap. Living in his world certainly held more appeal than living in hers. Fancy clothes. Comfortable furniture. Servants there to serve your every whim . . .
“When that failed, my mother threatened to return alone, sacrificing her own happiness until we found me the perfect bride together. She knew the guilt I would inevitably feel would become insufferable. And she also knew I would loathe the enforced proximity which such a self-sacrificing visit would undoubtedly entail. As a point of principle, a gentleman should always rebel against a parent— don’t you think?”
“I suppose a little rebellion ensures you are your own man.” How wonderful would it be to have the luxury of rebellion! Her wandering father hadn’t given her the option.
“Exactly! Except . . . I’ll admit, in my case the principle got rather out of hand, and at the imminent threat of her booking her passage, I panicked. I invented Minerva— a young lady of gentle breeding who dragged me out of my shallow, self-indulgent existence and showed me there was more to life.”
He gestured to her person as if she fitted the bill exactly, then winced again. “Like you, Miss Merriwell, I have a talent with the pen— except mine is with prose rather than drawing. Knowing my mother’s penchant for romance, I declared there was no need for her to rush home, because Cupid’s arrow had finally pierced me and my heart was hopelessly lost. In gushing detail, I told her I’d rescued a beautiful damsel in distress from a runaway carriage, and immediately fallen head over heels in love with her the moment I stared into her intoxicating eyes. It was a most convincing and, if I might say, touching tale but not one I am particularly proud of.”
“Minerva was an act of desperation?” She knew all about desperation. Desperation tempted down-on-their-luck young ladies to seriously consider posing as a gentleman’s fiancée for twenty measly pounds.
“She was— and one which was only meant to be temporary. But, at my mother’s delight and the immediate cessation of all her matchmaking, I rather allowed myself to get a bit carried away. I embellished the lie to maintain the status quo.”
“For two entire years?” There must be something intrinsically different in the makeup of men and women, she decided. Something that allowed them to act selfishly rather than do the decent thing.
“I was seduced by the freedom, Miss Merriwell. Freedom is a heady drug.” He stared off into nothing, giving her an opportunity for her easily swayed artist’s eye to stare at his magnificent profile a tad more longingly than she should have. She huffed out a withering sigh at her momentary lapse of good sense. The last time she had been swayed by soulful eyes and a pair of broad shoulders, it had ended very badly. “But alas, with all my embellished stalling, my intrepid mother has now decided enough is enough. She has booked passage home to help with the wedding preparations. I feel positively wretched about it all. If she discovers I’ve been lying to her all this time, it will break her heart. I never intended to hurt her . . .” He looked genuinely sad. Charmingly lost. Minerva was staggered that still called to her. “That is why I need you. If you pose as my fiancée, she need never know the awful truth of my deception.”
“Surely you are simply prolonging the agony by perpetuating the lie?”
“I have no intention of perpetuating it. I only need you to be my Minerva for a few weeks. A month at most, so my mother can meet you, see that wedding plans are in place and then”— he shrugged his shoulders, frowning in a very nonreassuring sort of way— “then we’ll find a convincing way for our prolonged engagement to be immediately terminated and my mother will be there to comfort me in my heartbreak.”
And there it was, the unpalatable reality of the situation. The reminder that those twenty pounds came from something totally disingenuous.
“You want me to play the villain while we both lie to her?”
“I haven’t worked out all the details yet.”
“Clearly.”
Despite the seductive allure of twenty pounds, a lie was a lie no matter how you dressed it up. The Merriwells might be on the cusp of destitution, but they had morals. Or at least some of them did. “I cannot do something so grievous to a complete stranger, Lord Fareham. Your mother has done nothing to hurt me, yet my actions will undoubtedly wound her if she discovers our duplicity. I will not be party to that.”
Minerva turned, lofty decision made, then remembered he had aided her with Mr. Pinkerton. “I thank you for your kind assistance earlier. I wish you good luck with your predicament and a very good day.”
And goodbye to the errant dream of twenty whole pounds. It had been lovely while it had lasted.
As had he.
For a little while, strolling beside him and daring to dream of all she would do with his money, she had actually felt four and twenty.
“What if I made it forty pounds?”
Her step faltered. Forty pounds would pay their rent for at least two years and give them plenty to spare for a few luxuries. Or they could move out of the depressing rooms in Clerkenwell and start afresh somewhere nicer. Somewhere larger. Somewhere with prospects in a better part of town. With forty pounds, Minerva could advertise her talents in the newspapers herself, extend her clientele beyond her small corner of the city, increase her ability to earn a decent living from illustrating.
Forty whole pounds opened up possibilities. Possibilities that might well change their lives.
Chapter Three
“I still don’t like it.” Diana had uttered the same sentence at least twenty times since they had left London. “It’s all a little convenient. Potentially dangerous and, frankly, wrong, if you want my opinion.”
Minerva didn’t. She wanted to read or gaze out of the window at the lush green countryside rushing by. Anything to avoid thinking about the ludicrous, yet undeniably lucrative, scheme she had got them involved in until they arrived at his house.
She was going to pose as a peer of the realm’s fiancée to prevent him from being caught out in a monstrous lie. Minerva didn’t need Diana’s scowl across the confined space of the carriage to feel uncomfortable about what they were about to do, because she was thoroughly ashamed for agreeing to it. Although, in her defense, she had only done so because things were dire.
The direst, in fact.
If her unexpected knight in shining armor hadn’t turned up when he had to prize the nine shillings and threepence out of Mr. Pinkerton’s pudgy hands, at this precise moment they could all be sleeping on the street. Participating in his little white lie would ensure they remained off the streets for years, and the brief interlude of living in the lap of luxury didn’t hurt either.
Diana folded her arms and glared. “When exactly, Sister dear, did we stoop so low?”
When you got sacked from the lending library for biting back at a customer and we could no longer afford the rent! Minerva petulantly thought, but didn’t say it. It was hardly fair in the grand scheme of things to solely blame Diana. Had she been in her sister’s worn-out shoes when the gentleman had called her a brainless idiot, she’d have probably done the same before common sense had kicked in. They were all too outspoken and stubbornly proud. When life left you nothing else, you had to be. And despite being the most recent nail in the Merriwell sisters’ coffin, Diana’s outburst was hardly the only thing responsible for their rapid descent further down the slippery slope of poverty toward destitution. Nor was it Diana’s fault Minerva had sold her integrity to a handsome but dubious man for the princely sum of forty pounds.
Forty pounds that she hoped would alleviate the shame she inwardly felt for having to sell her integrity in the first place.
Vee chewed on her lip nervously, reminding Minerva that her youngest sister, no matter how mature and studious she appeared on the surface, was still only seventeen. “Not to mention highly improper— three single, unchaperoned girls staying on the country estate of a bachelor.” Vee was a stickler for the genteel propriety she devoured in books, although the Lord only knew why, considering their reduced circumstances and distinct lack of hope for any worthy suitors. She stared down at her gloved hands. “We only have his word and that servant’s that he is the Earl of Fareham.”
“He had the bearing of an earl.” Not that Minerva had ever met one before, of course. Earls were few and far between in their part of London. Clerkenwell was the home of a declining number of watchmakers and reputable shopkeepers, a few more ne’er-do-wells and pickpockets, and a large proportion of the great unwashed. But it was cheap, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Regardless, whether he is or he isn’t, he is wealthy enough to afford this splendid carriage— and this is his spare carriage at that!”
Minerva realized she might be in danger of appearing a tad overwhelmed by the trappings of his wealth rather than being the usual sensible, level-headed oldest sibling in charge— albeit one who had been privately pondering Lord Fareham’s soulful eyes a little too much. She stared levelly at her sisters and presented some cold, hard facts. “I appreciate you both disapprove of my decision. I disapprove of it myself. However, considering our ongoing and miserable situation, frankly, only a fool would have turned down his lucrative proposal.”
Vee frowned. “I just wish you had allowed us to meet him first, Minerva. Then we could have made our own judgments about his character. Perhaps you should have invited him home for tea . . .”
She felt herself cringe at the thought of him seeing her in her true environment, with its shabby thirdhand furniture, peeling paint, and the lingering aroma of the slums outside. “I could hardly bring him home, could I?” Inviting his butler in had been bad enough. The man’s eyes had been everywhere before finally coming to rest on hers with pity. “Lord Fareham lives in Mayfair!”
Vee immediately forgot to be seventeen again and glared through her spectacles, appalled. “There is no shame in poverty, Minerva.”
It was a saying their erstwhile father often uttered while they were growing up and one that she might have believed had he not cheerfully abandoned them when things got too much for him. Which just happened to coincide with Minerva reaching an age where she could step into his worthless shoes. The scoundrel had trained her for it!
“There is no joy in it either, Vee. Only misery— as we well know.” With each passing season, it got harder and harder, and like her sisters, Minerva was old beyond her years.
Old, tired, and slowly being worn into the ground by the relentless drudgery of life.
A sad indictment of her four and twenty years on the earth. “We all work as hard as we can, day in and day out, and yet still barely manage to scrape enough to make ends meet.”
If their stars didn’t dramatically change, even Vee would have to work all the hours God sent to earn her keep. Minerva had shielded her as much as she could from the depravity of their situation, allowing her to continue studying in the hope she might have a better future, but that would come to an abrupt stop once she entered the transient and despondent ranks of the workforce. Vee would have to grow up very fast, or her gentle, bookish, sensitive little sister would be grossly taken advantage of.
“I appreciate all your misgivings about Lord Fareham’s proposition, really I do, for it is peculiar and exceedingly out of the ordinary. I am well aware that what I am doing is morally debatable, but I shall tell you now up front— I will happily pose as his fiancée until Easter if need be. I fail to believe it is possible for life on an earl’s country estate in Hampshire, pretending to be someone else while being paid handsomely for it, to feasibly be as hard as our lives now. High morals won’t put food on the table nor will they keep a roof over our heads!”
“I suppose.” Vee was still understandably concerned, and really, who could blame her?
The past few days had been a bit of a whirlwind. On Wednesday her oldest sister had left home to reason with Mr. Pinkerton to keep a roof over their heads. On Thursday, that same sister had practically forced her into a strange man’s coach headed for the south coast on the basis of little more than a promise, to live under another roof. An ever-so-slightly scandalous, thoroughly charming bachelor’s roof. Had Vee or Diana come home and announced to her they were all to pose as a potential scoundrel’s fake betrothed’s family, she’d have hit the roof. That they were both here, albeit begrudgingly, was a direct result of Minerva’s unfortunate position as head of the family, one they respected and pitied her for in equal measure.
“I just wish we knew more about his character.”
“Perhaps he’s a murderer?” Diana was always the most fanciful of the three of them. “And perhaps this is all a convoluted ruse to feed his unquenchable thirst for killing?”
“You spend far too much time at that newspaper.” Her sister was forever attempting to submit articles in the hope one would someday be published, but the proprietor of the rag paid her a pittance to correct the spelling and the grammar of his less talented male reporters each week before his tawdry publication went to press. “You are convinced everyone is up to no good.” At just twenty-two, Diana was more cynical about the world than even Minerva was.
“I simply prefer to look at life through a clear, unobstructed lens rather than through the presently naive rose-tinted one you are clearly using. What has happened to you, Minerva? Do you honestly think the grass is greener as a rich man’s paid companion? I still cannot fathom what you were thinking to agree to such a preposterous falsehood.” Diana had taken it upon herself to do some hasty investigating at the newspaper before they left, and her account of Lord Fareham’s reputation was, Minerva couldn’t deny, a great source of worry. He had made several appearances in the scandal sheets both for his leisurely lifestyle and his alleged philandering. So much so she doubted he was overly burdened with the responsibilities of being an earl, as he had so convincingly claimed. As a result, he needed to be relegated to a flawed knight in her mind— and perhaps not even a knight at all. More a knave or perhaps even a scoundrel. That would be more prudent than contemplating his dratted soulful eyes! She was better equipped to deal with a scoundrel. An expert, in fact.
