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The Blackmailed Bride
Mandy Goff
Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesThe despicable Baron Finley is the last man Lady Olivia Fairfax would want as her husband, but what choice does she have?He holds the secret to a family scandal, and she must bow to his blackmail or see herself and her brother publicly disgraced. Steeling her resolve—and shielding her heart—Olivia is prepared to do her duty to her family. . . until Nicholas Stuart, the Marquess of Huntsford, complicates her plans. Nick is brave, honorable, infuriatingly attractive and unshakably determined to protect Olivia—even from herself.He won't let Olivia sacrifice her happiness for any price. Instead, he'll teach her to follow her heart. . . and pray that it leads her straight to him.
“Why are you so averse to my compliments?”
“I can’t let you say those things to me,” Olivia replied. “I can’t, even for a moment, let myself be flattered by your pretty words.”
Nick was close enough to her to reach out a hand and lay it on the side of her face. “Why can’t you let me tell you how I feel?”
Olivia’s disgust at the injustice of the situation rolled forth in a consuming wave. “How could I expect you to understand what I’m saying when no one knows?”
“Knows what?” he asked with a furrowed brow.
“Nothing.” She’d already said far more than was safe.
“I thought we were done with the secrets.”
“I still have a few more,” she said quietly.
“You’re going to have to trust someone eventually,” he told her as he withdrew his hand. “I was hoping you might let it be me.”
She turned to him, with her dashed hopes, fear and sadness in her eyes. “It can’t ever be you,” she whispered.
MANDY GOFF
began her foray into the literary world when just a young child. Her first masterwork, a vivid portrayal of the life and times of her stuffed animals, was met with great acclaim from her parents…and an uninterested eye roll from her sister. In spite of the mixed reviews, however, Mandy knew she had found her calling.
After graduating cum laude from North Greenville University with a bachelor’s degree in English, Mandy surrendered her heart—and her pen—to fulfilling God’s call on her life…to write fiction that both entertains and uplifts.
Mandy lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with her husband and three-year-old daughter. And when she is not doing laundry or scouring the house for her daughter’s once-again-missing “Pup-pup,” she enjoys reading good books, having incredibly long phone conversations and finding creative ways to get out of cooking.
Mandy Goff
The Blackmailed Bride
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
—The Song of Solomon 2:11
To Daniel and Brie. I could never eloquently convey how much I love and thank God for you both.
I am blessed beyond measure.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Mom and Dad, for giving me the freedom to dream crazy dreams and for providing me with the support and encouragement to achieve them. To Megan, whom I am prouder than I could say to call both sister and friend and who has believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. To Dennis and Sue, for accepting me into their family long before I married into it. To Elizabeth Mazer, my editor extraordinaire, for being wonderful and long-suffering and for seeing possibilities in the mess. And to Cheryl, who has been my professor, mentor and finally VBFF, and someone I could not thank enough for everything even if I were to say it again…and again…and again.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Letter to Reader
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
“You should probably stand up now.” Lady Olivia Fairfax looked at the gentleman kneeling by her feet and barely resisted the urge to kick him.
“Not before you consent to be my wife,” the Viscount Danfield said.
She suppressed a sigh. “I’m afraid you’ll be there for quite some time, then.” Rising from her chair, she moved several steps away, ill at ease with the young man so close to her. “I could ask someone to fetch a pillow for your knees, if you wish—I assume the floor will grow uncomfortable eventually.”
Viscount Danfield was unfazed. “You jest with me.”
“I assure you, I do not,” she argued.
He blinked. “Surely you see the wisdom in this arrangement.”
“I doubt I, or anyone else, would call a union between us wise.” Olivia hated her necessary cruelty but, goodness, this was his third proposal.
“But your brother has consented,” he said, grabbing the corner of a table and struggling to his feet.
“Marcus agreed you may ask. He never guaranteed my answer.”
Judging from Lord Danfield’s confused expression, he didn’t understand the difference.
At the less-than-discreet sound of a throat being cleared, both Olivia and Danfield turned toward the open door of the morning room.
Gibbons, the family butler, stood in the entryway with a brocade pillow. “I see I have not been quick enough,” the elderly man said with a sigh. “Should I leave this here for the next time he proposes, Lady Olivia?”
Olivia smothered a laugh, grateful—for once—for Gibbons’ penchant for eavesdropping. “That will be fine.”
After depositing the pillow on the nearest chair and turning to leave, Gibbons looked back at Danfield. “Next time, my lord, might I suggest a bit of poetry and perhaps a song or two?”
The obtuse viscount furrowed his brow. “Would it work?”
“No. But I, for one, would find it vastly more entertaining than your usual attempts.”
Danfield stared after Gibbons’s retreating figure, trying to discern whether he’d been insulted. It took him a surprisingly long time.
In spite of her aggravation, Olivia couldn’t help but feel the faintest stirrings of pity for the young man. “I think we would better part as friends,” she suggested. Perhaps niceness would make her refusal easier to handle.
Never one to take unnecessary chances, however, Olivia edged her way toward the door, hoping he would follow.
“We have always been great friends, haven’t we?” he agreed, a little too enthusiastically.
She nodded, wondering how two months in London gave the man leave to claim anything of permanence between them but willing to agree in order to speed his leaving.
“Which is why we should marry,” he said with a nod. “It’s just as Mother said this morning, ‘The best marriages grow on mutual indifference that is rooted in the soil of friendship.’”
“Your mother is…profound…beyond comprehension.” Which was the least insulting thing she could think to say about the staid, arrogant matriarch.
A smile lit his face. “I’m glad you agree. And when I tell you Mother has graciously agreed to instruct you on the art of governing the household affairs after our nuptials…well, I can only imagine how delighted that must make you,” he said.
“How magnanimous,” Olivia muttered through gritted teeth, wondering who he thought had overseen the affairs at Westin Park for the last five years. Whatever inklings of pity she’d felt dissipated.
Danfield missed the warning in her tone. “We—Mother and I—are also concerned over your tendency to bury your nose in a book. That can’t be healthy for a woman. You’ll go blind. And, really, Lady Danfield suggested you learn to think before you speak. Your frankness is fairly scandalizing.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Is it, now?”
Danfield stiffened. “Most women would be grateful we are prepared to help.”
“Well,” Olivia said, brushing her hands together, “you should begin looking for this other paragon. For the last time, Lord Danfield, I will not marry you.”
The refusal seemed to register. His smile fell, and his shoulders sagged. “Will anything change your mind?”
She shook her head.
After a pause, he said, “I think, perhaps, this might.”
He strode toward her, smoothly stepping around the furniture obstacles, and Olivia had no recourse but to retreat, until she was flush against the wall. Danfield’s hot breath puffed against her face.
He was going to kiss her. And her reaction when she realized this was purely instinctual.
She flailed her arms behind her and grabbed a vase off a side table.
And hit him in the head.
Hard.
The young man fell to the floor with a dull thud, covered in bits of broken pottery.
Wonderful. She’d killed a peer of the realm.
Olivia knelt beside the viscount, wondering if she should loosen his cravat, find some smelling salts or perhaps retrieve a wet cloth for him. Although she doubted any of those considerations would be helpful if he were dead.
Reaching out, Olivia shook his shoulder gently, hoping to elicit a response. A groan? A flinch? An apology perhaps?
Nothing.
