Free Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

didn’t quite see it all the way she did, but that was because he had this notion to protect her. What he didn’t understand was that she didn’t need protecting. She knew what she was getting into, which was why she let all her uncle’s arguments roll off her back like water off a duck. Every single thing that Uncle Arthur saw as a flaw in Bernard, she saw as just right.
    Yes, he was sort of dull, no denying it. But that was fine with her. A dull man was safe and predictable and easy to manage. Her friend Jennie Carter had married a French marquess, and from what Jennie had written, married women in Europe had far more freedom than married women in America. Here, a woman managed her home and not much else, but over there, a married woman was free to manage near anything she wanted, just as long as she could manage one thing: her husband. Annabel intended to do just that.
    And yes, Bernard had already had a mistress or two, but that was long before he’d met her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have some peccadilloes in her own past.
    She also knew Bernard wouldn’t have asked her to marry him if she were poor. Poor girls from no-account families didn’t get to marry the boys from the good families. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.
    Marry you? Billy John’s incredulous voice echoed through her mind from eight years ago, as clear as if it had all happened yesterday. It didn’t hurt now, but she vividly remembered how much it hurt then. She couldn’t change her past, but she had damn well been able to learn from it.
    She wasn’t in love with Bernard, and she hoped to God she would never be in love again. Girls in love were silly, and they made stupid, silly mistakes. She was a woman now, one whose eyes were wide open, and she was just fine with the way things had turned out. Bernard was offering her something more important than love, something she’d been seeking all her life: respect. There was no way she was turning that down.
    A whole new world was about to open up. She’d have a husband and children to care for, and a house—castle, really—to manage. Her money would be in her control, and she had heaps of plans for what to do with it. Hospitals and orphanages and schools where poor girls could learn a trade. Yes, she was fair bursting with ideas, and she felt as if life was just beginning. She couldn’t wait to get started.
    A loud, exuberant whistle interrupted her thoughts and Annabel turned her head to see a ship every bit as grand as the Atlantic approaching the harbor from the open sea, black smoke spilling from its bright red smokestacks. To her, it was a magnificent sight, for these big ocean liners spoke of adventure and exotic far-off places that she couldn’t wait to see. London would be first, of course, and then the rest of England. After that, Bernard had promised to show her Europe and Egypt, maybe even the Orient. A bubble of excitement rose up inside her, and she laughed out loud, anticipating all the wonderful things that lay ahead.
    â€œBest not to stand there, Miss Wheaton.”
    She turned at the sound of her name. A man she’d never seen in her life before stood in the doorway that led to the first class cabins of A-deck, one shoulder propped against the jamb in a negligent pose, hands in his trouser pockets, watching her. His lean face, handsome in a dark and wild sort of way, was unfamiliar to her.
    She frowned, puzzled. “Do I know you?”
    He flashed her a grin. “Would you like to?”
    Annabel stiffened. She wasn’t unaccustomed to men who got fresh—she’d dealt with men like that plenty of times in the days before society and chaperones, men who thought they could take advantage of a girl.
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t,” she answered and turned her back, leaning out over the rail again to resume watching the approaching ship.
    â€œI don’t blame you a jot,” he said,