Free The Bargain Bride by Bárbara Metzger Page A

also volunteered to help her with her chores, the rotter.
    The scoundrel was trying to make her like him. Charming a female must be second nature to a rake like him. Why, every goosegirl and dairymaid on the hard pews sighed when he flashed those dimples, and he had never given them anything. Yet.
    Penny clutched her bouquet more firmly, and her father’s arm with her other hand, to keep it from trembling. Now she knew how a convict felt on that last, slow walk to the gibbet.
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    West could not keep a grin from his face. Zeus, his bride was a beauty. She carried herself with such grace and dignity, one would think she was a duchess or a princess. For once in his life, he’d rolled the dice and come out a winner. Who would have thought it? And why did he wait so long?
    â€œThank you, Father,” he whispered, looking up to where he supposed his dead sire resided, then added, “You, too,” in case anyone else on high was listening.
    Miss Persephone Goldwaite was not merely a fortune with a pretty face and figure. She was a delightful creature with a sound mind and strong opinions of her own. She would never bore him, unlike the milk-and-water misses of proper society who never had two thoughts to rub together. They certainly never gave voice to temper or showed their emotions with every touch of pink across their skin. They never, ever disagreed with a gentleman. Hah!
    According to her friend Mrs. Carne, the vicar, and the servants, Miss Goldwaite had progressive ideas, and never minded putting her own money or hand to furthering a good cause. Heaven knew there were good causes aplenty at his seat in Westfield. As soon as they had fired off Goldwaite’s stepdaughters, they could go to the country and see what needed to be done.
    When he’d come into the title, the fields and farms were in such poor state it was a wonder any tenants stayed on at all. His conscience forced him to reduce their rents, his gambling father and wastrel brother having made no improvements in years except to their own standards of living. At first, West’s primary concern had been with the horses, to have some income to invest back into the land. The estate was finally showing a profit, but he still had no time or money to see about schools and hospitals. Now he’d have a partner who, it appeared, excelled at bettering conditions for those less fortunate. She had already bettered his by agreeing to the marriage.
    So he would have a lovely, interesting, helpful bride . . . who hated him. Well, a man needed a challenge. He smiled again, to see his pearls at her throat, his flowers in her hair. His. Soon he would be able to take the pins out of that golden crown and spread it down her shoulders, feel the curls twine around his fingers, smell the rose water. He’d get to touch her skin, her full breasts, make her nipples harden, make her turn rosy, this time with lovemaking. His.
    He wondered how long it would take. Tonight could not be soon enough.
    He took her hand when she reached his side, and could feel hers tremble. Or shiver with the cold, damn it. Even through their gloves he could tell that her hands were cold. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, but she frowned across at him. Maybe her hands were not the only things cold about his bride. He prayed fate could not be that fickle, putting an icy heart in an inviting body.
    He turned forward and tried to listen to the vicar natter on about the married state, a wife’s duties, a husband’s responsibilities. Great gods, there had to be more than onerous obligations or no one would get married. He knew a brief moment’s panic to think he was taking on those burdens, forever. Then he knew a deeper panic when it seemed he might not be taking a wife today after all.
    â€œDo you?” he whispered to Penny when silence followed the vicar’s repeated question.
    â€œDo I what?” she answered, as if in a trance. Panic was as pervasive in the