Free The Bargain Bride by Bárbara Metzger Page B

tiny chapel as the cold. She hadn’t been listening to anything but her own heart’s galloping beat, wondering whether it would stop altogether, and whether that might not be a blessing. If the viscount had not been holding her hand, she would have collapsed for sure. Was he supporting her or dragging her closer to the abyss?
    â€œDevil take it,” West swore, earning him a frown from Mr. Smithers and a reminder where he was. “Hell,” he swore again, “if we weren’t in a church, I wouldn’t care what she replied.”
    The vicar cleared his throat. “Miss Goldwaite?”
    West squeezed her hand, too hard to ignore. “Yes?”
    â€œDo you take this man, et cetera?”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œDo not turn craven on me now, my girl,” West urged, while he could hear mutterings behind him, and a growl from Sir Gaspar. “ ‘Oh’ is not the proper response. Do you want to marry me or not?”
    â€œI . . . I think I do. That is, I do.” He squeezed her hand again, this time in gratitude, she thought, so she spoke up louder. “Yes, I do.”
    She did.
    West raised his eye heavenward again for another prayer of thanks and apology for his harsh words. A breeze blew through the chapel, as if the entire congregation had exhaled the breaths they’d been holding.
    She did.
    Then he got to kiss the bride. Not that anyone told him he ought, but he did anyway. The kiss was not a hasty formal finalizing of the vows, either, but a real kiss, a deep kiss, a kiss as if no one were watching. A seal on their union, a promise of the union of their bodies as well as their fortunes and fates.
    Her lips were cold until he warmed them with his. And then his bride—no, his wife—kissed him back.
    She did!
    Lady Westfield was not cold at all. West smiled. Her cheeks were aflame, and her breaths were coming in gasps, and her eyes were still closed.
    The vicar cleared his throat.
    Penny opened her eyes, blinked away the dazed expression, and muttered for her new husband’s ears only, “I still do not like you.”
    The sound of West’s laughter warmed the whole chapel.

Chapter Eight
    To avoid an arranged match, Lord J. wed an actress. She promised to love, honor, and obey. She was acting.
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—By Arrangement, a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber
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    N ow, that was unfair. No man should kiss like that. Or laugh like that. Penny felt hot and cold, weak-kneed and paralyzed, humiliated, humbled, and—heavens, the man could kiss! How could she have reached the advanced age of six and twenty without knowing that a kiss could make a woman’s stomach do somersaults, her heart skip a beat, and her mind skitter off? Well, the answer to that was simple: Penny did not know because her promised husband had never shown her. He’d waited all those years and then he chose today, in the chapel, to demonstrate what she’d been missing. He’d had almost two decades of practice to perfect his skills, practice on other women.
    He was despicable. And he had dimples. What was a woman—nay, a wife—with newly discovered wanton tendencies to do? She would not fall in love with him, Penny swore. She absolutely would not.
    Proud that she had survived the kiss, and the wedding ceremony, Penny imagined the rest of the day would be easier. It was not. She had to sign the register, and sign the papers her father’s solicitor had drawn up, making her feel like a purchased pig. Then came the congratulations and well wishes of people she had known the past years. Some were angry they had not known about her betrothal to an aristocrat, as if she had misled them about being one of their own class. Some were disappointed she’d be leaving, and leaving the charities to them to manage. Some were genuinely happy for her, and some—every unwed woman and half the married ones—were jealous. During it all, Penny had