Free The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) by Anne Gracíe Page A

no time for the man.
    A man ought to ensure his family was protected from debt, not gamble his money—and their security—away on his own pleasures.
    Compton was cold-bloodedly sacrificing his daughter in exchange for Flynn’s fortune. And she would
do her duty
.
    Still, he couldn’t blame the girl for not responding any more warmly. In fact, given that they hardly knew each other—yet—he found her honesty quite appealing. She was mighty cold for a girl who’d just agreed to be courted, but he had no doubt he’d be able to warm her up.
    He hadn’t even kissed her yet.
    Lord, but these English had it all arse about—marry the girl,
then
kiss her. And of course the bedding to follow.
    He contemplated that prospect. Would she be
doing her duty
then?
    Faith, but that would take the fun out of things.
    They completed their circuit of the park, noting daffodils and snowdrops and other charming—and probably happy—flowers, and then Flynn turned the horses for home.
    He hadn’t made a lot of progress, but the air had been cleared between them, and he fancied she was easier in her manner with him than she had been when they started out.
    Certainly her maid glared at him with slightly less severity as he helped her down. It was progress, of a sort.
    “I wonder, Miss Muir, would you know my manservant, Tibbins? Ernest Tibbins?” he asked her.
    The maid looked at him as if he was mad. “No, why would I?”
    “It’s just that you both seem to speak the same language,”Flynn said. “Afternoon, ladies.” He drove away with a faint smile on his face, leaving both females staring after him.
    The drive hadn’t gone quite as he expected, but he wasn’t unhappy with the result.
    He wasn’t entirely happy, either.
    The girl might be willing, but she could hardly be called eager.
    Daisy’s questions itched at him. Until she’d flung those questions at him, he’d never really questioned his desire to marry a highborn, titled lady. It had seemed perfectly reasonable.
    But putting Daisy’s questions together with Lady Elizabeth’s response to him . . . well, it made a man think.
    On the one hand, he’d always prided himself on not giving the snap of his fingers for what anyone thought of him. On the other, class was important. In every country he’d ever visited, society was arranged in layers, and it was always better to be on the top than on the bottom.
    By marrying Lady Elizabeth, he’d be getting a wife with a fistful of aristocratic connections—and hopefully children. More than anything, Flynn wanted children.
    He knew how he and Lord Compton would benefit, but what about Lady Elizabeth? What was she getting?
    A husband, certainly, and a wealthy one at that. But she didn’t know Flynn well enough to judge if he’d be a good husband to her or not. For all she knew he might be a wife-beater or a gambler and whoremonger, like her father.
    No, marriage to Flynn was her
duty
. But what was her alternative?
    Her home was entailed. Once her father died she’d be homeless, dependent on her cousin’s charity. And she’d been on the marriage mart a couple of years already, so it was clear none of the other nobs wanted a dowerless girl, no matter how pretty-behaved and well-born.
    There was no doubt in Flynn’s mind that she’d accept his proposal, when he made it. The match was everything he’d claimed he wanted. Why then had this drive left a sour taste in his mouth?
    His thoughts were far into the future as he guided the phaeton into the narrow mews that led to the stables. Marriage was for children, and he wanted his children to have every advantage. He didn’t want them to suffer the way he had as a boy.
    On the other hand, he didn’t want to be raising a pack of little snobs who imagined the world owed them a living—and considered themselves superior to ordinary folk—simply because of who they were and who they were related to.
    His fists knotted hard around the reins. No daughter of his would