Selena was not as over the heartbreak of seven years ago as she’d let Beatrice think. She rubbed her chest where her heart seemed to gnaw at her muscle. Mr. Fisher. Martin. He might always twist her into knots. But it was a well-deserved suffering she’d heaped on herself. Selena’s own selfishness and shame had fed her cousin’s ire all these years. And she would face her painful past if it meant bringing Beatrice, finally, into well-deserved future happiness.
One
No man with an ounce of self-esteem would be caught dead hiding behind a bush. Richard Clark was a man. No doubt about that. But he must have surrendered every bit of self-worth, because he’d been crouching so long behind the shrubbery he couldn’t feel his feet. His ankles were buzzing. And his knees screamed curses that would surely follow him into the afterlife.
All because of a woman. Two women, really, but one in hellish particular.
The least offensive of the two, Miss Selena Bell, blushed prettily by the peonies, talking to Richard’s sister-in-law, the bride-to-be in a fortnight, Mrs. Evelina Denby. And in Richard’s experience, where Miss Bell was, her cousin, the most offensive woman he’d ever met, would surely follow. Like flies to a pile of dung. Inevitable.
He had to escape. How close was the next bush? Why had his brother put the box hedges so far away from one another? Wait… Richard had done that. Following a fashionable trend in landscape gardening. Damn trends to hell. Much better to make landscape decisions and gardening choices based on covert escape routes.That other box hedge must be two fathoms away. At least. He tried to stretch out his arms on either side to measure, but his elbow met the bush, which stabbed him, sending him toppling to the side.
“Bloody—” he hissed, righting himself.
If he darted, even while crouching, someone was bound to see him. And if that someone was Miss Bell’s cousin, well he wasn’t sure what he would do. Something drastic, no doubt. No options other than the drastic remained when facing a she-devil.
What he needed was a shield.
“John!” He screamed so loudly the name scratched his throat.
All the sounds from across the lawn—the chatting and laughing and whispering—stopped. Bound to happen when a man screamed another man’s name.
But the footsteps—foot stomps, more like—started the sound back up again, slamming toward Richard like an out-of-control stagecoach.
Excellent. John was on his way.
“What are you doing?” his half brother hissed as gleaming hessians appeared in Richard’s truncated field of vision. Richard craned his head back to see John grin at the party guests and raise a hand. “All’s well. Merely an injured cat.”
“Quick thinking, brother.”
“Stand up, man. What are you doing down there?”
“Hiding. I’d think that was obvious. Also obvious—I cannot stand up or risk giving my position away, thus defeating the very point of hiding in the first place. I thought you said the Bells weren’t coming.”
John’s scowl lifted. He looked damn near delighted. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“You dirty liar.”
“If I had told you Samuel Bell’s daughter and niece would be attending my wedding, you would have run off to London or Bath or the Continent.” He smoothed his jacket. “And I need my brother this weekend.”
“You do not. You do not need me at all. You wish to torment me.” At least Richard was currently tormenting John in a roundabout way. Everyone at the party would think it odd he was talking to an injured cat.
“That’s not true. Now will you stand up? People think I’ve gone mad talking to a bush. Or the dying cat behind it.”
Damn. He’d caught on. John always caught on.
Richard shot up to his full height a few inches above his similarly tall brother and hooked their arms together. “Run.” He took off for the other bush, placing John between himself and the crowd. “And shield me, you scoundrel.”
John chuckled but obliged. “Me? A scoundrel? You know better.”
“And you know better than to put me and Beatrice Bell in the same room together.”
Beatrice. The sharp-tongued plague to all mankind.
“Miss Bell is a delightful young lady.”
“MissBellstill?” Richard slowed for a moment, thoughtful. Surely she would have married by now. “Delightfuloldlady, more like. And hardly delightful. I know her, you forget.”
“Oh, I do not forget. The last time the two of you shared conversation, you nearly destroyed the world. Global chaos.”
