Read Online Married in Haste by Cathy Maxwell - Free Book Online Page B

around his mouth and that Hamlin’s gaze didn’t quite meet his own.
    “My sister will be down shortly. Would you like Nestor to take those flowers from you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but signaled for the butler to do so immediately.
    Brenn pulled back. “That’s fine. I’ll give them to her.” He wanted to use his small offering to see if her gaze shifted away from his own like her brother’s had. The butler retreated, leaving a silent footman behind to see to their needs.
    “Well,” Hamlin said, clapping his hands together to fill the sudden void of conversation. “This is a momentous occasion. We need a glass of wine to celebrate.” He moved toward a wine decanter and glasses on a nearby serving table.
    Brenn watched him, the words Is your sister carrying another man’s child? on the tip of his tongue. He’d always been one for plain speaking but then that had been before he was an earl…before he’d wanted something as much as he did Erwynn Keep. The starched and carefully folded neckcloth around his throat seemed as tight and constricting as a noose.
    And then he heard the rustle of skirts and smelled the scent of lilies. He turned…and questions died in his throat.
    Miss Hamlin stood in the doorway. Tess. Beautiful Tess. She appeared even more lovely in the light of day than she had in the garden last night, and he no longer questioned his judgment.
    Her thick, red-gold hair was piled high on her head but without the fussy curls and jewels of the night before. Brenn imagined that if he pulled out a pin here and another there, it would tumble down to her waist.
    Her dress, the shade of a robin’s egg, brought out the vivid blue of her almond-shaped eyes. She raised those eyes to his and said, “How are you today, my lord?” in a honey-smooth voice.
    It took him a moment to find his own voice. “These are for you.” He shoved the bouquet forward, conscious that the flowers paled in comparison to her vibrant beauty.
    She moved with a grace that made her seem to float across the floor. Her long, elegant fingertips brushed his as she reached for the bouquet. She didn’t wear gloves and he felt the heat of her body all the way down to his toes.
    What spell did this woman weave over him?
    She lifted the flowers to her nose and he noticed her hands trembled, ever so slightly. “These are lovely,”
    she murmured.
    “So are you,” he said. The words had come out unbidden; he couldn’t have stopped them if he’d tried.
    Her lips parted in surprise. Hamlin chuckled. “Merton, you will have to be less direct. You’re not on a battlefield anymore but ready to join the ranks of married men. Mark my words, if you talk to my sister that way after the wedding, she’ll walk all over you.” He laughed at his own small joke.
    But Tess didn’t join him. Instead, two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks and, for a moment, Brenn sensed the truth. It was there, plain to see. She was hiding something. Both of them were.
    The heat of lust was tempered by a slap of cold reality.
    His gaze dropped to her slim waist. No sign of breeding—yet.
    A woman’s trilling voice announced herself from the doorway. “My lord, pardon me for not joining you sooner.” An attractive blonde swept into the room.
    “Merton, this is my wife, Stella,” Hamlin said, gesturing with his wineglass. He handed a glass to Brenn.
    “Stella, the earl of Merton.”
    Brenn bowed over the hand she offered. “Mrs. Hamlin.”
    “Stella, please,” she corrected him enthusiastically. “After all, we are soon to be brother and sister in marriage, are we not? There is no purpose in standing on ceremony.” She gave Tess’s shoulders a sisterly hug that was not returned. “I am so excited that you are marrying our dear, dear Tess. And what a handsome couple you make. Brenn—I may call you Brenn, no?” She charged on, barely pausing for breath. “Neil tells me your family estate is in Wales.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “And I