The Brambleberry Bride

by Hayley Ann Solomon

Genres: Gothic; Romance; Victorian Romance

Synopsis

Left heartbroken at his wedding altar, Viscount Waverly has decided it is up to his brother, Captain Bertram Ralston, to carry on the family name, and he believes Anastasia Richmond will make the perfect bride. But upon arrival at the Richmond estate, Bertram is smitten by a woman he soon learns is not the woman he was intended to wed. Now caught in a tangled web, Bertram finds himself in a most unsatisfactory situation. . . or is it?

Previously published in His Bride to Be

26,161 Words

Release date: January 1, 2013

Publisher: eKensington

Print pages: 78

Sample

“Miss Anastasia Richmond is receiving morning callers in the cherry salon, Captain. May I take your hat?”

Captain Bertram Ralston was looking particularly dapper in a cheerful riding coat of bright periwinkle blue. His hat—a quixotic creation that just passed for a curly beaver—was of an equally jaunty style. This he handed over with an air of gloom that was sadly at odds with his character.

“Is she?”

“Indeed. Lady Richmond is attendant upon her. They have been expecting you all morning, if I may say so, sir.”

Captain Bertram avoided, with difficulty, pulling a rude and thoroughly disgruntled face. Instead, his hands slid into his pockets and his shoulders drooped ever so slightly as he nodded his thanks.

“Shall I escort you up, sir?”

“Gracious heavens . . . Porter, is it? I think I can remember my way about! It has not been so very long, after all!”

“Five years, sir. And may I be the first to welcome you back?” The butler’s face creased, momentarily, into an infinitesimal smile.

“Thank you.” Bertram longed to ask whether Mistress Anastasia had changed much. She’d been such a timid little thing when they had played together all that time ago. A small snip of a girl with mousy hair and a slight lisp. Now he had been informed, on returning from the Peninsula, that his brother considered her an entirely eligible match.

That was the Viscount Waverley all over! Thoroughly autocratic and entirely too overbearing by far. Still, he had the annoying knack of being almost always perfectly right as well as holding the much-coveted distinction of being absolutely top-of-the-trees. A member of the Four Horse Club, he drove to an inch, was an arbiter of all matters of fashion, and, unfortunately, was dearly beloved of his younger brother.

That was why Bertram was standing here now, rather foolishly toying with his cravat and fighting the craven desire to take heel and return immediately to London. As far as he was concerned, matrimony was one of those unpleasant states one contemplated only far into the distant future. It was not the sort of thing that should hover menacingly over one’s head like the sword of Damocles. He had not known a moment’s peace since his brother had announced this latest whim. And for what? For an heir to Waverley! That was absurd, since his brother was in prime twig and perfectly capable of getting shackled himself.

A shadow crossed the Honourable Bertram’s face. Andrew, Viscount Waverley, had been crossed once in love. It was too much to hope he would allow the same to occur twice. No, if the line was to continue, it would, unfortunately, have to be through him. That much had been made transparently clear. Bertram sighed. Sometimes he wished he had been born plain Tom Thumb rather than second in line to a venerable peerage. Still, duty called, and the route to the cherry salon was through the gallery, if he remembered aright. With a quickening of his step and a straightening of those expressive shoulders, he waved airily to the butler and started up the great marble stairs.

He did not hesitate on the landing but passed through a gallery of rather garish portraits, hastily introduced by Lady Richmond in an effort to be “civilised.” All the fittings were of bright gold and glared out at Bertram as he took step after step on piled carpet in the Egyptian mode. As usual, no expense had been spared in these renovations. Lady Richmond—previously the daughter of a rich city merchant—could well afford them. Unfortunately, her taste, though expensive, could not always be described as pleasing. Bertram thought this an understatement as he finally rounded the corner and found the cherry-salon door. It was open, so he gulped a little, breathed deeply, fiddled with gleaming brass buttons, and reminded himself firmly that he had made Andrew no promises beyond agreeing to “look the chit over.”

He stepped forward, then gasped for another breath of air. Not, this time, for fortification of the spirits, but in outright surprise. True, there was a lady occupying the room, but she was not seated demurely by a tea tray as he had expected. Neither was she blessed with mousy hair, and as for a small snip of a thing, well! Miss Anastasia Richmond had truly grown, and in the nicest of places. Bertram could tell, for she was dancing with abandon across the length of the room. There was no orchestra, of course, so she was improvising with a merry whistle and the odd interpolation of a hum. Bertram could not tell by the hum whether she still lisped, but he did not care. In that moment he knew that Andrew, as usual, had been strangely, extraordinarily, and unequivocally correct. He must marry Miss Anastasia and marry her at once. Just as soon she set down the ridiculous broomstick she was waltzing with. Where had she acquired such an object? Surely she hadn’t thieved from the scullery maid? But there! If she could dance with a mop, she could do anything.

He was just clearing his throat to make his presence known when she compounded her undoubtedly error-filled ways by executing a cartwheel. The captain regarded her with no small interest, for the exertion tipped her clean upside down and afforded him a hitherto undreamed-of view of mountains of petticoats and the shapeliest pair of legs he had ever had the bountiful good fortune of observing. These, it might be added, were encased in pantalets. Common in France, but still shockingly fast in England, of course.

“Oh!” The young lady had tipped herself the right way up and noticed, for the first time, that she was not alone.

Bertram watched with amusement for the crimson that must inevitably suffuse her face as she realised her horrible predicament. He waited in vain, for, far from blushing, the lady emitted a gurgle of laughter and patted down her petticoats with all the aplomb of the perfectly at ease.

“I knew the pantalets would come in handy! It would have been a shocking thing, would it not, had I heeded Lady Richmond’s advice and cast them into the fire?”

Bertram nodded solemn agreement, though his errant mind could not help conjuring up the image she provoked.

“Shocking,” he said. “More shocking, in fact, than mentioning your unmentionables to an unknown gentleman.”

“For which I will no doubt be sent to bed without dessert for a week if you were so disobliging as to mention it.”

Bertram feigned indignation. “I am not, I hope, such a mawworm.”

“Good! I suspected as much the moment I saw you. But you are not, you know, unknown. I have the advantage of you, sir. You must be the Honourable Captain Bertram Ralston, late of the Sixth Hussars.”

“And I fancied I had changed much in five years.”

“Your smile gives you away, though you do look very grand!”

Bertram was diverted. “I do, don’t I? Had the coat fashioned by Weston, and the boots, of course, are by Lobb.”

“You are the very pink, my dear sir! ” The lady bestowed such a dazzling smile upon him that Bertram, if he’d been entertaining the slightest smidgen of doubt, found that it melted away upon the instant. He was charged with marrying this girl, and marry her he would! For an instant, he wondered whether he ought to formally speak to her parents. In his annoyance, he had forgotten to inquire of such details.

He looked into her bright, merry eyes and decided that such niceties could wait. She was, after all, primed for a proposal. Consequently, he dropped to one knee, quite oblivious of the dust on the appalling strawberry red pile.

“If you agree to wed m. . .