The Accidental Countess (The Aristocrat Diaries 3)

Matthew had been busy preparing for his new hotel on Anglesey to open, and even if he hadn’t been, it wasn’t like he could come over every five minutes to figure it out with me.

Three hundred plus miles was a little far to travel to discuss a last-minute cake topper change, and I’d felt more stress than I’d ever thought imaginable. I knew brides got agitated over their wedding day and wanting everything to be perfect, and maybe that was my problem.

One minute I cared, and then I remembered that this wasn’t real.

Nothing about this wedding was real.

It was nothing more than a contract, an agreement, an arrangement.

It was all being the right woman, in the right place, at the right time. If it weren’t me, Matthew would have found someone else who could fulfil this role. It wasn’t as though he had any kind of shortage of women interested in him—heck, he could even pretend to fall in love with someone if that was what he truly wanted to do.

I was becoming a countess by chance.

An accident, almost.

In an hours’ time, I was going to walk down that aisle towards the man at the end of it. I was going to say two of the most important words I’d ever say in my life, the ones that would give my consent to become his wife, and I wouldn’t mean them in the slightest.

When I said, “I do,” I would be lying.

In a church.

In front of the big man upstairs.

I was honestly a little afraid I might burst into flames at the altar.

Maybe that was why I was hiding in the bathroom in my dressing gown with a face full of makeup, a fancy arse hairdo, and a tiara on my flipping head.

Locking myself in here wasn’t my finest moment, but it was the only time anyone had left me alone this morning.

Except the flowers.

Why were there flowers in the sink?

I was going to be haunted by those flowers for the rest of my life. Not to mention some biblical Christian guilt because I was breaking the sanctity of marriage before I’d even become someone’s wife.

Christ on a bobsled, this was a bad day for me to get a conscience.

Oh, no.

Now I felt bad for using the baby Jesus’s name in vain.

You know what this bathroom needed? Alcohol. A strong one. Neat. Easily accessible to throw down my throat until I could calm down.

I was not okay.

Was this cold feet? Were my tootsies chilly?

Why did I have cold feet? It wasn’t like I was committing myself to him for the rest of my life. It was five years at most. All I had to do was birth our crotch goblins, and I’d be free.

Well, I had to mother them, too, but that was beside the point.

At least the tiara was pretty.

Actually, I was a huge fan of the tiara. Who didn’t want to feel like a princess, even if it was only for a day? My uncle had given me permission to borrow the Leicester Tiara, my family’s ancestral tiara, but Matthew had also set out the option of the Anglesey Rose Tiara.

In the end, during the hair process, I’d opted for the one belonging to the family I was marrying into. It was smaller than our family’s, and the design just seemed… more me.

It was stunningly beautiful with the way diamond-encrusted leaves curved towards equally gorgeous stone-set flowers that Matthew had explained were modelled after Anglesey’s county flower, the spotted rock rose. If you looked carefully enough, there was a slightly larger stone on each petal where the spot would be.

It was frighteningly accurate for a piece of jewellery.

And it really did look incredible on.

I just needed to get the rest of my things on.

“Eva?” Adelaide knocked gently on the door. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Liar. Unlock the door.”

I sighed and did just that, then sat back down on top of the closed toilet seat. She slipped through, barely opening the door at all, and closed it, twisting the lock again.

She looked so pretty in her bridesmaid dress. The powder blue was the prettiest colour and looked incredible against her dark hair.

Better than white would look on me.

My sister leaned against the door and met my gaze. “Eva, you don’t have to do this.”

“The sentiment is very sweet,” I replied slowly. “But you know as well as I do that I do. It’s the very last minute, and I can’t back out of it now.”

“You can. He’d understand.”

“There’s a contract that says otherwise.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Ah. Yes. That is right.”

I shrugged and looked down at my painted toenails. “There’s just a lot happening, and I need a minute, that’s all.”

“I asked Mum to get rid of the flowers. The scent from the lilies was driving me insane. There were too many.”