The Wedding Affair (Rebel Hearts 1)

Chapter One

April, 1815

Newberry Park, Essex

I will be betrothed today.

The familiar refrain brought Lady Sally Ford intense satisfaction as she hurried toward Newberry Park’s white drawing room were her future waited to be taken up.

The two footmen flanking the drawing room doors opened them smartly, allowing Sally to make a grand entrance to meet with the earl whom she intended to give her hand in marriage. She noted the occupants arrayed in the afternoon’s final sunrays—her mother and her future mother-in-law.

But no potential groom.

Regardless of the lack of future husband, Sally dropped into a perfect curtsy because she could not afford to make a bad impression. She had spent many additional minutes before her looking glass, making sure her dark hair was perfectly arranged and her lips slightly pinked thanks to a brush of tinted beeswax. She wanted to have kissable lips when she agreed to become a bride.

Sally’s mother, the Countess of Templeton, rested with her feet upon a padded stool and a scrap of fine cloth over her brow.

“Good afternoon, Mama. Lady Ellicott.”

Mama started upright at the sound of Sally’s voice. “Sally, what are you doing here? I thought you would be gone for hours yet.”

Sally smiled but did not want to be drawn into a conversation about the estate immediately. “Where else would I want to be but with our important guests?”

Lady Ellicott, her beau’s formidable mother, had also been drowsing in a comfortable high-backed chair but smiled somewhat warmly in return. A round woman with a pale face, Lady Ellicott met her gaze and held it a touch longer than Sally found comfortable, no doubt assessing her yet again.

Sally had grown used to the feeling and the scrutiny over the past weeks. She straightened her spine a touch more, determined not to fail to meet the lady’s high standards. She felt she had almost won her over to approving the match.

Almost, but Lord Ellicott had not yet asked for her hand.

“My dear girl, how lovely you look today,” Lady Ellicott murmured as her son stepped into the room from the terrace. There he was. Adam Belmont, Lord Ellicott. The man she would give her hand and fortune to if he would but ask. “Is she not the most arresting woman of all, Ellicott?”

“She is a beauty.” Ellicott strode across the room, lean and handsome, smiling widely as he approached. He raised her outstretched hands to kiss them, his warm brown eyes dancing with feeling. “Good afternoon, Sally.”

She had given him leave to use her given name a week ago, but the familiarity was still something of a shock.

The sound of her first name tumbling from his lips should have excited her happier emotions. It was an intimacy she did not give lightly to anyone outside her family. Sally waited for anything resembling a heated awareness of him to affect her senses. After all the time they had spent together, shouldn’t she feel something, at least anticipation for the pleasure of his kiss? When her heart and body failed yet again to stir, she smiled demurely. The marriage was more important than fleeting pleasures anyway. He was her future. “Thank you for the compliment. Have you had a pleasant morning shooting with Uncle George?”

“Yes, quite pleasant.”

Her uncle George had lost a foot years ago, but that did not stop him from hunting on the estate several times a week. He was a high stickler though, and she felt confident he would only paint her character in the best light. “I am sure he enjoyed having the comp

any of another man with him.”

Ellicott laughed, and his eyes lit up with mirth. “I imagine so. The chatter of a dozen women can be so overwhelming.”