Improperly Wed (Aristocratic Grooms 3)

As the words reverberated off the soaring walls of the cathedral-size church, gasps sounded all around. Behind Belinda, the reverend began to cough. Beside her, Tod stiffened.

Belinda’s eyes narrowed. She could detect mockery in Colin’s expression. It lurked in the area around his eyes and in the slight lift to the end of his mouth.

“I’m afraid you must be mistaken,” Belinda stated, hoping against hope that she could prevent this scene from getting worse.

As a matter of precise accuracy, she was correct. They had been married oh-so-briefly, but no longer were.

Still, Colin looked too sure of himself. “Mistaken about our visit to a wedding chapel in Las Vegas over two years ago? Regrettably, I must disagree.”

There was a collective gasp from the assembled guests.

Belinda’s stomach plummeted. Her face felt suddenly hot.

She stopped herself from replying—for what could she say that wouldn’t add to the damage? I’m sure my brief and secret marriage to the Marquess of Easterbridge was annulled?

No one was supposed to know about her impetuous and hasty elopement.

Belinda knew she had to move this scene to a place where she could face down her demons—or, rather, one titled demon in particular—in a less public way. “Shall we resolve this matter somewhere more private?”

Without waiting for a response, and with as much dignity as she could muster, she gathered up the skirt of her wedding dress in one hand and swept down the altar steps, careful not to make eye contact with anyone among the congregated guests as she held her head high.

The sun shone through the church’s large stained-glass windows. She walked intermittently through beams of sunlight slanting through the air.

Outside, Belinda knew, it was a perfect June day. Inside, it was another story.

Her perfect wedding was ruined by the man whom family and tradition dictated she should loathe most in the world. If she hadn’t been wise enough before to think he was despicable—on that one night in particular—she certainly did now.

When she drew abreast of the marquess, he turned to follow her across the front of the church and through an open doorway that led into a corridor with several doors. Behind Colin, Belinda heard Tod, her erstwhile groom, follow.

When she stopped in the corridor, she heard a louder rustling and murmuring break out in the church. Now that the principal parties had exited the area of worship, she assumed the congregants felt at greater liberty to voice their whispers. She could only hope that Pia would be able to quiet this affair, though she was realistic enough to believe, too, that the effort would be mostly in vain. In the meantime, she could hear Bishop Newbury state to the wedding guests that there had been an unexpected delay.

She ducked into an unoccupied room nearby. Looking around, she concluded from the sparse furnishings and lack of personal belongings that the room probably served as a staging area for church functions.

Turning around, Belinda watched both the groom and her alleged husband follow her into the room. Colin closed the door on the curious faces still looking at them from the main area of the church.

She threw back her veil and rounded on Easterbridge. “How could you!”

Colin was close, and she was practically vibrating with tension, her heart beating loudly. Until now, Colin was the embodiment of her biggest secret and her greatest transgression. She’d tried to avoid or ignore him, but today running was out of the question.

Outrage was, of course, not only the logical but also the easiest emotion to adopt.

“You had better have a good reason for your actions, Easterbridge,” Tod said, his face tight. “What possible explanation can you have for ruining our wedding with these outlandish lies?”

Colin looked unperturbed. “A wedding certificate.”

“I don’t know what alternate reality you’ve been living in, Easterbridge,” Tod replied, “but no one else is amused by it.”

Colin merely looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Our marriage was annulled,” she blurted. “It never existed!”

Tod looked crestfallen. “So it’s true? You and Easterbridge are married?”

“We were. Past tense,” Belinda responded. “And only for a matter of hours, years ago. It was nothing.”

“Hours?” Colin mused. “How many hours are in two years? Seventeen thousand four hundred seventy-two, by my calculation.”

Belinda rued Colin’s facility with math. She’d been stupidly enamored by it—by him—at the gaming tables before their impetuous Las Vegas elopement. And now it had come back to haunt her. But how could it be true that they’d been married for the last two years? She’d signed the papers—it was all meant to be wiped away.