Bride By Mistake Read Free Page B

fatalistic gesture.
    Before his mother could persist, he rose to his feet. “I’ve been in correspondence with Isabella’s aunt—the nun, you will recall—and advised her I would collect Isabella at my earliest convenience. I leave tomorrow for Spain.”
    “Tomorrow?” She sat up, distracted as he knew she’d be. “But Molly’s ball is in three weeks!”
    “I’ll be back in time for that,” he assured her. “I promised Molly when I first went to war, and then again when I went to Waterloo, that I’d return to dance at her come-out. There’s no danger I’ll break my promise now. There’s enough time to get to the Convent of the Angels and return. I’ll inform Rafe and Harry of my plans, and they’ll be on hand should you require any masculine advice or assistance.”
    His mother dismissed that with an impatient gesture. “And what if you’re delayed?”
    He placed a light kiss on her cheek. “I’ve survived everything that Boney could throw at me, Mama. What could possibly delay me now?”
    L uke went directly from his mother’s house to the Apocalypse Club in St. James. Established shortly after Waterloo, the club catered largely to young officers who’d servedin the war. It was a small, discreet establishment, and Luke and his friends found it a convivial place. Contrary to the assumptions made by nonmembers, the one subject members almost never discussed was the war.
    Tonight would be an exception.
    Luke found Rafe and Harry in a private salon, lounging in overstuffed leather armchairs, sipping wine, boots stretched out toward the fire, the picture of masculine contentment.
    How did they do it? Restlessness still gnawed at Luke’s vitals, and it was years since the war had finished. Four long years.
    Rafe rose to his feet. “About time you got here.”
    Harry drained his wineglass, gave Luke a friendly punch on the shoulder, and jerked his head toward the dining room. “Come on. The scent of steak and kidney pie has been calling to me for the last twenty minutes.”
    “No time for that,” Luke said. “I’m off to Spain in the morning.”
    “
Spain?
” Both his friends looked at him in stupefaction.
    “You swore you’d never set foot in Spain again,” Rafe said.
    Luke shrugged. “Needs must. Sit down and I’ll fill you in,” he said.
    He told them the story, just the bare bones—the circumstances of the marriage was his business and Isabella’s, and not even these, his closest friends, needed to know the sordid details.
    “Married all this time?” Rafe was incredulous. “And never a word to any of us? I don’t believe it.” He sat back, his bright blue eyes boring into Luke.
    “It’s true,” Luke told him. “I had a mission into the mountains and came across her on the way back to headquarters. It was”—he swallowed—“I married her for her own protection. It was—you know what can happen.”
    “You mean you were trapped into it? We were green boys back then.”
    Luke shook his head. “Not trapped at all. The marriage was my idea.”
    After a moment, Rafe asked, “So this Isabella, where is she now?”
    “Where I left her. In the convent. In Spain.”
    “A
convent
?”
    “Good God, she’s not a nun, is she?” Harry said.
    “No, she’s damned well not a nun,” Luke said irritably, fed up with questions, even though he knew they were perfectly natural. He’d had enough from his mother.
    “Does your mother know?” Rafe began. “No, of course she doesn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t have spent the past couple of years flinging debutantes at your head.” He shook his head. “Explains why, when you had your pick of the prettiest girls in the
ton
, you never gave any one of them a second look.”
    Luke grimaced. “I couldn’t have married any of those girls. They were babies.”
    Rafe snorted. “As opposed to your mature thirteen-year-old bride.”
    “She was the same age as Molly, Rafe,” Luke snapped. “Would
you
have left her unprotected in the