His Black Sheep Bride Read Free Page B

mention you would have been misrepresenting yourself as Belinda Wentworth for the past two years,” Tamara commented.
    She cringed for her friend. It looked as if Belinda, who was always so self-possessed, had dug herself a hole.
    â€œDon’t worry, I didn’t change my last name,” Belinda responded drily.
    â€œSo it was okay to marry a Granville, but not to become one?” Tamara quipped. “I love the way the tipsy you thinks.”
    â€œThanks,” Belinda retorted. “And don’t worry—the tipsy me is not getting out of her locked and padded cell again.”
    Tamara laughed, but then quickly sobered. What was it about a man with a title that made a woman lose her head? Her thoughts drifted to Sawyer, and then, annoyed with herself, she focused on the topic at hand again.
    Among their trio of friends, Belinda had always been the levelheaded, responsible one. After getting her degree in the history of art from Oxford, she’d begun a respectable career working at a series of auction houses. Tamara just couldn’t picture Belinda eloping in Vegas with her family’s nemesis. Pia, maybe, Belinda, no.
    â€œThere wasn’t an Elvis impersonator involved, by chance, was there?” she heard herself ask.
    Pia stifled a giggle.
    â€œNo!” Belinda said. “And I just want this headache to disappear!”
    â€œNot likely,” Tamara remarked. “I don’t see Colin going away quietly.”
    â€œHe will,” Belinda replied adamantly. “What would make him want to stay in this ridiculous marriage?”
    Now there was the million-dollar question, Tamara thought. Belinda sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.
    Tamara decided to turn the conversation in a different direction, to take the pressure off Belinda.
    â€œPia, I saw you stalking off to the kitchen at one point,” she said. “You looked upset.”
    â€œI wasn’t upset about Colin crashing the wedding,” Pia responded. “Well, I was upset for Belinda. But I had s-someone—ah, other things on my mind.”
    Pia’s slight stutter was in evidence, and Tamara knew it only came out these days when her friend was agitated about something.
    Tamara decided to probe delicately. “Ah, Pia…these other things wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain very toff British duke-turned-financier, would it?”
    Pia gasped. “That didn’t make Mrs. Hollings’s column, too, did it?”
    â€œI’m afraid so, sweetie.”
    Pia moaned. “I’m doomed.”
    According to the Jane Hollings column that had appeared in Sawyer’s newspaper that morning, there had been an argument at Belinda’s wedding reception between Pia and the Duke of Hawkshire. Reportedly, Pia had discovered at the reception that the duke was none other than the man she’d known only as Mr. James Fielding when she’d been involved with him a few years before. Upon the discovery of how she’d been mislead, Pia had apparently smashed some hors d’oeuvres into the duke’s face.
    â€œPia, please,” Belinda said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Doomed is committing bigamy.”
    â€œWhich you didn’t!”
    â€œAlmost.”
    â€œN-no one will want to hire a wedding planner who’s a security risk to wealthy and titled guests!” Pia wailed.
    â€œDid you really sleep with Hawkshire?” Belinda asked.
    â€œHe was Mr. Fielding at the time!”
    â€œOh, Pia.”
    â€œOh, sweetie,” Tamara said at the same time.
    Naturally, Tamara thought darkly, Sawyer was friends with the duke as well as with Belinda’s yet-to-be-annulled husband. Of course both of Sawyer’s good friends would be disreputable.
    â€œWell, it seems like we all had a great wedding,” Tamara said. “Sorry, Belinda.”
    A sigh sounded over the phone. “No apologies