Married By Midnight Read Free Page B

have all begged me to do for almost a year—collect the funds that are promised to me, then that will be the end of it. I only ask that we move forward as quickly as possible so I can be on my way.”
    “ On your way? But you must stay for Christmas!” his mother blurted out.
    “ Yes, you must!” Charlotte echoed.
    Devon raised a hand to silence them. “Of course we want him to stay, but there is more that we must explain. Garrett, you cannot simply marry the girl tomorrow. Father believes our world will come crashing to an end on Christmas Day if we are not all happily married. Ever since the incident with Vincent—after that sham of an engagement to Lady Letitia—he believes true love is necessary to thwart the curse.”
    Garrett frowned. “Are you suggesting I must fall in love with the girl? Good God, I’ve never even met her.”
    “ No, but Father is under the impression that it is a love match. Otherwise the whole thing is pointless.”
    “ A love match...?” His gut turned over with dread. “What lies have you told him?”
    Charlotte spoke flippantly. “Oh, what does it matter? He doesn’t remember half of anything anyway.”
    “ Charlotte, behave yourself,” the duchess scolded.
    “ I beg your pardon, Mother,” she argued, “but you know it’s true. We tell him whatever we must in any given moment to keep him from climbing the walls and jumping off the roof.”
    Garrett drew back with a frown. “Is it really that bad?” He could not imagine his father being anything but in complete control.
    “ Worse, actually,” Blake replied. “Two days ago we found him playing billiards at dawn.”
    “ There is no crime in that.”
    “ He was naked as the day he was born.”
    “ I see.” Rather astonished by the image, Garrett swirled his brandy around in the glass and tried to stay focused on the money while he wondered how the hell he was going to manage this charade. It was a vast understatement to say that he had never been close to his father. He wasn’t sure what to expect. Would the duke even recognize him, much less believe he was in love with a fiancée he’d never met?
    “ You must prepare yourself,” Devon said. “He is greatly changed.”
    “ He thinks the palace is haunted,” Charlotte added. “He gets up in the night, wanders the corridors, and talks to himself.”
    “ To be precise,” Devon clarified, “he talks to the ghost of Brother Salvador.”
    “ Who is Brother Salvador?” Garrett asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
    “ A monk,” Charlotte answered.
    “ He was the prior here actually,” Blake added. “When this place was a monastery a few hundred years ago. He was murdered when it was discovered he was having an affair with a woman in the village. That woman is the mother of the first duke, our very own ancestor.” Blake’s dark eyebrows pulled together with uncertainty. “But you know all of this, don’t you?”
    “ I vaguely remember the stories.”
    “ At any rate,” Devon said, “Father will not rest until Christmas has come and gone, and he is assured that the curse has been thwarted. He has instructed his solicitor not to release your marriage settlement until the twenty-fifth.”
    “ That is two weeks from now,” Garrett said. “Am I to understand that I must remain here and pretend to be in love with a total stranger until then?”
    “ She won’t be a stranger by the end of it,” Charlotte mentioned helpfully.
    Good God. He had truly walked through the gates of hell. That reality, along with self-loathing, prickled up his spine.
    Yes. He supposed that was rather appropriate, for hell was exactly where he belonged.
    “ When will I meet her?” he asked.
    And did she know about all this? The naked billiard games? The ghosts and the murders?
    “ Whenever you like,” Devon replied. “She is in the drawing room presently with Rebecca and Chelsea.”
    No one said a word for a moment. The tension was as thick as London’s fog.
    His family was