The Next Best Bride Read Free Page B

table, turning her back on her unsettling image. "You said he had no doubts."
    "For himself, no. But he does not believe you will take a man of such ill-repute as your husband."
    "He knows of my circumstances—"
    "He wants what you want, Hellie." Ros pulled her up impatiently and led her to the door. "He wants to look into your eyes and see that you mean what you say. He does not want a wife who regrets her bargain after a few months' time. Just as you do not want a husband who goes unhappily into the marriage. You two are more alike than either of you realize."
    Helena shuddered. Was she so like the wicked earl? She was sure she was not, despite her lapse in judgment.
    Carefully, she followed Ros's instructions on how to hail a hansom cab as if she were a man, not a woman alone. To her surprise, the cabbie seemed to take her gruff voice and masculine appearance at face value. Though she felt uncomfortable at first traveling without a chaperon, she found herself growing to like having the cab to herself.
    Before she had truly credited her own audacity, she was at the door to the earl's apartment. His man greeted her with a familiar, "Welcome, sir. His lordship is awaiting you." Without ceremony she was ushered into the small anteroom that apparently served him as parlor, sitting room, and dining space. Though she doubted that he dined in often.
    He did not stand when she entered the room, and for a second she struggled at the offense. Did his knowledge of her indiscretion make him behave so rudely?
    Oblivious to her dismay, he asked bluntly, "Well? Did she agree? Or has she more sense than a pea goose and refused you out of hand?"
    It struck her then. She was dressed as a man, so of course he would not stand. His tone and the familiar way he gazed at her made clear he thought her Ros. She opened her mouth to correct his mistake, but for some reason only said, "She hasn't the sense to say no, under the circumstances."
    His expression was maddeningly unreadable. "A lover is not the disaster she seems to think it is. You have told her that, I trust."
    At first his comment puzzled her, but then Helena realized with a shock that Rand knew of her lover, but not of the possible consequences. Ros had not told him that, drat her. Somehow, it was easier as Ros, to say carelessly, "It is not the lover she laments, but the possibility that in a few months there can be no doubt that she is no longer a virgin." She threw herself into a chair as she had seen her brother do at his most casual.
    He did not seem overly shocked. "Poor mite. Truly worried that her lover left her a parting gift, is she?"
    As herself, Helena might have waved her finger under his nose and chided his carelessness over something so important. As Ros, however, she affected a shrug. "The question is, why aren't you?"
    "What do I care where the brat comes from, as long as I can wave it under my grandfather's nose and get control of my life at last?"
    She could see no sign that he lied. Still, she prodded. "Most men care. What if she bears a son, an heir for you who doesn't share your blood?"
    Rand shrugged and looked away toward the fire. "I won't know, will I? If we're married and I plow my own row, who's to say whose child it is, even if it were to come a few weeks before time?"
    "Plow your own row?" Helena found herself dizzy with rage at the crude statement. How could her sister have ever thought it a sound idea that she should marry this man? "Isn't that rather heartless?"
    "Heartless?" Rand was surprised at the outrage that made Ros's voice quaver. He would have expected her to be amused at the thought, if she remarked upon it at all. "Of course it is, Ros. Do you think I could have survived this long in life if I had a heart? You did warn the girl not to expect love or devotion, or any—"
    "She knows." The answer came quickly and flatly.
    Was that the sticking point, then? "She is not the sort to believe in love and fairytales, is she?"
    Ros was