Not Quite Married by Betina Krahn Page A

time he pulled his gaze from her, it found its way back.
    “Do you mind?” she snapped, turning partway to avoid his scrutiny.
    “If I’m to both gain and lose a wife in the next two hours, I intend to make the most of it,” he declared, then glanced at the vicar dozing in the chancel chair and lowered his voice. “Take off your cloak.”

    “I will not.”
    “I’d at least like to see what color hair you have . . . to see if it goes with those icy gray eyes of yours.”
    Brien couldn’t help turning a bit and since she was turned, she couldn’t resist looking across the aisle. He was relaxed, almost sprawled in the wooden pew. His eyes were light, she noticed, but far from blue. In the candlelight they had a metallic glint . . .
    light bronze . . . even gold. Whatever their exact shade, they did indeed compliment his coppery hair. Just as his neatly trimmed hair set off his angular features, his smartly cut coat emphasized the breath of his shoulders, and his expensive boots showed off the elegant strength of his long legs. He was a specimen. No doubt about that.
    She started at the realization that she was staring at him and turned so that he could see only her back. The movement dislodged the hood of her cloak and she felt it sliding down her head and coming to rest on her shoulders.
    “Ahhh.” She could hear his smile in his voice. “Now why would a woman with hair like honey and eyes as clear as a summer brook need to buy herself a husband?”
    She hesitated with her answer, trying to decide whether it would make any difference if she told him the truth. “That shouldn’t be so difficult to figure out,” she finally said. “I’m marrying you so that I won’t have to marry another. Ever.”
    “‘Ever’ is a very long time, my lady. What if you decide someday you’d like to marry and have children after all? How will you find me? How will you know if I am alive or dead?”
    “I won’t know.” She met his gaze. “That is precisely the point.”
    “If you won’t know where I am or if I’m alive or dead,” he said, the sense of it dawning, “then you’ll effectively be wedded to me until the day you die.”
    “It would take an act of Parliament to declare otherwise,” she said, feeling an odd tightness gripping her throat. Another layer of understanding settled over her; this marriage of defiance would change her life irretrievably. Wasn’t that exactly what she intended? Yes, but she hadn’t understood fully, until now, that even if she never married, she could never go back to the simplicity and innocence of her former life. Assuming that her father allowed her to retire quietly to Byron Place for the rest of her days, she would still have to deal with the memory of kisses and caresses, of stirred desire and crushing betrayal, of possibilities that had died before being fully born.
    And what would she do with the rest of those restless and unsettled days?
    Ella and her Uncle Billy returned from Harcourt House with enough gold and folding money to meet the bridegroom’s demands. When the funds were duly transferred, Ella and her uncle roused the vicar. The little cleric was growing steadily more feverish and disoriented; he could scarcely stand on his own. Ella and her uncle planted themselves at his sides to keep him upright, and with some prompting, he recalled that he had left the marriage documents on the desk in his study. They escorted him into the small vicarage nestled behind the church, and returned shortly with the documents and a pot of ink and quill.
    After watching his hapless attempts, Brien took the quill from the vicar’s clammy hand and wrote her full name, Brien Elaine Weston, on the proper space. She glimpsed a worrisome flare of interest in her prospective husband’s eyes as he watched, but at least he made no comment on her name. It reassured her to think that her father was generally known by his title, “Southwold.”
    She could only hope her avaricious