The Bargain Bride by Bárbara Metzger Page B

one man’s loss is another man’s gain, as they say. I should have spoken sooner.”
    Then she might have been already wed . . . and dead of the tedium. Penny had punched one man today. What was another, even if he was a man of the cloth? Instead, she decided to deflate the pompous windbag another way. “I thank you for the kind offer you might have made. But you must not lament your own dillydallying. I would have refused your honorable proposal, Mr. Smithers.”
    â€œWhat? What’s that? Oh, the previous engagement. Of course.”
    â€œNo, sir, Lord Westfield was not on my mind, as I was not on his. I would have refused you because we would not suit. But do come for dinner tonight. You and my father have much in common.”
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    Marcel kept pouring, the vicar kept preaching, and Penny’s father, the devil take him, kept proposing toasts to his daughter, the peeress. Mr. and Mrs. Carne, Penny’s friends who ran the local school, kept raising their glasses with him, until the schoolmaster almost fell off his chair and his wife started giggling. Grandpapa sat morosely at the head of the table, feeding scraps of Cook’s finest meal to his fat pug under the table.
    Penny could not eat a bite. She had not been able to speak to her father over sherry before the dinner, and he would not listen to her pleas now, not while he was celebrating.
    â€œJust think, my grandson will be a viscount,” he repeated every time Marcel filled his cup. Instead of being more amenable to reason, Penny’s father appeared to be growing as hard of hearing as her grandfather was blind. Could drink do that to a man? Maybe it would make Penny forget that tomorrow was her wedding day unless she found a miracle. She drank down another glass of wine. And got a blinding headache.
    Surely this was the worst meal of her life. Of course the wedding breakfast was bound to be worse, with her having to act the happy bride for her pride’s sake, knowing she had been bartered away to an unwilling groom. Everyone knew Westfield would never have chosen Sir Gaspar’s daughter, Mr. Littleton’s grandchild, an on-the-shelf spinster with little else to recommend her besides her father’s money and her books.
    Why, look at him now, she thought, although she’d hardly looked elsewhere than at where he sat across the wooden table from her. The man was as handsome as sin, and committing it already, right in front of her! His smile flashed as brightly as the garnet on his finger. The dastard was actually flirting with Mrs. Carne, Penny’s own friend, setting her to blushes and eyelash flutter ings. And Mrs. Carne was forty if she was a day.
    The last thing Penny wanted was a husband with a roving eye. Her father had always kept mistresses. Her mother knew, and now his second wife, Constance, must. The servants always did, and they always gossiped. Penny could not bear the shame, the insult, the disloyalty. She could not bear a man who prided himself on his honor, then lied and cheated to the one he owed the most fealty. Then again, she disliked her husband-to-be. Perhaps his straying would be a blessing. Let him take his smiles and seductions to his Green widow, she thought over another glass of wine. See if she cared.
    Finally the last course was served and Penny led Mrs. Carne out of the dining room so the men could smoke and drink and gossip. With any luck, and a bottle of Grandpapa’s best port, her father would be more open to Westfield’s last efforts to change his mind.
    The viscount shook his head when the gentlemen joined the ladies. The schoolmaster was staggering and the vicar was humming a hymn—no, that was a ditty from the tavern. Grandpapa fell asleep as soon as he sat in a chair, and the pug was so full it could barely waddle to the fireside. Her father was red-faced and grinning, happier with the coming nuptials than ever. Why not? He had the innkeeper’s wife’s