A Groom of One's Own Read online

  A Groom of One’s Own

  Maya Rodale

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated exclusively to my Lord Tony, Baron of Pinner, Viscount of Kentish Town, Earl of the Eastern Marches, Protector of the Borderlands, and groom of my own.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Romances by Maya Rodale

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  On her way down the aisle . . .

  Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England

  June 1822

  If she is to marry, a woman must have a dowry and a groom of her own. At an exquisitely inconvenient moment, Miss Sophie Harlow discovered one essential prerequisite was deserting her.

  To be jilted at the altar is the sort of thing that happens to someone’s cousin’s friend’s sister; in other words, it is something that only occurs in rumors and gossip. It never actually happened to anyone, and it couldn’t possibly be happening to her.

  Yet here she stood in her new satin wedding gown, hearing the words, “I am deeply sorry, Sophie, but I cannot marry you after all,” from the man who ought to be saying, “I do.”

  She could not quite believe it.

  Sophie was vaguely aware of the curious expressions of her guests. The Chesham church—small, quaint, centuries old, and well-to-do like the town itself—was packed with friends from the village, extended family members, and visitors from surrounding counties, as many wished to witness the nuptials uniting two of the most prominent families of the local landed gentry.

  Of course they were wondering why the groom had stopped the bride halfway down the aisle. Of course they strained to hear what he said in a voice too low to be audible to anyone else.

  She saw her dearest friend, Lady Julianna Somerset, in attendance and as curious and concerned as the rest. Even the church cat, Pumpkin, looked intrigued as she peeked out from underneath a pew.

  “I am so sorry to cause you such misery,” Matthew repeated quietly, looking pained. His brown eyes were rimmed with red, his skin ashen. His dark hair was brushed forward and tousled in the usual style for a rakish young man. His lips were full and tender, even as he said the bitterest things.

  Sophie tried to breathe deeply but her corset would not allow it. She was very glad for the veil obscuring her face.

  Misery, indeed.

  Her brain was in a fog, and she was pained by every little crack in her heart as it was breaking. Behind the veil her eyes were hot with tears. Her palms were damp underneath her gloves. The cloying aroma of the lilacs in her bridal bouquet was unbearable, so she let them fall onto the stone floor.

  It was her wedding day, and he was leaving her. For the occasion, she wore a new cream-colored satin gown with the fashionable high waist and short puffed sleeves, and the delicate lace veil worn by generations of Harlow brides. Flowers decorated the church pews and beeswax candles added to the gentle late-morning light streaming through the stained-glass windows.

  All her worldly possessions were packed up in anticipation of the move from her parents’ home to her husband’s. And now the dress and flowers were for nothing, and her belongings were packed to go nowhere.

  “But why? And when did you . . . and what happened and . . . why?” Sophie sputtered.

  No one could be expected to form coherent thought in a moment like this.

  “Marriage is . . . it’s such a commitment . . .”

  Obviously.

  “. . . and I haven’t experienced enough. I’m not ready yet. There’s so much out there I haven’t seen, or done, or . . . I haven’t really lived, Sophie,” Matthew stuttered while he toyed with the polished brass buttons on his brocade waistcoat. He’d lost enormous sums at cards because of this nervous habit. It had vexed her before, but she loathed it now.

  “Hadn’t you considered this before you proposed? Or in the entire year that we’ve been betrothed? Or before I started walking down the aisle? Honestly, Matthew, you only realized this now?” Sophie tried, and failed, to keep her voice low. Why she bothered, she knew not. This was not destined to remain a secret.

  She was not going to spend the rest of her days as Mrs. Matthew Fletcher after all, but as “Poor Sophie Harlow” or “That girl that got jilted.”

  Sophie turned to go, keenly aware that all eyes were on her. Matthew followed.

  “How could you do this to me?” she asked once they were in the vestibule of the church, which provided a modicum of privacy from the dozens of prying eyes. Their curiosity was understandable; she would be nearly falling out of her seat straining to hear, too. Presently, however, she was pacing.

  “I know my timing is terrible,” he said. “But we have been together for so long already.”

  Six months of courtship, and a one-year engagement, to be precise. From the time she made her debut, she had wanted Matthew Fletcher; no one else would do. She had turned down two offers of marriage waiting for him to notice her, and two more as he courted her.

  Now she was twenty-one and damaged goods. Sophie the Spinster did, alas, have a ring to it.

  “And we were about to spend the rest of our lives together,” he continued.

  “Yes, I am aware of that,” she snapped, never ceasing in her steps back and forth like ringing church bells.

  “But there is still more for me to experience before I settle down with one woman for the rest of my days,” he said, attempting to explain. It was something in the way he said “one woman” that caught her attention. At that, she paused.

  “Who is she, Matthew?” Sophie asked coolly.

  He looked in the direction of the heavens.

  “Matthew.”

  “With Lavinia, I feel as I have never felt before! We only became acquainted a fortnight ago, and yet . . . ” He could not meet her gaze. His fingers were fiddling with the buttons again.

>   “Lavinia?” It was a horrible, stupid name.

  “We became acquainted at The Swan,” he said, referring to the inn five miles over in Amersham. “She lost her husband and is now traveling. She has extended an invitation to me to travel with her.”

  “Matthew, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. You’re leaving me—your sweetheart, your fiancée, your bride—for a woman you met at an inn less than a month ago?”

  Matthew did not say anything, but his silence was answer enough.

  “Oh God,” she whispered as the truth began to take hold. All the tiny cracks in her heart added up and now the whole thing crumbled into dust. Sophie clutched her hands over her chest and sank to her knees. Her wedding gown billowed around her on the stone floor.

  She had loved him, promised herself to him and entrusted him with her heart and her future. And he was leaving her and the life they had planned.

  He murmured her name and attempted to console her by snaking his arm around her waist.

  “No.”

  She shrugged off his hands, for she could not bear to be touched by him now, when he likely had held another woman with those arms and kissed another woman with those lips.

  And yet, for more than a year, his arms and his kisses had been the surest comfort she had known. He had stolen that from her, too, at the moment when she needed it most.

  Traitorous, heartbreaking bounder.

  “Sophie,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh! How could you!” She stood suddenly, and he did as well.

  “Sophie, I—”

  She smacked him on the shoulder. “How could you do this to me?”

  “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. She didn’t want to hear it. He could apologize a thousand times with his sad brown eyes and she doubted she could ever forgive him for this.

  She balled her hands into fists and pummeled his chest. “How could you do this to us?”

  Matthew didn’t try to stop her, but he did take a step back. Sophie took one step forward, fists flying all the while. In that manner, they started down the aisle. She might just make it to the altar after all—by beating her unwilling groom every step of the way.

  Almost.

  Matthew tripped over the bridal bouquet she had dropped in the aisle and he began to tumble backward. With flailing arms he reached out for something to steady himself, and grasped onto Sophie’s veil, the very one worn by generations of Harlow brides. He took it with him as he fell, mussing up her elaborately arranged hair and tearing the old, delicate family heirloom.

  A hush fell over the church. Not a sound from the entryway to the candles and flowers at the altar, from the hard wooden pews to the high, vaulted ceiling—save for heavy footsteps thudding toward her.

  “Sophie, stand back,” her brother Edward declared as he marched toward her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he helped Matthew to his feet.

  The thud of her brother’s fist against Matthew’s face and the hideous crack of his jawbone was her answer.

  And with that, all hell broke loose.

  Edward pulled Matthew up and planted another facer on him, sending him falling once more. He knocked into the vicar, who stumbled and stepped on Pumpkin’s tail. The poor cat yowled and leapt onto the overly decorated bonnet of Mrs. Beaverbrooke, who shrieked once at the initial shock and again when she saw the damage done. The cat jumped from lap to lap, eliciting shouts and cries in her wake.

  Mrs. Harlow fainted. Sophie’s father was heard arguing with Mr. Fletcher. Matthew’s brothers joined the fray, and the guests quit the pews to crowd around. Someone stepped on Sophie’s gown and she cringed at the sound of satin tearing. A baby was wailing. The vicar repeated “Let’s calm down now” to absolutely no effect.

  Sophie was left alone in a torn gown with a damaged veil, forgotten by all.

  “You are still standing at least,” Julianna said as she arrived at Sophie’s side.

  They were the very best of friends—born a month apart, raised only a half-mile apart. They learned to walk together and talk together. Sometimes Sophie thought that Julianna knew her better than she knew herself. She was the one person she needed right now, the one who would understand this betrayal, the one who would know what to do.

  “I’m never going to live this down, am I?” Sophie remarked dryly as she surveyed the mayhem unfolding.

  “I’m afraid they will be talking about it for decades,” Julianna answered in her typically forthright manner.

  There would be talk, naturally. The story of Matthew throwing her over at the last possible minute and the subsequent mayhem would spread far and wide. She would not be able to go into any town within four counties without stares, whispers, or snide remarks. No man would willingly bind himself to a woman with such a reputation, and a woman was nothing without a good, honest, and scandal-free name.

  “What do I do now?” Sophie asked. Honestly, she didn’t know. From the day she was born, her parents had raised her to one purpose: marry, and marry well.

  “There is only one thing, really,” Julianna said confidently, linking their arms together and guiding Sophie through the crowd toward the door. “You must come with me to London.”

  Chapter 1

  During a mad dash from a wedding . . .

  St. George’s Church

  Hanover Square, London

  One year later, 1823

  It was the last place she wanted to be, but no marriage in high life would be complete without Miss Sophie Harlow. This time last year, she had been fleeing from her own disastrous wedding. Now she reported on everyone else’s.

  Her life had taken a shocking change of direction, and she was occasionally still stunned by it. A combination of heartache, madness, humiliation, and a desire to begin anew had driven her to this grand city where she knew no one, save for her dearest friend.

  Within a week of her arrival in London, it was clear that she would need an income, for she hated living on Julianna’s limited funds provided by her late husband’s estate, and the prospect of starving was equally distasteful. Her options for employment were to be a seamstress, servant, governess, or mistress and none appealed to her.

  Out of desperation, Sophie had done the unthinkable and applied for a man’s job—the position of secretary to Mr. Derek Knightly, the publisher of the town’s wildly popular newspaper, The London Weekly. It had been an outrageous act, and unlikely prospect, but Sophie decided to take the risk.

  Even now, a year later, she couldn’t quite believe she had done so. Like all girls of a certain social standing, Sophie had been raised to marry advantageously. To work . . . well, it was unthinkable! But so was starving.

  Surprisingly, Sophie had left the interview with an offer from Mr. Knightly to write about the one thing she feared most: weddings. Though she had been raised to be a wife, Sophie became a writer.

  No man would do it, Mr. Knightly had said. She wouldn’t do it either, if it weren’t for her other less desirable options of seamstress or servant, governess or mistress.

  Thus, she became the Miss Harlow of the regular column “Miss Harlow’s Marriage in High Life.” Inspired by Sophie, Julianna had also turned to writing and had secured a gossip column: “Fashionable Intelligence” by A Lady of Distinction. They, along with Eliza Fielding and Annabelle Swift, were the Writing Girls—and within weeks of their debut in the pages of The London Weekly, had become famous.

  Mr. Knightly had a hunch that women writers would be scandalous, and that scandals would translate to sales. He was right.

  It was all very glamorous except for the small requirement of attending wedding after wedding after wedding . . .

  Sophie sat at the end of a pew, toward the wall, away from the center aisle where the bride would pass. It was an escapable position.

&nbs
p; Julianna was by her side, surreptitiously taking in everything that might be gossiped about: who wore what, who conversed with whom, who was in attendance, and who was not.

  Everyone looked happy. Pleasant. It was a lovely morning in June and two people in love were going to unite in holy matrimony and presumably live happily ever after.

  Sophie felt sick. She never got used to it. Weddings. The nerves. This was her third ceremony of the day—everyone always got married before noon on Saturdays, with a few exceptions—and this was, thankfully, the last one. Still, she was treated with the usual swell and sequence of horrid feelings.

  Her stomach tightened into a knot. Her palms became clammy. She was remembering another wedding in June and the slow breaking of her heart as everyone stared on with curiosity and pity. Breathe, she commanded herself.

  Inhale. She fanned herself with the voucher required to gain admittance—a violation of etiquette, but absolutely essential. Exhale.

  Seamstress or servant, governess or mistress . . .

  She chanted this sequence of her alternative professions, which generally soothed her like a lullaby. As soon as the bride joined the groom at the altar, her feelings would subside. Until that moment . . .

  “Still? . . .” Julianna queried. Sophie’s breaths were labored and her lips were moving ever so slightly: seamstress or servant, governess or mistress . . .