Page 1 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
Chapter 1
London, England
1818
The wedding hadn’t happened yet, and already the marriage was a disaster.
Kieran Ransome and his family stood beneath the portico of St. George’s before entering the church’s vestibule, and as his mother briefly lifted his sister’s veil to brush away a stray lock of hair, he caught a glimpse of Willa’s face. Her cheeks were ashen, her lips drawn into a thin, tight slash. The countess twittered and fussed with Willa’s gown, yet his sister barely uttered a word.
Last night, the family had enjoyed a prewedding supper, and Willa had been almost mute then, as well. She’d had two and a half glasses of wine instead of her usual one, picking at her food rather than displaying her typically robust appetite. The groom had slumped in his chair, offering up gruntswhen spoken to, and had declined Kieran’s offer of a post-meal drink at their favorite chophouse.
Something was clearly wrong.
“Something’s clearly wrong,” Kieran’s brother Finn whispered into his ear.
Kieran shot a glance toward their father, the Earl of Wingrave, who stood close by, chatting with Simon, his eldest son. Alice, Simon’s wife, hovered at her husband’s side. The earl and the countess ignored each other, which was unsurprising, but what did astonish Kieran was the fact that no one seemed to notice how anxiety emanated from the bride like a silent scream.
Ordinarily, Willa charged ahead into everything—places, discussions, opinions—yet this morning she was rooted in place.
“Do you think she wants to cry off?” Kieran asked lowly.
“Difficult to blame her,” Finn returned. “Dom’s been an utter ass these past weeks. Hell, the way he’s been carrying on,Iwouldn’t marry him.”
“She’d jilt Dom?”
Finn exhaled, and a rueful expression crossed his face. “I wouldn’t take that wager, little brother. Remember how she insisted on eating a handful of sand when we told her she shouldn’t?”
“She was five years old at the time.”
“If anything, her stubbornness has only increased in the intervening years.”
Kieran couldn’t argue against that. He’d initially believed that Willa and Dominic Kilburn were perfectly matched. Two more obstinate beings didn’t exist with arguments that involved slammed doorsand broken porcelain. Yet Kieran had also seen the adoring way in which Willa and Dom looked at each other, how they always had their hands interlaced as if unable to bear a moment without touching. Surely, they would have a happy, if tempestuous, union.
He wasn’t so certain of that anymore.
Something hedidknow for a fact was that churches made him deucedly uncomfortable. They were physical manifestations of temperance, solemnity, and quiet reflection—all conditions he studiously avoided. Merely standing outside St. George’s caused restless energy to pulse through his limbs, and it was all he could do to keep from leaping onto the back of a passing dray and riding off toward a tavern or the theater or anywhere that wasn’t soaked with staid gravity like this house of worship.
God knew he had no intention of ever standing up as a bridegroom in one of these places.
“Christ,” he muttered to Finn, “I haven’t seen this side of the daytime in years.”
“Tompkins owes me five quid,” his brother answered. “He said you wouldn’t make it, let alone show up sober. But I knew that you’d make an appearance, if only to gorge yourself at the wedding breakfast.”
“Thank you for your faith in me,” Kieran said dryly. Louder, to his family, he said, “As groomsman, I’m off to check on Dom. I’ll offer my early felicitations for joining his cursed line to ours.”
“On this day of all days,” his father said distractedly, “spare us your histrionic pronouncements.”
His mother rolled her eyes, though it was difficult to say whether it was her son or husband who irritated her the most.
Giving the earl an ironic salute, Kieran wrested open the church doors. He raised a brow as Finn fell into step beside him.
“I’ve a wager with myself to see if you are struck dead the moment you set foot inside the church,” Finn explained genially.
“There will be two charred spots on the floor, then. Yours beside mine.”
The moment the doors opened, Finn threw Kieran a rude hand gesture, eliciting gasps from guests seated in nearby pews. Kieran shared a grin with his brother.
“A new part of the Ransome Brothers mythos,” Finn murmured as they walked down the aisle toward the chancel. At least, Kieranbelievedit was called a chancel, but he couldn’t be certain, as he hadn’t been particularly attentive when schooled on the aspects of faith.
