Accidentally Married to the Rake

Prologue

“I am here because I must apologize for the way I behaved at Coylton Castle; it was far from honorable, and you should not have been treated that way. You deserve more respect than that—not only as my friend’s sister, but as a woman.

I cannot make any promises, but I will strive to improve my behavior from here on out.

” Pearce Brinley, heart heavy with a murky combination of regret and shame, finished his apology and bowed low over Miss Clara Poole’s hand.

He shouldn’t have done, but he couldn’t resist placing a warm, lingering kiss upon her satin-gloved knuckles before turning to disappear into the crowd.

As he strode away, he could feel the dark, enchanting pools of her eyes following him, but he refused to turn.

He refused to meet them and be drawn back.

He refused to once more collapse beneath the weight of his desire to be near Clara.

You are not a good man, he reminded himself. You have no future, least of all with her. You will not damn her.

He felt as if the words had become his unofficial motto over the past several years, replacing Ex Dolore Robur, “From sorrow, strength,” on the Brinley crest.

While successful in their ventures, wealthy, and secure, his family had a history fraught with a different kind of deprivation.

They lacked joy. Love visited them with a fickle nature as infrequent as rains in the Egyptian desert.

When it came, it drowned them, gave them hope they’d never dreamed possible, and then it left them husks of the men they once were when it inevitably evaporated from their lives.

Brinley men were bitter men—all the more so once they’d foolishly tasted the sweet ambrosia of optimism.

It was the reason Pearce’s paternal grandfather had lost his wife and nine of his ten offspring in swift and untimely succession; why Pearce’s mother had died from a painful illness of her stomach when he’d been only a boy; it was why Pearce had become the man he was.

Through these experiences, he’d learned the bitterest lessons and had come out the other side the irreverent, sarcastic, cold man the ton had come to know.

He could still hear his father’s cynical bark of laughter when Pearce, na?ve in his youthful bravado, had insisted that there was no such thing as a family curse.

“You believe you have nothing to fear?” his father had demanded acrimoniously.

“That you need not mind what has been with our family as long as this blood has run through our veins?” He’d slammed his fist on the desk between them, the crack reverberating through the study.

Used to similar outbursts, Pearce hadn’t flinched.

“You are the worst sort of imbecile—one who willingly walks in ignorance when all the evidence surrounds you.”

“It is not willing ignorance to hope,” his younger self had replied steadfastly.

“That is precisely the mentality that will break you.” His father sat back in his chair, as if sickened by his heir’s continued denial. “Though, I suppose one must be burned to truly understand fire’s power. You will learn—especially if you insist upon tempting fate.”

Pearce was so lost in his unpleasant memories that he nearly strode right past the Marquess of Swanleigh, one of his oldest friends.

“I recognize that glower,” the marquess chirped.

Pearce’s steps stuttered to a halt. “Pardon?”

“The ‘reliving unfortunate encounters with my deplorable excuse for a father’ glower. I know it all too well.” He accepted a crystal glass from a passing servant and handed it to Pearce.

Given what he’d just done and how the past several weeks had gone, Pearce readily accepted it and tossed it back. He welcomed the burn as the spirits seared an unforgiving path to his stomach.

“Any number of things might have soured my mood,” Pearce grumbled and glanced around Swanleigh’s dark head to find someone who might procure him another drink.

“But that”—Swanleigh gestured to Pearce’s frown—“is only elicited by someone inescapable. Seeing as how your father is your only remaining family member—and I have borne witness to his particularly piercing brand of paternal advice—it stands to reason that he had some involvement in your sour disposition.”

“Very astute,” Pearce grumbled, unwilling to give his friend credit for his guess, nor offer up the fact that his black mood was due in part to the conversation he’d just shared with Clara.

Even now, bitter bile burned the back of his throat.

As much effort as he’d placed in avoiding Clara before, he would now have to make it one of his primary missions to learn where she was and keep his distance.

He could not afford to allow himself to weaken in her presence. Not again.

“What did the old man do now?” Swanleigh asked with the amiability only a man who’d spent his youth beneath the thumb of an abhorrent sire could exhibit.

“He breathes,” Pearce responded with more than a small amount of bitterness.

“I can appreciate the sentiment.”

Truly, Pearce was due to meet with his father later in the week, and it was not something he looked forward to with any enthusiasm.

The man was a pessimist of the worst variety who viewed harsh words and an acidic attitude as the shield of strength he’d earned and now donned as a show of honor. Could the evening become any worse?

His answer came in a jingle of musical laughter, drawing Pearce’s eyes to the dance floor.

Immediately, he found Clara performing the intricate steps of a dance, partnered with a young buck hardly old enough to have whiskers.

She glowed in the candlelight; her smile was sweet and enticing, her large, dark eyes were focused intently upon the man who held her fingers in his. Pearce’s jaw tensed dangerously.

He had to look away before he broke the resolve he’d solidified only a quarter of an hour earlier.

It was all he could do not to snort with derision. From sorrow, strength… His existence more closely paralleled Ex Privatione Superstitio.

From deprivation, survival.

For both of them.