Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels

Prologue

Spring 1804

“You cannot truly mean to marry.” John Cavendish shook his head at his longest and truest friend, Andrew Rutledge. The party around them spun merrily on, but he hardly noticed it, so focused was he on this imperative moment. “You’re barely one and twenty and have not even inherited your title. You must sow your oats a few years more before you surrender to the debutantes and mamas!”

Rutledge laughed. “My oats, as you put it, are sown, Cav. I will never have need to do that again.”

Cav let out his breath in a frustrated sigh. “Great God, please don’t wax poetic. Whoever this young lady is, she cannot deserve such gooey eyes and fluttering hands. Nor can I support her taking off the market one of the finest rakes ever to grace London.”

“I think you are more concerned about losing your partner in trouble more than you are about my well-being,” Rutledge said, but there was no heat or accusation to his tone. “I’m certain you won’t be lacking friends at the brothels or gaming tables.”

“You aren’t planning on even going gaming anymore?” Cav burst out. “I really must meet this siren who has so bewitched my best and truest friend.”

“And you shall, for she just entered the room.” Rutledge lifted on the balls of his feet, seeking out someone in the crowd. Cav followed his friend’s stare, looking from young lady to young lady and seeing none who would inspire such intense dedication and surrender within weeks of a first meeting.

He was about to make a snide comment about just that when the crowd parted a fraction and a woman stepped free from its jostling. Everything else fell away as she glided toward Cav. She had hair like corn silk, pulled back from a beautiful face with high cheekbones and full lips. Her eyes matched her gown, a Mediterranean blue that sparkled with delight as her mouth widened in a smile.

He couldn’t breathe. It was the strangest thing. He’d been around dozens of beautiful women in his life. He’d danced with them and chatted with them and bedded more than a few. He’d never felt like this. As if a hand had pushed into his chest and constricted his heart. As if his world had been flipped on its head and now he had no idea how to right it.

It was a lightning bolt. The kind written about in books. And he realized, as she reached him, that he would never be the same.

“Rutledge!” she said with a delighted laugh.

Cav stared, the world winding down to half time as his best friend reached out and took the hand she offered. He lifted it to his lips and she blushed. She never took her eyes off Rutledge. He never took his eyes off her.

And the world that had been turned upside down a moment before felt destroyed as Cav realized this was the woman who had aroused such instant and intense adoration in Rutledge.

At least Cav understood now.

“Lady Emily, might I present my dearest friend John Cavendish. And Cav, this is Emily.” Rutledge’s chest puffed up with pride and delight. “She is the daughter of the Duke of Wolfsome, and somehow she has agreed to become my future bride.”

Cav couldn’t form words. How could one form words in a moment like this?

“Good evening,” Lady Emily said when he did not say anything. She extended her hand toward him. “I’ve heard such wonderful things about you, Mr. Cavendish. I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Cav blinked, fighting against the rising tide of emotion. He’d never been one to believe in love at first sight. How he wished that he’d never experienced it.

Rutledge cleared his throat, and his pointed glare was what Cav needed to jolt from his state of shock and awe.

“Lady Emily,” he choked out as he bowed over the hand still waiting there for him. It was such a delicate hand. He engulfed it with his own. Wrong as it was, he wished she weren’t wearing gloves in that moment, just so he could touch her. “I am pleased to meet you, as well.”

That seemed to make Rutledge happy, for he stopped glaring and tucked Emily’s hand into the crook of his arm. He grinned at Cav. “You must call him by his nickname, Emily. After all, he is my best friend, and what is mine is yours.”

Cav had to fight not to physically recoil at that statement since Rutledge said it as he looked at him, not her.

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