The Unexpected Wife - Jess Michaels Page 0,2

elbow, drawing her against his chest as he guided her to the nearest chair. When she was situated, he released her and she felt a bit colder for the lack of his warmth. She gripped the armrests with both fists, clinging there for purchase.

As she did so, her parents each took a place on the settee, her mother wiping her tears with a perfectly monogrammed handkerchief. Lady Hendricks motioned to the chair beside Celeste for Mr. Gregory to sit.

“I cannot believe this terrible news! Oh, to lose one so young and so beloved!” her mother moaned. Then she leaned forward and speared Mr. Gregory with a pointed, bright stare. “Tell me everything about the circumstances.”

Celeste caught her breath at the nosy cruelty of her mother’s desire for gossip. “Mama!” she said, and earned a glare from her mother and a slight shake of the head from her very pale and normally silent father. She ignored them both and focused again on Mr. Gregory. “I don’t understand, sir. My…husband seemed in good health when last I saw him.”

“And when was that?” Mr. Gregory asked, his light brown gaze holding hers.

She shifted with discomfort, with humiliation as she dropped her eyes to her hands clenched in her lap. “Six—six months ago,” she admitted.

She dared to lift her gaze and found Mr. Gregory had arched one of those brows and was watching her carefully. But before he could say anything to respond to that horrible admission, her mother leapt to her feet.

“Our Mr. Montgomery was such a busy man. If you knew him, you would be aware of how very important he was. The son of an earl, sir. How could he always be here when he had so much to do and influence? But when he returned to our daughter, it was always to the most wonderful reunion. Two so in love, I have never seen.”

Celeste’s stomach turned at that lie, the one that Mr. Gregory didn’t seem all that moved by, though he looked her mother up and down carefully, as if he were taking the measure of her.

Why, Celeste couldn’t say. If he were simply a messenger sent to tell her the news of Erasmus’s death, why was he asking questions about her last meeting with the man? Why was he judging and seeking? And what had he meant when he told her there was worse news beyond Erasmus’s death? She’d been so shocked by that fact, the rest hadn’t sunk in, but now it did.

“—wasn’t it, my dear?” her mother was still saying, though now she’d put the full force of her attention on Celeste’s father.

Sir Timothy rose to his feet and gave a nervous glance first to Celeste and then to Mr. Gregory. “I-Indeed, the day our daughter married was m-most happy,” he stammered, as he was wont to do when his wife made him lie.

Celeste tried not to be drawn back to that horrible day when her fate had been sealed. How she’d made an attempt to escape out a window, only to be dragged back in and marched, almost at bayonet point, to the altar. Erasmus Montgomery hadn’t even looked at her when he said his vows. He’d yawned while she said hers. All his pretense was gone once he knew he’d have the little dowry that accompanied her entrance into their marriage.

As for the wedding night…well, that hadn’t been much fun, either.

“Of course we will all go to London. Arrangements must be made for our dearest Erasmus,” Lady Hendricks continued. “I’m sure the earl will be most pleased that we will make ourselves part of their deep grief. It is Erasmus’s brother who holds the title, is it not?”

Celeste flinched, for her mother’s ramblings were only making clearer the state of her marriage. She had been Mrs. Montgomery for almost a year and had never met her husband’s family or friends. She had never been brought to London to see her home there. He had let her a…well, it was hardly more than a hovel here in Twiddleport, and she wasn’t entirely certain he paid the rent on time on that.

But that didn’t stop her mother from grasping, as usual. Seeing the death as an opportunity to insert herself into higher society if she could. Just as she had been Celeste’s entire life.

Celeste cleared her throat, tired of the theatrics and the questions. “Mr. Gregory,” she said above her mother’s continued plots and plans. “You said a few moments ago that you had more to