Excerpt of The Winter Bride by Anne Gracie

"I want you to look after Aunt Bea and the girls while Abby
and I are on
our honeymoon,” Max, Lord Davenham, told his friend, the
Honorable
Frederick Monkton-Coombes.

Freddy almost choked on his wine. “Me?” he spluttered after
the coughing
fit had passed. “Why me?”

“You’re my oldest friend.”

Hard to wriggle out of that one, Freddy thought. But damn,
it was a hell
of a thing to spring on a fellow the night before a wedding.
As if being
best man weren’t trauma enough.

The less he had to do with the bride’s sisters the better,
as far as he
was concerned. Pretty, unmarried, respectable girls were not
Freddy’s
female of choice. Good girls? No, he much preferred the
company of bad
girls—the badder the better.

Good girls, especially good pretty girls, were . . .
dangerous. And one
Chance sister in particular was, to Freddy’s mind, more
dangerous than
most. She . . . disturbed him. In ways he preferred not to
examine too
closely. And now Max must come up with this. And playing the
“oldest
friend” card, dammit.

“You mean all of them? All the girls?”

“Yes, of course all of them,” Max said impatiently. “There
are only
three. They’re not exactly a horde.”

That was a matter of opinion. “What does look after entail?”
Freddy
asked cautiously.

Max shrugged. “Nothing very arduous, just the kind of thing
I’d do if I
were there. My aunt is well up to snuff, of course, but
she’s still
somewhat of an invalid and would appreciate having a man to
rely on if
needed.”

Having a man to order about, more like it, Freddy thought.

Max continued, “And Abby’s been fretting a little about
leaving her
sisters—you can understand that after all they’ve been
through recently.
Knowing you’ll be on hand to protect them if necessary will
ease her
mind.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you could ask?” Freddy said
desperately. “I
mean, you know my problem with unmarried females.”

“Your problem is with the kind of unmarried female you call
a muffin.
You told me Abby and her sisters were most definitely not
muffins.”
“They’re not, but—”

“Then there’s no problem.”

The noose was tightening. Freddy ran a finger around his
suddenly tight
collar. “Am I really the sort of fellow you want associating
with Abby’s
sisters? I don’t have the best reputation around women; you
know that,”
he said hopefully.

“I have complete faith in you.”

Damn. “What about Flynn? Didn’t you say he’d be arriving any
day now?”
Flynn was the head of the company in which Freddy and Max
were major
partners. “Couldn’t you ask him?”

"If he turns up, the two of you can share the responsibility
if it makes
you feel better. But Flynn doesn’t know Aunt Bea and the
girls like you
do. Nor does he know anything about London society. In fact,
I’m hoping
you’ll show him the ropes.”

“Oh,” Freddy said. More responsibilities. Delightful.

Max’s grin widened. “He’ll need your fashion advice too.
He’s planning
to cut a swath through London society, and currently he’s a
little . . .
unorthodox in appearance.”

“Oh. Joy.” Just what he wanted, to play guard dog to
respect- able
females and social and sartorial adviser to a rough Irish
diamond.

Max laughed. “Don’t look so glum. Flynn is a good fellow.
You’ll like
him. But you don’t need to worry about Flynn—he can look
after himself.
It’s my aunt and the girls I’m most concerned about.”

Freddy sipped his claret thoughtfully, trying to work out a
way to
wriggle out of what, on the surface, seemed quite a
reasonable request.

Max, misunderstanding his silence, added, “Look, it won’t be
hard. Just
drop around to Berkeley Square every few days, make sure
they’re all
right, see to anything if there’s a problem, protect the
girls from
unwanted attentions, take them for the occasional drive in
the park, pop
in to their literary society—”

“Not the literary society. The horror stories those girls
read are
enough to make a fellow’s hair stand on end.”
Max frowned. “Horror stories? They don’t read horror
stories, only
entertaining tales of the kind ladies seem to enjoy, about
girls and
gossip and families—”

“Horror stories, every last one of them,” Freddy said
firmly. “You asked
me to sit in on their literary society last month, when you
went up to
Manchester, remember? The story they were reading then . .
.” He gave an
eloquent shudder. “Horror from the very first line: It is a
truth
universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of
a good
fortune must be in want of a wife. Must he, indeed? What
about the poor
fellow’s wants, eh? Do they matter? No. Every female in the
blasted
story was plotting to hook some man for herself or her
daughter or
niece. If you don’t call that horror, I don’t know what is!”