Always the Second Choice (Never the Bride Book 12) Read online

  Always the Second Choice

  Never the Bride

  Book 12

  Emily E K Murdoch

  © Copyright 2021 by Emily E K Murdoch

  Text by Emily E K Murdoch

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition March 2021

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Dearest Reader;

  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

  Happy Reading!

  CEO, Dragonblade Publishing

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch

  Never The Bride Series

  Always the Bridesmaid (Book 1)

  Always the Chaperone (Book 2)

  Always the Courtesan (Book 3)

  Always the Best Friend (Book 4)

  Always the Wallflower (Book 5)

  Always the Bluestocking (Book 6)

  Always the Rival (Book 7)

  Always the Matchmaker (Book 8)

  Always the Widow (Book 9)

  Always the Rebel (Book 10)

  Always the Mistress (Book 11)

  Always the Second Choice (Book 12)

  The Lyon’s Den Connected World

  Always the Lyon Tamer

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  About Emily E K Murdoch

  Chapter One

  Olivia took in a slow breath and tried to keep her voice calm. “You cannot be serious, Isabella.”

  Her twin sister twirled with a mischievous smile. “Why not? ’Tis my wedding, I am the bride, I can surely do whatever I want!”

  Her voice was so petulant, so wheedling, Olivia had to sit on the end of her bed and examine her sister before she replied.

  She was not serious. For all her peevishness and demanding nature over the last few days, as her wedding to the Duke of Larnwick came closer, surely Isabella was not going to demand another delay!

  “You have put off this wedding long enough,” Olivia said slowly, watching her twin sister pout in the looking glass. “Isabella, be reasonable. The man proposed two years ago!”

  “Almost three,” said Isabella with a grin. “But he has accepted every other decision to push back the wedding, months and months of it. If I am not entirely happy with the way my hair has been coiffed, I am sure he would understand.”

  “I am sure he would not,” said Olivia, a little more curtly than she had intended.

  Well, really. Isabella Lymington was the elder of the twin sisters and had always been one for getting her way, but what girl with thirty thousand pounds wasn’t?

  This, however, was going too far. Olivia had awoken that morning, hardly believing the day had come. The wedding between Colin Vaughn, Duke of Larnwick, and Miss Isabella Lymington had been heralded by the ton as the most important of the Season…and the next Season…and here they were now, two years after the engagement was announced, and Isabella thought the poor man would accept another postponement?

  Isabella moved a delicate curl from one side of her forehead to the other. “No, ’tis completely ruined. I cannot possibly be wed in this state.”

  Olivia rose from her bed. “Well, let me see if I can—”

  “Do not touch my hair!” said Isabella, whirling around with her hands over her hair protectively. “Don’t you try, Livvy!”

  “Bella, come here,” Olivia said calmly, following her elder sister around the room in some sort of wild dance as she tried to keep away from her. “I just need to…it would be easy enough to improve by—”

  “Don’t you touch me!”

  Olivia almost had to laugh. It was so ridiculous as her hands dropped to her sides, and she stopped trying to pin her sister to the wall. Here they were, just weeks after their first and twentieth birthday, and Isabella somehow thought it appropriate to consider her hairstyle more important than all the plans the poor duke had put in place for their nuptials!

  The poor man. Olivia’s cheeks flamed as she thought of the Duke of Larnwick again. Tall, handsome to a fault, and seemingly besotted with her twin sister.

  He had never given her a second glance.

  And that was right, Olivia scolded herself silently as she watched Isabella sigh into the looking glass. Why would your sister’s betrothed even notice you? He had proposed to Isabella within days of meeting the Lymingtons, and he had been patient over the months and years Isabella had made him wait for this wedding.

  Your…your fancy that he is handsome is just making you a fool, Olivia told herself. You need to put him out of your mind. He will be your brother in a few hours!

  “You have an hour,” said Olivia quietly, watching her sister. “One hour, and then we will have to depart for the church.”

  Isabella turned. “Why?”

  Olivia almost screamed in exasperation. “For your wedding, Bella!”

  “Haven’t I already told you, I simply cannot get married in this hairstyle?” Isabella shot back with a serious look. “I will not be a bride if my hair is not perfect!”

  Olivia opened her mouth to respond but closed
it again. She was getting nowhere with her irascible twin sister. That appeared to be the way between them these last few years. When they had been children, they had been inseparable; more, people had been unable to tell them apart because of their similar looks and natures.

  Not any longer. Olivia was reluctant to say it beyond the secrecy of her mind, but…well. Isabella was spoiled now. She was selfish, self-centered, and irritating.

  It was this wedding. If the Duke of Larnwick had proposed to her, all those years ago…

  Olivia blinked. She had become lost in her thoughts, and Isabella was still not dressed. The clock over the mantelpiece showed ten minutes past ten, and they had to be at the church for eleven o’clock – and Isabella was not even in her wedding gown, just a day gown!

  “You have put off this wedding for months now,” Olivia attempted as her sister sat in the chair by her dressing table. “I think the duke has been very patient, but he is expecting a bride this morning, and that means you!”

  “Oh, I do not think Colin would mind,” said Isabella lazily, running a hairbrush through her chestnut hair.

  Olivia swallowed but had to speak. “I think he would,” she said. She remembered the look of exhaustion the duke had given her just days ago at the Braedon wedding. He looked like a man pushed beyond his endurance at Isabella’s irritating chatter, and he had not been the only one. She had been insupportable at that wedding reception.

  “Do you think so?” said Isabella, turning in the chair. “Really?”

  “Bella, you accepted his offer of marriage more than two years ago, and the wedding was initially set for just three months after!” Olivia tried to explain in a calm voice, but it was most vexing. “You have agreed on new wedding dates and changed them at the last minute six times now. Do you not think that is odd?”

  “No, it cannot be that long,” said Isabella airily, placing her sister’s hairbrush back on the dressing table and picking up a comb. “No, I think it has been closer to a year.”

  “When I say more than two years, I say so advisedly,” said Olivia bluntly. It was time that spoiled, precious Isabella, the twin who was always right, always beloved, and never spoken to directly, heard a little truth. “It is embarrassing that you cannot remember how long you have been engaged, and it is shameful that you are considering putting off your wedding again! Do you not have any idea how he might be feeling? Have you spoken to him?”

  “Oh, Colin doesn’t mind me,” said Isabella with a grin. “He is besotted with me, Livvy. You must have seen that. He’ll do anything I ask, don’t you worry. The wedding is postponed.”

  Olivia swallowed and tried to stay calm, despite intense provocation. It was true, the Duke of Larnwick had accepted all postponements with good grace, but that was his good breeding rather than pleasure at the thought of once again not being wed.

  It was embarrassing. Olivia had always been proud to be a Lymington, to come into society and challenge all those stuffy titled people who believed one had to know who one’s great-grandfather was to be a gentleman. Their father was in trade. He had made his fortune and raised his daughters to marry well, to act like ladies.

  Why couldn’t Isabella see that?

  “Old Colin won’t mind, I am sure, once he realizes how serious this situation is,” Isabella was saying. “I mean, look at this curl!”

  Olivia sighed and shook her head as she sat back down on her bed. There was no reasoning with her. There hadn’t been for the last year, as her twin’s antics became more and more petulant. There was no talking to a woman who complained about a hair curl and used it as an excuse to put off her wedding to a duke!

  Old Colin won’t mind. Really!

  Concern seared through her heart. Colin Vaughn. He was a man, truly, who had been more than patient, more than understanding. He must be very in love with her twin to put up with her increasingly bad behavior.

  The fact that Olivia could not wait to see him at every planned engagement between Isabella and the duke was more than shameful. It was pathetic!

  It was not wrong to find a man handsome, she knew that. But it had been over two years! She needed to leave her obsession, which was not quite the right word for it, but the way she felt for him was not far off.

  She could feel her cheeks flushing. When sister had become engaged to Colin, she should have left those feelings behind. But they had not subsided, and now whenever she was in his presence, she had to be careful where she was looking.

  That was easy. She did what most people in Isabella’s presence did; look at her.

  “I am sure I can fix your hair,” said Olivia quietly.

  Isabella glanced over at her. “Do…do you think?”

  Olivia nodded and moved over to the dressing table. “Come on. This is your wedding we are talking about! Of course we want you to look your best, but as you look pretty, I do not think your duke will mind.”

  Isabella bit her lip, a hand moving to her hair to tug at her curls.

  Was this all nerves, Olivia wondered. A wedding led to the most serious commitment one could make. It was no wonder any woman would be nervous! Spending the rest of one’s life with another was hardly a small choice, and once the decision was made, it was difficult to unmake.

  “Well, if you think you can,” said Isabella, with almost a devil may care attitude.

  Olivia smiled through her annoyance. “Excellent. Now, stay still.”

  “I suppose Colin may not necessarily notice my hair is any different, now I think about it,” Isabella chattered away as Olivia attempted to pin her sister’s curls, “as I suppose I would not notice whether he changed his hair! But really, ’tis the bride who matters the most in these things, as I was saying to…”

  Olivia allowed her twin sister to prattle on. At least it kept her still. Besides, hearing her talk about Colin was…

  She was ridiculous. Even hearing about the duke in such a flippant way was painful. How could her sister give so little thought to the man she was about to marry?

  Did Isabella love him? Olivia had wondered ever since their engagement had been announced. It had been right after…

  Well. The sisters’ relationship had never been the same since. Olivia had forgiven Isabella her part in it all, of course, but…well. Once you broke a person’s trust, it was difficult to return to how things had always been. And when that person was your identical twin, it was almost impossible.

  “There,” she said aloud. “Perfect.”

  Isabella pushed past her sister to get to the looking glass without saying a word. Olivia smiled wryly at her sister’s rudeness and wandered to the window seat as her hair creation was carefully examined.

  The whole world was teeming outside the window in the street below. London was always busy at the beginning of the Season. Everyone coming from the countryside in desperate need of purchasing the latest fashions for Almack’s, card parties, balls, luncheons, and tea parties.

  From this distance, three floors up, it was difficult to pick out any individual faces, but there were plenty of groups bustling along: families, sisters, friends, and married couples. Carriages were arriving, depositing people, and then quickly driving away. There they all were, their lives moving forward, changing.

  Unlike hers. All she seemed to do was wait for her sister to marry a gentleman she considered the most handsome she had ever met.

  There was, however, one thing that caught her eye: a carriage right outside the Lymington London house. It stood unmoving, just…there. It was most odd.

  “Look at this,” Olivia said, half-forgetting Isabella was supposed to be getting into her wedding gown. “There’s a carriage in all the hustle and bustle, just standing stock still. How strange.”

  “Not really,” shot back Isabella quickly. “You have almost got my hair perfect, you know. I don’t know why we bother with a lady’s maid when you can do it so well. If I wanted flowers in my hair, would you be able to weave them in?”

  Olivia’s heart sank. She was no
t a coiffeur creator by nature, just using common sense to pin back the curls created with the papers overnight.

  “What kind of flowers?” she said warily. “You know we do not have the time to pick any new ones.”

  Isabella shrugged as she returned to the dressing table. “Oh, any old thing. Flowers from my room. You know, ’tis funny that in just an hour, I will be the Duchess of Larnwick.”

  Olivia nodded. She was not jealous of the title. Having a title did not mean much to a Lymington, not when one had a dowry of thirty thousand pounds.

  No, it was far more about keeping one’s promises. That was what their father had taught them, a core tenant of good business.

  “Only make a promise you know you can keep,” he always told them.

  “Olivia!” her sister said smartly. “I said, I will soon be the Duchess of Larnwick!”

  Olivia sighed. The title, however, seemed to mean a great deal to her sister. “Yes, you will. It is what you have always wanted, after all.”

  Isabella smiled and preened a little, twirling the comb in her fingers. “Colin said I was made to be a duchess.”

  “I am sure he did,” said Olivia, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm from her voice. Well, really. Of course, he did. He was in love with her! He would say anything she wished to hear.

  Though not always. Olivia recalled that very uncomfortable moment at the Braedon wedding, just last week when Isabella was most rude.

  “Well, I say,” Isabella said. “I have to say that is a crying shame.”

  “Not here,” Olivia hissed.

  “What? I may speak as I find, I am sure, and the viscount will think none the less of me for saying that it was a crying shame he gave his bride all the pomp and ceremony she did not deserve,” said Isabella with absolutely no care in the world.

  And the bride had been very clever and dealt with the situation beautifully, but Isabella had not entirely understood the joke, continuing to prattle on about her wedding plans.

  “No one wishes to hear any more about your wedding plans, Isabella!” Olivia had tried to calm her.