The Major's Faux Fiancee by Erica Ridley

hoped that someday, someone would actually want her in his life. Not because he was in search of a wife or in want of companionship. But because he wanted Daphne . Someone who wanted to chase her dreams with her instead of force her to abandon them completely. Someone who loved her. Who couldn’t imagine life without her.
    Today… was not that day. Even her faux fiancé could not look less interested.
    She curled her fingers into fists. Next month, the ruse would be over. Bartholomew would be gone. But here today, beneath her guardian’s watchful eye, they needed to look like a couple that intended to marry. Now that they’d signed the contracts, they could not risk him making good on his threats of Bedlam and Newgate. She glanced around the room.
    Closer to the fire, two wingback chairs sat opposite a chaise longue. Perfect. They could sit next to each other, with nary an armrest between them. She could force her cracked lips into a smile and at least pretend her handsome, rakish neighbor really had returned to Maidstone to beg for her hand.
    She dashed to the chaise longue and motioned for Bartholomew to join her.
    He tilted his head quizzically, his mind obviously elsewhere.
    Urgently, she thumped her hand on the cushion. “Come here .”
    “What am I, your lapdog?” he groused. But he smiled as he joined her on the chaise longue, his attention focused on her once more. “You’re fortunate this is a counterfeit betrothal.”
    “ Shh .” She rapped the back of her knuckles against the side of his thigh. “Or what? You’d toss me over your shoulder like a heathen and lock me in some gothic attic on the moors?”
    “If I could do so without my fake leg giving out on me, absolutely.” His blue eyes twinkled as he gave her a chastising look. “If we did make it to the altar, you’d be the one who should carry me over the threshold.”
    “Me!” she exclaimed, clutching a hand to her bosom in mock affront. “Just what might you be implying about my ladylike figure, sir?”
    He blinked back at her innocently. “Was it too subtle? As clever as you are, I assumed wordplay wouldn’t be too far above you. I can think of other things I’d prefer to have above—or beneath—you, however you like it. May I offer my…” He coughed into his gloved fist and sprang to his feet.
    Flushing, Daphne did the same. Bartholomew might not have lain eyes on his mother in three years, but Daphne had run into her now and then at All Saints Church while he’d been gone. Until they’d got the news about their children, of course. There’d been no sign of any Blackpool since. Without Edmund’s body, there hadn’t even been a funeral to attend.
    Her breath caught as they walked into the room. In the interim seven months, ’twas safe to say that Bartholomew’s parents had… deteriorated. She could scarcely believe her eyes.
    Mr. Blackpool—once as wide and tall and arrogant as his sons—hovered in the doorway like a leaf caught in the wind, neither rising up nor falling down. Despite his height, he seemed fragile. Ephemeral. His expression was vacant, as if his body were an empty shell and his mind no longer present.
    Mrs. Blackpool, on the other hand… everything about her was very present. She’d gained at least two stone in the past few months, and her entire body quivered like a volcano about to burst. Her red-rimmed eyes watered. Her handkerchief trembled from shaking fingers. The gasping sounds escaping her throat were somewhere between weeping and outright hysteria.
    Daphne’s throat convulsed. She had felt exactly like this when her father first died. Some days, she forgot to eat. On others, her eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Her father might have always been busy tending his flock, but he was the only person who loved her. And now he was gone.
    She curtseyed awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed. Bartholomew took a hesitant step forward, his face ashen.
    With a sob, Mrs. Blackpool threw herself directly into her