Tempted By His Secret Cinderella (Allied At The Altar Book 3) Read online

  He’s falling for a princess...

  But she’s a commoner!

  An Allied at the Altar story. A wild scheme to secure a patron for her father’s play finds Elidh Easton at a house party dressed as Italian royalty! But Elidh catches the eye of their dashing host, Sutton Keynes, who has four weeks to find a noble bride. He’d never look twice at her normally—poor, plain and untitled—but in the moment, it’s easy to imagine they have a future!

  Allied at the Altar

  When only a convenient wife will do!

  The face of Victorian London is changing. Innovation and reform is the order of the day. At the heart of this new Society are Conall Everard, Sutton Keynes, Camden Lithgow and Fortis Tresham.

  These four dashing heroes are determined to

  make their mark on the world. But what starts out as four convenient marriages will change these gentlemen’s lives forever...

  Don’t miss this new sexy quartet from Bronwyn Scott!

  Read Conall and Sofia’s story in

  A Marriage Deal with the Viscount

  Read Cam and Pavia’s story in

  One Night with the Major

  Read Sutton and Elidh’s story in

  Tempted by His Secret Cinderella

  And look out for the final book in

  Allied at the Altar,

  coming soon!

  Author Note

  Elidh and Sutton’s story poses the question:

  “What will you do for love?” For Sutton, the answer revolves around whether or not he’ll risk giving his heart again after a youthful disaster. For Elidh, the question is even more complex. What will she do out of love for her father? Will she risk his wild masquerade? When she meets Sutton, the question deepens. Love has torn her in two. Who does she choose? Sutton or her father? How can she possibly have them both? And then there’s the issue of her own self-love and what she will do in order to love and be true to herself without hurting the two men she cares for.

  Against the intricacies of these questions, a Cinderella story unfolds. But what makes the Cinderella story line engaging in any telling is what lies beneath the surface. The Cinderella story is more than a poor girl being rewarded for kindness with pumpkin coaches and glass slippers after enduring hardship; it’s a love story on a far deeper level. So let me ask you: What will you do for love? For the chance to be transformed? I hope you enjoy Elidh and Sutton’s story. For those who want a light read, the surface of the story will give you that. There’s much to be enjoyed at Sutton’s house party. For those looking for something more, you will find it. Beneath the first layer there is also a story here about human nature, morals and ethics, hard choices and much more to appeal to our inner philosopher.

  BRONWYN SCOTT

  Tempted by His

  Secret Cinderella

  Bronwyn Scott is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States and is the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing, she enjoys playing the piano, traveling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com, or on her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from readers.

  Books by Bronwyn Scott

  Harlequin Historical

  Scandal at the Midsummer Ball

  “The Debutante’s Awakening”

  Scandal at the Christmas Ball

  “Dancing with the Duke’s Heir”

  Allied at the Altar

  A Marriage Deal with the Viscount

  One Night with the Major

  Tempted by His Secret Cinderella

  Russian Royals of Kuban

  Compromised by the Prince’s Touch

  Innocent in the Prince’s Bed

  Awakened by the Prince’s Passion

  Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss

  Wallflowers to Wives

  Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss

  Awakening the Shy Miss

  Claiming His Defiant Miss

  Marrying the Rebellious Miss

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

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  For Brony, who always has the best ideas when I get stuck. For Catie, who rescues anything on four legs, and for Rowan, my very own philosopher king, who contemplates the big questions. A piece of each of you is in this story.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Debutante in Disguise by Eleanor Webster

  Chapter One

  London—Friday, July 13th, 1855

  Sutton Keynes considered himself a man of science, for whom all occurrences had a logical reason. There was little room in his well-ordered life for superstition. And what room did exist for such a novelty was quickly being filled to capacity as his uncle’s ancient fossil of a solicitor, one Mr Barnes Esquire, leaned forward, joints creaking from the effort, and uttered thirteen of the unluckiest words ever spoken in succession to a bachelor who was quite happy with his single state.

  ‘You have four weeks to wed if you want to claim the fortune.’

  Four weeks to wed.

  The words seemed to suck the very air out of the cramped little office in Poppins Court. Damn it all to hell. He thought he’d headed off such madness when he’d visited his uncle this spring. He’d made it very plain he didn’t want his uncle’s money. He’d even gone as far as to suggest that if his uncle wanted to keep the money out of his own son’s hands he should tie it up in charitable annuities. His uncle had given it to him anyway. Sutton had not been nearly as persuasive as he’d thought.

  Sutton reached for his teacup, wishing it held something stronger, and took a long swallow. He tried to appear neutral, as if his world hadn’t just been upended. He was a man of reason. He should stay calm until he had all the details. Perhaps the pronouncement only seemed dire on the surface.

  ‘Four weeks? That seems an exceptionally short amount of time in which to find a wife.’ A partner for life. It was an enormous commitment, one he’d managed to put off because of its enormity, until now. These things, like any decently run experiment, could not be rushed. There would be specimens to collect, variables to account for, observations to make, information to collect and analyse, hypotheses to test and eliminate as he winnowed down the field. ‘It would take at least a year to find a suitable bride.’ Sutton put his cup down and Mr Barnes quickly refilled it, perhaps hoping to make up in q
uantity of drink what the tea lacked in quality—mainly that it wasn’t brandy. ‘Is there any significance to that deadline?’ Sutton asked with a demeanour of equanimity, not wanting to give away his hand. He wasn’t opposed to marriage, in theory, but he was opposed to undue haste. Haste increased one’s margin for error exponentially. Surely he could argue for an extension unless there was a predetermined reason for such immediate action.

  His mind was already searching for a rationale behind his uncle’s decision. His uncle liked to play with numerology among his many eccentricities. Four—the four archangels, the four gospels, the four sides of New Jerusalem in Revelation. Those things would appeal to his uncle, but Sutton couldn’t see any relevance to this situation. Four, of which the square root was two, his scientific mind put forward. The four elements, the four phases of the moon, the four seasons, the four divisions of the day.

  ‘It’s the bank’s provision, Mr Keynes,’ Barnes explained. ‘The bank your uncle’s funds are invested with requires that all accounts be resolved within four weeks of the account holder’s death.’ But the rest of it, the marriage condition, was all his uncle’s. In order to be a legitimate beneficiary of those funds, his uncle, not the bank, required him to be married first. It made sense now. Four. The square of two. Husband and wife. Completion. Two parts of a whole.

  ‘And if I refuse to follow my uncle’s dictates?’ He watched Barnes’s bushy grey eyebrows go up. It wasn’t every day a man considered turning away a fortune handed to him.

  ‘Then the fortune reverts to your cousin, Baxter Keynes.’ Mr Barnes peered over his thick-rimmed glasses meaningfully.

  ‘Of course. Bax.’ Sutton gave a derisive chuckle. Bax was the one factor that could compel him to take up his uncle’s challenge. There was much he would do to keep that amount of money out of Bax’s control. What an unreasonable game this was becoming. He wasn’t only being forced to marry, he was being forced to step into the metaphoric ring and compete against his cousin, his uncle’s only child. ‘Are you acquainted with my cousin, Mr Barnes?’

  Barnes fixed Sutton with a strong stare. ‘Yes, indeed I am, Mr Keynes. He was here this morning, in fact. He didn’t stay long enough to have tea.’ The man’s tone was sharp, his gaze intuitive. For the first time since Sutton had entered the dingy office, the solicitor appeared to be more intelligent, more sane than Sutton had given him credit for. Most sane people struggled to do business with his uncle.

  Baxter knew, then. That would make things interesting in a dangerous sort of way. Sutton picked up his tea and pondered that piece of information. ‘Angry, was he?’ His cousin had been left with nothing, although it couldn’t have come as a surprise. Sutton’s uncle had been threatening for years to pull something of this nature. The old man’s title wasn’t hereditary. The only thing he could leave Bax was his fortune and he hadn’t. Instead, he’d left it to his nephew.

  ‘Positively furious.’ Barnes grimaced, nodding towards the cracked window pane.

  Sutton offered a tight smile. ‘If you’ve met him, you know there’s not a choice. It’s not a question of if I want to claim the fortune. I must. Baxter is not the sort of man to whom a fortune of that magnitude can be entrusted.’ His cousin wasn’t just reckless, spending money frivolously, although some of the fortune would indeed be squandered on harmless pursuits. Bax liked a good silk waistcoat and a fast horse as much as the next man. It wasn’t the harmless pursuits Sutton was worried about. It was the more harmful ones; Bax was mixed up with slavers, the type that sold white women into the harems of the east in order to gain the favour of the Ottoman pashas, and arms dealers who sold guns for profit regardless of the cause, regardless of the side. In short, Bax played a deep game with powerful men. His involvement, of course, was most certainly not well known. For all intents and purposes, Bax, son of the eccentric Sir Leland, was a typical gentleman. But only on the surface. Beneath that surface, Bax inhabited a dark, dangerous world.

  Barnes’s old eyes sharpened for a moment over the rims of his glasses. ‘We see each other plain, Mr Keynes. I assume you’ll be marrying shortly, then.’ It was not a question. Barnes tapped his papers into place and reached for another set of documents.

  ‘I suppose I shall be.’ Shortly. Quickly. Without the study necessary to make a quality decision. It was antithetical to his nature. Anabeth Morely had taught him that in his youth. He’d jumped into love with her head first only to find shallow water and grave disappointment. He’d not ventured forth since.

  As a result, marriage was the last thing on his mind, right there at the bottom of the list of his priorities including his uncle’s fortune. Whenever he thought about marriage, and that was hardly often enough to even qualify as seldom, it was as an amorphous something to pursue in a nebulous future, perhaps five years from now, once his camel dairy was firmly established in Newmarket. But not this summer. The summer was half over. He had his prized mare due to foal next month, he had next year’s breeding programme to look over, bloodlines to study, the camel’s milk studies to continue. The Newmarket Breeders Club would be expecting his report on the subject at the September meeting. He absolutely could not get married this year, not when there was so much to do.

  It was bad enough his uncle’s death had pulled him away from Newmarket this week. He’d be there now if it wasn’t for the details of his uncle’s will to sort through. In fact, he’d thought to leave for home as soon as the will was read, but today’s revelations had put paid to that. Signing papers and looking over deeds would keep him in town another few days.

  He far preferred the clean, straightforward living of Newmarket to the bustle and social politics of the London Season. He far preferred his animals to the matchmaking biddies of the ton and their feather-headed daughters. Some might consider him reclusive. They wouldn’t be far wrong. He liked to think of himself as ‘selective in his attentions’. He simply didn’t have time for nonsense and London was notoriously full of it. He’d had plenty of its shenanigans when he’d first come up to town.

  Now, however, his uncle’s will threatened all that selective attention on a more permanent level. It didn’t need to, though. Surely if there wasn’t a way around the will, there was a way through it. His logical, scientist’s mind turned itself to his options. He could make his marriage a temporary arrangement. Once the will was satisfied and the fortune was out of Bax’s hands, they could separate.

  ‘Ahem, Mr Keynes, are you listening?’ No. He wasn’t, in fact. He was too busy looking for loopholes. ‘There are conditions attached to your marriage.’ The solicitor raised his bushy brows again. ‘I would listen closely if I were you. No sense in sacrificing oneself in marriage just to get it wrong.’ Barnes had his attention now and he knew it. The old man smiled in satisfaction. ‘If I may continue?’ He cleared his throat. ‘First, the bride must be from a noble family. Second, the marriage must last. It cannot be annulled or divorced or discontinued in any manner or the fortune is forfeit.’

  Damn. Sutton had been counting on that—bear out the marriage for a couple of years and then cut his wife loose. Surely he could find a woman who would agree to those terms if she was handsomely paid. Sutton rethought his options. If divorce was out of the question, there was still a chance at informal separation, an ‘open’ marriage, as distasteful as the idea was to him. He had expectations, after all, loyalty and fidelity being two of them. His uncle’s mandate, however, was playing havoc with those ideas along with everything else.

  Sutton had no sooner contemplated the idea of the open marriage than the solicitor continued. ‘Third, no separate lives, which means no separate residences and you may spend no more than a third of the year apart.’ Well, so much for the wiggle room. That took care of it. The noose was tightening.

  Sutton shifted in the hard wood chair and crossed a leg over his knee. His blasted teacup was empty again. ‘It seems that I am well and truly roped into this, then.’

 
‘Some would say you are well compensated for your sacrifice. All men marry in the end anyway,’ the solicitor offered in an attempt to soften the blow.

  ‘It’s not the marriage I mind. It’s the haste with which it must be done and the parameters placed on who it must be in order to claim a prize, a fortune I don’t want except that it must not go to Bax. I have wealth of my own,’ Sutton replied drily. That was the complete irony of the situation. His uncle had given a wealthy man a fortune, knowing full well the fortune itself held no allure. ‘My uncle is blackmailing me from beyond the grave.’ The dead bastard was getting everything he wanted: his fortune protected from his unscrupulous son and his nephew wed, the best his uncle could do to ensure the Keynes line continued, having all but officially disinherited Bax.

  ‘I can’t possibly consider refusing, for the greater good, as I am sure you know.’ He couldn’t possibly consider failing either. His canny uncle hadn’t only made an ultimatum regarding his fortune, he’d made a game of it, one that pitted cousin against cousin. Bax would get the fortune if Sutton failed. Bax wouldn’t sit idly by and leave the outcome of that game to chance. He would meddle and he would be dangerous, not only to Sutton but to whomever Sutton targeted as a bride. Bax would stop at nothing to prevent him from fulfilling the conditions of the will.

  Barnes poured a third cup of tea. Sutton picked it up and drank it down reflexively, his mind moving on to other issues like the pressing matter of a bride. It was one thing for him to marry in four weeks. He had a motive. But what bride of noble birth would marry him under such short notice? And the notice would only get shorter with every day that passed. Where was he going to find a bride in time? Especially one he could live with for the rest of his life?

  The scientist in him shuddered to think at the flaws in collecting an adequate sample to base his decision on. The Season was more than halfway gone, but his bride would have to come from whoever was on hand in London and unclaimed at this point. He wondered if his uncle had thought about that? He supposed it could have been worse. His uncle could have died the end of August with Parliament out and everyone already absconded to their country homes. Where would he have found a bride then?