Always the Rival (Never the Bride Book 7)

met Miss Lloyd. They had giggled together, guessing whether she would be tall, bookish, speak French, embroider…
That was a lifetime ago. The weeks had slipped by, weeks without Charles because he had to attend to wedding preparations.
Wedding preparations! Priscilla smiled wryly as she sat alone, quite content in her own thoughts. A few months ago, Miss Lloyd and Charles had never met. Now they would spend the rest of their lives together. Miss Ashbrooke, the matchmaker, had worked another wonder.
It was madness! Who would marry someone they barely knew?
The instant the thought crossed her mind, Charles spoke, and Miss Lloyd laughed.
Bile rose in Priscilla’s throat, but she forced it down. This was not the time to permit her emotions to overwhelm her.
“Ah, I thought Charles would be here.”
Priscilla jumped. Her mother had returned from some gossiping with her acquaintances, but Priscilla had been so enrapt in her own thoughts, she had barely noticed.
“Yes,” she said demurely, trying to keep the fire of her emotions from her voice. “Charles, his mother, and his betrothed.”
Mrs. Seton looked over at the trio and smiled. “You know, I cannot remember a time when I did not know young Charles, and Mary, too.”
Priscilla’s smile was wan. “When Mary…well, that only brought us closer together, if possible.”
Her mother, a handsome woman of almost fifty, looked at her daughter. “He was like a son to me, you know. An excellent brother to you when you were growing up.”
Priscilla opened her mouth to protest but was immediately interrupted.
“Ah, there is Lady Romeril.” Mrs. Seton sighed heavily. “Goodness knows what will happen if I do not acknowledge her and pay some sort of compliment. I will not be long, Priscilla.”
Her daughter barely noticed her leave. Charles, a brother? She had never consciously considered him that way, exactly, but there had certainly never been any awkwardness or discomfort around him. He was…well, Charles. It was like not recognizing your reflection. It was a part of you, part of the landscape.
Miss Lloyd laughed again, and Priscilla’s frown returned. The engagement had changed everything. When was the last the time they had gone for a walk, a ride, had an actual conversation without anyone else?
She swallowed, her throat dry, as something like jealousy but also anger bubbled in her stomach.
Charles had always been an acquiescing child and had grown into an acquiescing man. Her frown disappeared briefly at the memories of his innocence, the time they had borrowed a horse for the day and caused a park-wide panic, the incident with the water fountain that had earned him a thrashing for swimming with a girl, and that time he instructed food to be taken to those gypsies and had emptied his mother’s larder right before a state dinner.
There was no one quite like Charles. So what did he think he was doing, allowing himself to be engaged to…to a fool like that?
Priscilla’s gaze examined Miss Lloyd, her first time at a distance, and regretted the fierce thought. She did not appear to be a fool, from what one could tell.
Elegant shoulders, a fine neck, bright eyes, and an interesting conversationalist, though the dowager was not an excellent barometer of that. She was pretty, Priscilla had to grudgingly admit, but what else was she?
Rich. Priscilla almost spat the word aloud, it was so irritating. Miss Lloyd’s twenty thousand pounds was incomparable to her own two thousand. There was no contest.
She had known the dowager as long as she had known Charles, and though she loved her like a wayward aunt who was too strict at times, now Priscilla had entered adulthood, she had started to realize that her childhood idols were, perhaps, a little tarnished.
It was an unpleasant realization to see that the dowager was more interested in her son’s wealth than his happiness.
An image flashed across her mind, so clear and vibrant it felt more like a memory; but this vision had never occurred, and never would do.
There she was, standing opposite Charles…at an altar. A vicar was bringing their hands together, and it felt…it felt like returning home after months abroad. His hands were warm, his eyes bright, and he leaned forward…
Priscilla jolted in her chair so fiercely that she almost fell off. Rising hurriedly to mask her own foolishness and taking a sweeping look around to see whether her imbalance had been spotted, she cleared her throat and started walking around the edge of the dancers – in the opposite direction to Charles and Miss Lloyd.
She almost wanted to laugh it was so ridiculous. Charles – marry Charles?
But accompanying that thought was something she had never experienced before. A heat, a tug in her stomach. A longing for something she did not entirely understand.
Was it…desire?
She’d had her fair share of childhood crushes when first entering society. As she weaved between laughing couples, moving toward the dancers and clusters of ladies discussing the bride and bridegroom, she remembered her obsession with the Earl of Chester, which had lasted far too long.
But Charles…Charles had never tempted her. Priscilla glanced back over her shoulder as she wondered why. There he was, handsome, which she had always known.
But it had been like knowing the full moon was rising. Until you really stopped to examine it, it was just a white blob in the sky. You knew it would be there, so did not look.
Now she looked, and Charles appeared to transform – and yet, he had always been that way. Tall, broad shoulders, his jaw clenched at this very moment, which meant his mother was being more trying than normal.
Then he laughed, and that dimple she knew better almost than her own appeared.
Priscilla found she had stopped walking to stare, take him all in.
Charles was in many ways, the perfect gentleman. Titled, not that it mattered. Kind, which was far more important. A strong sense of fairness, a strong sense of fun. Joyful, playful, educated without being stuffy, honorable without being dull…
And as she looked at him, her gaze dropped to his hands. Strong hands. An engulfing