The Spring Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance, Band 3) - Softcover

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Anne Gracie is the award-winning, national bestselling author of numerous novels including the Merridew Sisters Romance series, the Chance Sisters Romance series, and the Marriage of Convenience Romance series. She spent her childhood and youth on the move. The gypsy life taught her that humor and love are universal languages and that favorite books can take you home, wherever you are. Anne started her first novel while backpacking solo around the world, writing by hand in notebooks. Since then, her books have been translated into more than sixteen languages, and include Japanese manga editions. As well as writing, Anne promotes adult literacy, flings balls for her dog, enjoys her tangled garden, and keeps bees.

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—Romance Reviews Today

“For fabulous Regency flavor, witty and addictive, you can’t go past Anne Gracie.”

—Stephanie Laurens, bestselling author

Prologue

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

—JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

London, 1805

“Tell us about the night you were a princess, Mama.”

“She felt like a princess, she wasn’t really one,” Jane’s big sister, Abby, corrected her.

Jane didn’t care. A princess was a princess. “Mama? Tell us.”

Mama smiled. “Don’t you ever get sick of it, darling?”

Jane shook her head fervently.

“Well, I was just eighteen, and it was the grandest ball of the season. Everybody was there, dukes, earls, even a royal prince.”

“And what were you wearing, Mama?”

“You know very well what I was wearing, you’ve heard it a hundred times.”

“Mama!”

“Very well, I was wearing a beeeyoutiful ball gown, rose-colored silk that swished like water when I walked.”

“And a gauze overdress—go on,” Jane prompted.

“A gauze overdress with hundreds of tiny crystals sewn on it that caught the light—”

“And glittered like a shower of diamonds,” Jane finished for her.

“See, you know it better than I do.”

“Go on. And on your head . . .”

“On my head I wore a most elegant little headdress of pink pearls and diamonds—of course, they were paste, but—”

“And you came down the staircase, and everybody turned to look at you . . .” Jane didn’t want to hear about paste, which wasn’t as good as diamonds—not that she’d ever seen any kind of jewelry, except for Mama’s gold wedding ring—but everybody knew a princess wore diamonds.

“Yes, little tyrant, and everybody turned to look at me in my beeyoutiful glittery pink dress.” Mama laughed, but the laughter turned into a coughing fit that ended with her lying back on the bed, handkerchief pressed to her mouth, exhausted.

Abby fetched Mama some water and a clean handkerchief, slipping it into Mama’s hands so that Papa wouldn’t notice the blood on the old one. Abby was always secretly washing blood out of Mama’s handkerchiefs.

After a while, Jane asked, “Mama, why aren’t you a princess now?”

“Oh, I’m still a princess, my darling.” Mama opened her eyes, and looked over Jane’s head at Papa, who was standing behind her, silent and grim. “That night I met and fell in love with your papa. He’s my prince, and always will be.” And she smiled up at Papa.

And Jane could see for herself that Mama really had been a princess because the smile made her beautiful again, so beautiful, as if someone had lit a candle inside her.

“You’ll always be my princess,” Papa said in a choked voice, smoothing Mama’s hair back and kissing her on the forehead.

Jane loved Papa dearly, but she knew he wasn’t a prince. A prince lived in a castle, not one poky little room in a smelly old building.

Mama was supposed to have married someone else—a rich man who did live in a castle. Papa too was supposed to marry another lady, but then they met each other and fell in love. And because they fell in love, they had to run away and get married, because their parents wanted them to marry the other people. The rich other people.

That was why Jane and Abby had never met their grandparents, even though Abby was almost twelve and Jane was nearly six. Because they were still angry. Papa and Mama had been cast out, cut off without a penny. That’s why they had no money. Papa did his best, but there was never enough . . .

If Mama were a princess now, she wouldn’t be a thin shadow of herself, faded, sad and sick. And Papa wouldn’t be so tight and angry and sad. Jane and Abby would be princesses too, and they’d all be living in a castle, not a cold, dark little room, where rats scrabbled behind the walls. And none of them would ever be cold, or hungry or frightened.

“I’m going to be a princess too, when I grow up,” Jane declared. “And I’ll have a pink glittery dress and wear diamonds and—”

“Janey darling, it’s just make-believe,” Abby began.

“No, I will!”

“Ah, sweetheart, no matter what you wear, you’ll always be Papa’s little princess,” Papa said, picking Jane up and twirling her around and around. And everybody laughed.

But Jane had no doubt of it. Twirling high in Papa’s arms, she looked down at the dingy little room spinning around her, Mama lying weak and thin in her bed, and Abby crouched beside her with a clean cloth. It wasn’t always going to be like this. Everybody said Jane was the image of her mother, and that meant she could be a princess too. She just had to find a prince with a castle.

Chapter One

But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.

—JANE AUSTEN, MANSFIELD PARK

Mayfair, London, March 1817

“That was a lovely treat, thank you, Abby.” Jane squeezed her sister’s arm affectionately as they walked through Berkeley Square. “I can’t believe I had to wait eighteen years to taste ice cream.”

Abby laughed. “You’ve made up for it in the last few months—is there any flavor at Gunter’s you haven’t tasted?”

“No,” Jane admitted, “but I still haven’t decided which is my favorite.”

Abby laughed again. “And it’s not even summer yet.” It was barely even spring. The plane trees that lined the square were only just beginning to bud and a few scattered clumps of snowdrops were in bloom.

Jane squeezed her older sister’s arm again. “Ice cream or not, it’s lovely to have the catch-up, just the two of us. I love Damaris and Daisy—you know I do, but sometimes . . .”

Abby nodded. “Sometimes you just need to be with your big sister, I know. It’s the same for me.” She paused, then glanced at Jane. “Are you nervous about your season? Your first ball, it’s what, ten days away?”

“A fortnight,” Jane corrected her. “And no, I’m not nervous. Not really.” She shook her head. “Well, nervous in a good way. If you want to know the truth, I can’t wait. All those years in the Pillbury Home wearing gray and brown serge and never dreaming—well, only dreaming about going to balls and parties and routs, wearing pretty dresses, dancing until dawn and going to plays and concerts and picnics, as Mama did. But I never truly believed it would happen, that one day . . .” She hugged her sister, then gave a happy little twirl. “It’s so exciting, Abby. I feel so very lucky.”

“We are lucky,” Abby said, sobering a little. “All of us. If it weren’t for Lady Beatrice . . .”

“I know. But she insists we rescued her, which is true too, in a way. And truly Abby, she’s enjoying this as much as any of us. She couldn’t be more delighted if we were her real nieces.”

Abby laughed. “Good thing I married her nephew...