Read an Excerpt
The Redemption Of Matthew Quinn
By Kathleen O'Brien Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
All right reserved. ISBN: 0373710860
Chapter One
At high noon when she should have been saying "I do," Natalie Granville was lounging on the cracked porch of her maggoty mansion, wearing nothing but a bikini, a smile and a light coating of perspiration.
Through the open double doors to the parlor, she listened to the answering machine. At least ten people had already called to check on her. Their messages ranged from the carefully indirect -"Hi, Nat, just wondering if you felt like talking" - to the blunt growls of her elderly cousin Granville Frome -"Dammit, girl, where are you? If you're holed up somewhere crying, I'm going to break that bastard's nose."
But Natalie ignored them all. She was a Granville, and by heaven she didn't need anybody's pity.
She hoisted herself onto the wide marble banister and lay back carefully, so that the sun could bake her entire body. She slathered sunscreen across the bridge of her nose, where those annoying freckles liked to pop up, balanced her bottle of Jack Daniel's on her stomach, and went on enjoying the heavenly day.
The would-have-been wedding day. Above her, the hot blue sky wore white lace clouds. Around her, the air sparkled like diamonds. The birds were singing schmaltzy romantic ditties.
Actually, she admitted to the bottle,trying to be honest - Granvilles were unflinchingly honest - it would have been a lovely day to get married.
Then she grinned, though her lips felt a little bit numb. Aw, who was she kidding? It was an even lovelier day to not get married.
Oops. Her grandfather wouldn't like that split infinitive. Granvilles always used perfect grammar. She raised the bottle over her head and, without turning her head, apologized to the glowering portrait that hung on the parlor wall.
"Sorry, Gramps. I guess I'm breaking all the rules today."
She wouldn't have called him Gramps, either, if it hadn't been for the Jack Daniel's. And the fact that he'd been dead for five years.
"Um, hello. Miss? Excuse me." A man's voice floated up to her from the driveway, which sloped away beside the terraced garden. "Sorry, but I have a delivery for Natalie Granville?"
She maneuvered herself upright carefully, straddling the banister as if it were a marble horse. "I'm Natalie Granville," she said politely. Darn, this position felt kind of awkward - the man was looking at her very strangely.
And she couldn't quite decide what to do with the Jack Daniel's. She didn't want the bottle to fall off and break. She hugged it to her side, but that didn't seem very hospitable, so she held it out. "Want some?"
The man - more like a boy, really - flushed. "No thanks," he said quickly. He held out a very large, flat box. "I just need your signature for this."
Natalie stared at the package, which looked familiar. Not the sort of thing she received for the nursery business she ran from the greenhouse, though. Too flat. Too feminine, with its shiny white corners.
Hmm. She frowned. Jack Daniel's might taste wonderful, but it didn't exactly help you to think clearly. Had she been expecting a delivery?
"I - Can you sign? It's for you. It's from Apple Blossom Bridal."
Aw, shucks. Natalie's shoulders sagged. The wedding dress.
"I don't want it," she said, closing her eyes and waving the half-empty bottle vaguely. "Could you maybe just throw it away as you leave?"
"Um ... not really." The kid sounded downright nervous now. "I'll leave it here, okay?" He set the box on the banister, moving in slow motion, as if he had discovered it contained nitroglycerine. "Just right here."
Natalie sighed and had another swallow of Jack Daniel's, which, taken straight like this, was muscular enough to etch its initials in her esophagus. She shivered, loving it.
"Okay." She wiped her mouth and smiled at him. "If you have to."
Tucking the bottle under her elbow, she reached over, signed his clipboard, and then began unwrapping the box.
"It's my wedding dress," she said conversationally. "Or I guess it's technically my non-wedding dress. Today is my non-wedding day, you see. I told them I didn't need the dress anymore, but they wouldn't give me my money back. Don't you think that's mean? I was only getting married in the first place because I needed money so badly, and now -"
But the deliveryman was already gone. Natalie looked at the empty yard around her, the acres and acres of once-beautiful gardens, and sighed. He hadn't even waited for a tip. Didn't he know Granvilles always tipped beautifully? That was why they were constantly broke. Well, that and the gambling. And the women.
And the house. Always the house. This crazy, crumbling, hungry monster of a house.
She unfolded her gown and shook the creases out of the soft white cotton lace. It was an okay dress - not great. She'd bought the cheapest one in town, although they'd all been absurdly expensive. That was the problem with living in a community of millionaires. Price tags came in only three sizes: Big, Bigger and Downright Astronomical.
She held the pearled bodice up against her chest, trying to imagine herself wearing it. She couldn't.
She climbed down off the banister and tried again, letting the layered skirt fall all the way to her ankles.
She dipped and swayed, trying to capture the dreamy, princessy feeling she used to get as a kid, when she'd rummage through the attic trunks, pretending to be a damsel in distress. She had shuffled to the attic window, antique lace dragging behind her, and surveyed her flowering kingdom.
In her ten-year-old imagination, she had always witnessed the galloping arrival of her handsome prince, her gallant knight, her brave cavalier. Or, her personal favorite, her Pair of Moors - a phrase she'd heard the grown-ups use, though she had no idea what it really meant. A few years later, when she'd learned what a "paramour" actually was, it had been a crushing disappointment.
Still pressing the gown to her chest, she moved back to the balcony and gazed down over the ruined Summer House grounds, all the way down to where the mountain ledge overlooked the tiny kingdom of Firefly Glen.
But no prince was fighting his thorny, perilous way up the mountain path. Nothing. Not so much as a speck on the horizon. Even the deliveryman's truck had long since disappeared.
She held out the wedding dress and scowled at it. It might be a five-hundred-dollar gown, but the darn thing didn't possess five pennies' worth of magic.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Redemption Of Matthew Quinn by Kathleen O'Brien Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
