Don't Want You Like a Best Friend (Mischief & Matchmaking, #1)

by Emma R. Alban

But Mother won’t see any time spent just with Gwen as valuable. Nothing Beth does can have just one purpose anymore. It all has to be for the cause,

Beth hesitates. She doesn’t want to ask, but she wants to know. Has always wanted to know. “Did you marry Father just to escape this?”

“I want to tell you it was love that forced my hand, but I can’t,” she admits, ghost regret on her face, but no pain. “I made a choice for security—so my parents wouldn’t worry about me—so I could provide for the children I desperately wanted,”

Did Mother blush like that when her first beau looked her way? Was she ever so happy and carefree? Was she ever in love, even once?

But if her mother, with all her various assets, couldn’t fall in love with the right man, what chance does Beth have? The only company she’s enjoyed so far is Gwen’s.

Statuesque with a chiseled jawline and well-coifed but slightly askew chestnut brown hair—he’s very pretty, for a boy.

“I am,” Beth says honestly, though she doesn’t at all like the gleam in Mother’s eye. “You needn’t go to any trouble over it. It really wasn’t that painful.” “I am glad in this moment to be such a terrible shot with a poor throw,” Lord Montson says with a grin.

“What if Beth’s not there?” Gwen asks, aware she’s whining and unable to help it. “Then you’ll—God forbid—have to dance with a young gentleman. Or talk to the other girls,”

“Too much fun.” He laughs. “I’ll be well-behaved tonight. A man needs his freedoms.” “Be nice if a lady could have the same,” Gwen grumbles. “You will never, ever, have those freedoms,” Father says quickly. Gwen blinks. “I—” “I meant,” he starts,

She can’t hate the woman then, can she? She could hate Beth’s grandfather, she supposes, for forbidding the match. “She seemed rather sad about it, actually,” Beth says. “I think it was my father,” Gwen says quickly, pushing it out in a rush. “What?”

“My father. He’d tease her when she was writing letters, would ask if she was writing to her other suitor. Mother always played it off, but I think it made her sad.”

Give her and Beth a chance to have some fun this season. But now—now they must get them back together.

I’ll be back,” Beth promises. “I’d much rather drink with you,”

“She could do better,” Gwen says tightly, unnerved by the clutch Montson has on Beth’s waist.

Beth swats at her knee and Gwen nudges back. Beth’s smile doesn’t leave her face for the rest of the performance, and they continue to whisper throughout. Gwen’s delight is infectious.

Ladies are nothing but grateful for male attention.

But though Mother has teased her about her exhaustion, suggesting it’s because she’s up at night daydreaming about Lord Montson, she’s felt nothing but indifference about him since the ball.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Lord Montson. And yet there’s just . . . nothing there. She feels empty, like she’s observing herself be courted from afar.

“He is,” Beth agrees. “And I—you’re right, I should be—I am grateful, that he’s interested. I’ll try my best.” She says it willingly, but the knot in her stomach twists tighter.

She and Gwen have to succeed. Forget whether Beth marries Lord Montson or not. Her mother deserves to have love at least once in her life. And Beth—Beth will be fine.

Gwen threads their gloved fingers back together, a rush of excitement coursing through her at the prospect of a true afternoon with Beth.

Gwen forces a polite chuckle, but the very thought curdles in her gut. She doesn’t want to consider Beth taking tea with Montson, let alone having babies with him.

She wonders if Beth can feel the way her heartbeat is jumping through her gloves.

The promise of more intrigue and scheming and time simply spent with Beth flutters through Gwen’s chest.

Gwen feels the loss of her touch like a cold draft, all that warmth and comfort and fun sliding away.

“You and Miss Demeroven, thick as thieves. I’m surprised Montson got a word in edgewise.”

“And yet it was you two sharing sandwiches, and he spent more time making plans with Albie than with Miss Demeroven as we left.”

But he saw it. Sees it. Sees what she’s been telling herself she doesn’t feel for weeks—feelings she shouldn’t have. Feelings society won’t want. Feelings she’s sure Beth won’t want either. Feelings that could get them both terribly hurt.

the pull of the dark and quiet is too strong to fight.

Gwen scowls and stalks forward. Beth stumbles back, surprised. Her hoop hits the stack of wine barrels. But Gwen doesn’t stop. She comes right up against her, their stiff corsets nudging together, skirts pushing to either side, breath mingling between them.

“I’m not jealous of your beau,” Gwen mutters. And then her lips crash onto Beth’s. Beth gasps against her mouth, frozen in shock. Her mind goes totally blank.

This is what it’s supposed to be. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Swoony and bright and everything.

Gwen’s waist between her hands, Gwen’s chest pushing up against her, pressing Beth into the barrels behind her—it’s overwhelming and wonderful and so much, so much.

She didn’t know anything could feel like this. Hot and soft and hard and fierce and beautiful.

What’s never made sense before—how everything has crystalized into this moment—how they should run away right now, forget the balls and boating and parties and just lie beneath trees in the woods like this forever and always.

What future could she and Gwen possibly hope to have? There’s no mechanism for them to own property separately, hardly more than that together, and not enough money between them to make any kind of go of it.

No, no, she would have known, wouldn’t she? She would have been able to tell. But then again, she had no idea until yesterday that the affection she feels for Gwen

Like Gwen lit a spark that didn’t exist until yesterday, until their lips touched and the possibility of more presented itself like an explosion. An explosion that cannot be undone.

But how is she to settle that in her head, when she feels nothing for Lord Montson and everything everything everything for Gwen?

Gwen sucks on her cheek, worrying a sore into her bottom lip. What if Beth doesn’t feel the same way? What then? And somehow, both worse and better, what if she does?

Why is it everyone in her household seems to have seen this before she did?

She saw them in flagrante and all she can say was it looked nice? How—she shouldn’t even be commenting on it. She bites at her lip. If one of them were a man, it would be a scandal.

But what she saw was anything but. It was giggling and blushing and just . . .

You don’t grow up to kiss your best friends and become a spinster.

But she’s already started it. Already pressed herself to Beth and taken her mouth—would have taken more if she could.

“Once you’ve been kissed like that, it’s hard to go back to other kisses,” Mrs. Gilpe says frankly.

“Unhappy people are often cruel to avoid the cruelty within.”

Even with all the . . . kissing, they’re still friends. At the very least, whatever else, they’re still friends.

The bob of her throat and the line of her neck and the way her tongue snakes out to rim her lips—dear God, that was perhaps the most arousing thing Beth’s ever seen.

There’s a world outside and around them that won’t abide even the holding of their hands, but it doesn’t much seem to matter in their little box.