The Childhood Friend I Couldn't Resist

The reason Ian Warren gave for marrying Alice Clare on a few days' notice was invented. He had been looking for her for eighteen years, he had just found her, and he was afraid she would go missing a second time, so he produced a pretext that would hold and had the wedding done. He had been a sick child once, sent out of Granton to the countryside to recover, and a girl he met there kept at him until he agreed to the operation. It worked. They set a day to meet again, and on that day Alice was gone and nobody could say where. After the wedding Ian, by then the richest man in Granton, kept her comfortable and gave her whatever she wanted, on the understanding that he was the one arranging everything. He worked out later that Alice had walked into the trap knowing it was one. She had been planning her way toward the same marriage since the countryside.