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Alicia watched her fondly, relieved to see another friendly face.

“I saw you slip out here and leave me alone in there,” Bridget reproached, making Katie giggle. “But I am so glad we are in the gardens. Wemustadmire the flowers, ladies. That is a significant task for us in life. It is our job to note the beauty in the world, where the beastly men fail to do so.”

“Do you know any names of the flowers?” Alicia asked, already knowing the answer she would receive.

“Of course not. I don’t plan to learn them either. If some idiotic suitor asks, I shall just make up a name—I’d wager he would not recognize the error.”

Alicia snorted, linking her other arm with Bridget’s, and the three of them walked slowly through the gardens, pretending to admire the flowers as they got some respite from the festivities.

“How are you feeling?” Katie asked gently as Alicia led them along a gravel path between two fir trees and onward to a small fountain in the center of the garden.

The babbling of the water was soothing, and they headed toward it.

“I want to escape,” Alicia said determinedly. “You can see who it is I have married. So disinterested in anything to do with his bride that he cannot even sit at his wedding breakfast for longer than five minutes. He told me that the only reason he married me was some conditions in his father’s will. He could not have made it plainer that I am nothing to him.”

“Despicable,” Bridget scoffed. “If I were a man, I would demand satisfaction.”

The venom in her words filled Alicia’s chest with warmth. She was very lucky in her friends, in her sister… just not in her husband, it seemed.

“I think you should give him a chance,” Katie suggested.

Or perhaps not so lucky.

“Katie, what are you speaking of?” Bridget asked vehemently. “You cannot think that there is any good in the man. He has left her alone for hours after they have just become man and wife!”

“We do not know his character yet,” Katie argued.

“I think his character is very obvious,” Bridget muttered darkly, and Alicia could only agree with her.

“Perhaps there is a side of him that we cannot see,” Katie insisted.

Bridget’s arm tightened on Alicia’s, and she leaned in close. “Ever the romantic,” she whispered.

Alicia noted the tension in Bridget’s manner and voice, and they came to a halt as her friend turned to her.

“If he does not touch you, you could annul the marriage easily,” Bridget said firmly.

There was a spark in her eyes, but once she had said the words, she looked away. The hazel in them was a glassy brown in the sunlight, the water behind her giving them an ethereal hue.

“I hope he never touches me,” Alicia said tightly, pushing away thoughts of the Duke’s big body hovering over her, the feel of his breath against her cheek as his lips hovered inches from her own.

What if he never touches me, as Bridget says? Now, there’s something I have not considered…

Alicia stared at the merrily babbling fountain, the idea taking root in her mind.

What if she could repel the Duke in some way? What if she could make it unbearable to be around her and eventually he would be forced to annul the marriage himself?

“Bridget, I think you have struck on something,” she said quietly.

“I often do; I am terribly clever,” Bridget quipped, making Katie chuckle again.

“What are you considering? Your eyes are quite alight with possibility.”

“Well, it is just as you said,” Alicia began, glancing behind her to ensure that neither the guests nor the Duke were about to interrupt their little gathering. “What if I make him want to get rid of me?”

“But how would you do that?” Katie asked, her naivety showing through more clearly between the three of them.

“It is as Bridget says,” Alicia explained. “If the Duke does not touch me, the marriage will not be seen as real in the eyes of God and Society. I could walk away, leave him as he wishes to leave me, and forget this ever happened.”