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“I believe,” the duke continued haughtily, “that if you would care to read those rules again now, you will see how I could be forgiven for believing otherwise.”
Lily had no reason to read them again. She knew exactly what those rules entailed. “My friends and I simply do not wish to be a part of the practice of arranged marriages, invariably with gentlemen with whom we have usually not previously been well acquainted, let alone fallen in love with.”
“Most of those gentlemen will not have been acquainted with you until the proposal either,” he reasoned.
“Which is why the practice should be stopped.” Lily became more heated in her protest.
“It is the way it has always been.”
“That does not mean it should continue.”
St. Albans studied her for several long seconds. “A strong opinion, when I doubt you have ever been kissed?”
“I do not see what that has to do with anything.” Her cheeks had bloomed with heat. “Especially when the marriage bed involves far more intimacy than kissing!”
“Yes,” he acknowledged.
“Then you see our dilemma,” Lily prompted eagerly.
“Not completely,” St. Albans answered slowly.
She glared her frustration. “Why not?”
“Because I believe there is a category missing from the second rule of your alliance.”
A category missing? Georgiana would be most displeased to learn of it.
The duke quirked those haughty brows. “Perhaps you would care to read it to me so that we might both refresh our memories, and then perhaps you will realize what that category might be.”
Lily looked down at the papers she still held before finding, and then reading out that second agreed-upon rule. “‘Neither father, brother, nor any other male relative, fiancé, or husband shall ever come between our friendship for each other.’ That all seems self-explanatory to me.” She looked up to eye St. Albans curiously.
“Except you omitted one other category of gentleman, which, considering your other rules, could be of great significance,” he added huskily.
“Which category is that?”
“You missed lover from your long list of men who shall not be allowed to sway you from the affection held by you and your friends for each other,” he explained softly.
Lily stared, sure she must have misheard him. That she could not possibly be having this conversation with the man she had previously only known, despite her unrequited crush on him this past year, as the cold and distant Duke of St. Albans.
“I beg your pardon?” she prompted warily.
St. Albans gave a shrug. “If none of you intends to marry, then I can only assume that it is your intention to acquire a series of lovers instead of a husband,” he drawled. “Am I wrong in that assessment?”
CHAPTER THREE
Lily fell back a step in surprise at the turn this conversation had taken. “I— Yes, of course you are wrong!” she snapped incredulously.
“I am?” St. Albans sounded amused. “You are seriously telling me that six young, healthy, and beautiful ladies intend to remain celibate for the rest of your long lives? Possibly, as was suggested, by living together in old age, and no doubt kept company by a house full of cats and lapdogs whom you will shower your frustrated affections upon?”
Despite her sister’s scandalous elopement and their father’s lack of funds, Lily knew she had thought only of her unrequited love for St. Albans when she and her friends made their pact earlier. Knowing her love for him meant she could never allow another gentleman to so much as touch her intimately, she had not considered the omission of physical love relevant to that decision.
Or thelackof physical pleasure in her future, as the duke was now suggesting.
She exhaled slowly before speaking. “I am allergic to cats and have no liking for lapdogs. And is it not hypocritical of you to mock the state of celibacyyouhave been guilty of living for the past nineteen years since your wife died?” she accused, then instantly regretted it as those pale blue eyes turned flinty. “I apologize. I should not have made my observations so personal.”
His mouth twisted. “Oh, I assure you, this conversation has now become very personal,” he derided. “Quite where you attained your information regarding my private life, more specifically the physicalside of that life, I have no idea. Wherever it was, your informant was incorrect.”
Lily swallowed at the implication behind that dismissal. “You have not remained celibate since Chloe was born and your wife died?”