Page 63 of Marry in Scandal

She tilted her head to look up at him. “Will you not be seated? It feels a little odd, you standing while I’m sitting.”

He sat on a stiff little chair opposite her. His palms weredamp. “There are several things I want to make clear before I, er, put the question to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“This marriage, if you agree to it, will be an arrangement, a marriage for practical reasons—you understand?”

“A convenient marriage?”

“Yes.” He was relieved she understood. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“That you won’t be able to do as you’ve always wanted—that there isn’t time for you to meet a suitable young man, be courted and fall in love.” There. He’d said it.

“Because of the scandal.”

“Yes. You and I know there is no basis for the gossip, but it is the way of the world. A woman’s reputation is based on what others think and say she did, not what she actually did.”

“A man’s reputation too.”

“Eh?” Jolted from his train of thought, he blinked. “Oh, yes, I suppose so.”

“They’re saying you seduced and took advantage of me, but I know you are a man of honor and would never—”

He interrupted, saying in a hard voice, “They’re saying that because they know I’ve seduced many women in the past.”

“Oh.”

Illusion number one shattered. “It is why I am called a rake by some. You know what a rake is?”

“A man who can’t be trusted with an unmarried girl.”

“Exactly.” He wasn’t going to muddy the water by telling her he never dallied with innocents. Better she have no romantic expectations of him before—if—she agreed to marry him. “That house party I was going to when we first met—”

“We first met at Cal and Emm’s wedding,” she said, correcting him.

“When I ran into you on the road then—do you know what happens at those parties?” Without waiting for her to reply, he explained what sort of a party it was, that several married women had already invited him to share their bed and that he probably would have accepted. He needed tostrip her of any illusions she might cherish about him in that area.

She was a little pale when he finished, but all she said was, “It doesn’t sound as though you like that sort of party very much.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why do you go to them?”

He shrugged. He didn’t have an answer that wasn’t desperately cynical. “The point is, you don’t know me at all.”

“I know more than you think. I know that you knew Cal at school, that you went to war also, and that you are a war hero like him and—”

“Ahero? On the contrary.” His voice was harsh. “I’ll spare you the details, but—”

She lifted her head. “You were mentioned in dispatches several times.”

“How the h—how do you know that?”

She smiled. “When Cal was away at war, my sister, Rose, used to read the war news aloud—to Aunt Dottie and me. And Aunt Dottie remembered that you were a friend of Cal’s, so naturally after that we noticed whenever your name was mentioned.”

“I see. Well, those reports aren’t to be relied on.”