Page 90 of Marry in Scandal

“But why didn’t you call it off yourself?” she’d asked him. “What if she hadn’t changed her mind? You’d be stuck with a wife you disliked.”

“I know, but a man—a gentleman—once betrothed, cannot, in honor, back out of it. If he did, it would be an utter disgrace.”

“I know, but I’ve never understood why.”

“A gentleman’s word is what separates us from the rabble,” he explained. That was why cheating at cards was regarded as such a heinous act, because it was a breach of honor. A man caught cheating at cards was ruined socially forever.

The same rules didn’t, apparently, hold true for women. Lily thought that was wrong. How peculiar the masculine world was, where a man could beat his wife or be unfaithful or neglect his children and still be regarded as a gentleman, but cheat at cards or break a betrothal and he became a social pariah,persona non grata.

More sobering was the thought that Edward had been prepared to marry a woman he didn’t even like. What did that say about her own marriage? She didn’t want to think about it.

Arriving back at Tremayne Park, she handed her horse over to a stable lad and, as soon as she entered the house, ordered hot water for a bath.

She undressed and took out the tiny sliver of soap that was left from the piece Edward had given her at the inn so long ago. It was almost finished. She would have to get some more. She loved using Edward’s soap.

Lily sank into the hot water and smoothed the rich lather over her body. The scent, so clean and fresh and distinctive, calmed her.

It was early days yet in their marriage. It had taken Cal quite a while to realize he loved Emm, and then it was only because Emm had been shot. Lily had been there when it happened, had seen the horror on Cal’s face when Emm collapsed, bleeding. Lily had witnessed her brother’s stunned realization that he cared for his wife more than he’d known.

Over and over he’d told the unconscious Emm he loved her, admitted to Lily that he’d never told her before, didn’t even realize it himself—until Emm was shot.

She hoped it wouldn’t come to that with her and Edward.

Maybe, as a rake, Edward was simply uncomfortable with the idea of love. It was no wonder, really. All those cynical, experienced women of his, who called itbedsport, and to whom it meant nothing. It meant something to her.

But if talk of love disturbed him, she would not talk of it. Her feelings were her own business. She would be patient, give him time.

You couldn’t make someone love you, no matter how desperately you wanted them to. And if you pushed too hard, it could make people withdraw further. She’d seen that with girls at school—poor Sylvia, for one—trying too hard to be popular and failing dismally.

She’d gone into this marriage—thisarrangedmarriage—blindly, with hope in her heart. She had no excuse. Nobody had deceived her, not Edward, not her family.

If her heart yearned for love and was disappointed, she had only herself to blame. And if friendship was what her husband wanted from her—if it wasallhe wanted—there were worse things than friendship.

Besides, friendshipcouldturn into love. She would not give up on him yet.

• • •

Edward wrote a lot of letters. Each day he sat down and dealt with a small pile of correspondence. Lily had never seen anyone write so many letters.

“Who do you write all these letters to?” she asked him one rainy afternoon.

“A variety of people.” He kept writing.

Of course. She should have known better than to ask.

He glanced up. “Don’t you have letters to write?”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Most women I know are always scribbling off notes and letters to their friends.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, you haven’t received a single letter since we’ve been here.”

A chill ran down Lily’s backbone. “I—I didn’t know where we were going, so how could I tell anyone where to write?”

“You could write to them now and tell them.”

“I know, but there isn’t anyone I want to write to.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “You don’t want to write to your sisters or aunts or any friends?”