“Any news of Nixon?”
Cal shook his head. “But I’ll get him, don’t you worry.” The door closed quietly behind him.
• • •
Ned paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. For the second time in his life he was about to offer marriage. He wished now that he’d accepted that drink from Cal. He was ridiculously nervous.
He went over in his mind the words he would use to make the offer. He wanted her to be clear what he was offering—no false promises, no raising of impossible and unlikely expectations.
A girl who’d always wanted to marry for love. A dreamer. And himself a cold, hard cynic.
Love was an ephemeral thing, impossible to pin down, impossible to promise.
Lily was a girl who treasured illusions, about life, about love. About him.
Dangerous things, illusions.
He swallowed. He would have to shatter her expectations immediately, before her illusions about him could grow any further. Small illusions, nipped early in the bud, would be much less painful for a girl who dreamed.
He was determined that if she accepted him—and her sister-in-law had planted doubts in him now, that she might refuse, and if so—no, he would not consider that possibility. If she accepted him, she needed to understand that the marriage was for purely practical reasons—a marriage of convenience—to stop scandal, to protect her reputation. And for an heir.
After the wedding, they would continue on in the same vein—in a practical marriage. He would take good care of her and support her in the manner to which she was accustomed, and that would be that.
Footsteps sounded on the floor outside and he turned to face the door. She entered, dressed in a soft yellow dress. Her hair was clustered in artless curls held back from her face by a band of yellow gauze. A breath of spring.
“Mr. Galbraith.” A delicate flush rose in her cheeks.
“Lady Lily.” He scanned her face. No sign of bruises or sleepless nights. “You’re looking very well.” She looked lovely, but . . . expectations.
He waited, leashing his impatience while she seated herself, smoothed out her dress and then folded her hands in her lap like an obedient schoolgirl. “Did your brother explain why I’ve asked to speak to you?”
Her blush deepened. She nodded.
“Good. Now, before we get to that, that question, there are a few things I need to make clear to you. There are—”
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 were damp. “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 to strip 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—”
“A hero? 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.”
A crease formed between her delicately arched brows. “Why not?”
“Brave deeds—and dark ones too, for that matter—happen everywhere in war, at all levels. An illiterate foot soldier might perform the most heroic deed you’ve ever seen, but should a duke’s nephew rattle a saber or take part in a charge, it will be him who’s mentioned in dispatches, not the illiterate.” And that would deal with her tendency to hero worship.
“I see.” Her eyes were dark and troubled. “Why are you telling me all these things to your discredit?”
“Because if you accept me, you need to know what
