Bridal Favors - Engaged in Wickedness by Jade Lee Page B

morning for all that her hair was hastily pinned back and her gown still wrinkled from the wardrobe.
    "Just what the devil do you think you're doing?" she demanded. She had spoken to the room at large, but her glare quickly landed on Edward.
    "I was—" he began, but her brother interrupted.
    "We were doing what men do, sister dear. Drinking tea, talking horseflesh, and deciding your future."
    "How dare you!" she huffed as she headed for her brother. Edward barely had time to grab her arm and hold her back.
    "He is baiting you, Gwen. Surely you can see that."
    "Of course he is baiting me!" she snapped as she whirled on him. "It's what he always does! He used to glue my dolls to the floor and set the dogs on them. Said he was testing out a new formula for glue. He's a tyrant and a boor—"
    "So why do you rise to his bait? Why do you play the child with him when we both know you are a woman grown?"
    She stopped, her mouth open and her eyes snapping with indignation. But she didn't speak. And in that moment of silence, he was able to press his point.
    "If you want him to see you—really see you—then you must let him know who you are inside."
    He watched that information slip into her mind. She didn't respond to it. It was too soon. She would most likely file it away to think on later. But that didn't stop her from continuing her attack. "Why are you here?" she demanded.
    "I was informing your brother of my intention to wed you."
    "What!" she cried. "Of all the nerve!"
    He frowned at her, his mind working furiously as he tried to cut off a potential hailstorm of feminine indignation. "You are surprised by my actions?"
    "Yes! I mean, no! Of course not!" She huffed. "You need to ask me, Edward. Not him!"
    "Are you ready for me to ask?" he challenged. "Shall I go down on one knee now? Do you wish to see a ring?"
    "No!" she gasped, panic in her eyes. "God, no! Not now!" She was thoroughly upset and her hands were raised as if to ward him off. "Edward, what are you thinking?" she whispered.
    It took him a moment to respond. He had not expected her to react so vehemently and the pain of that took him by surprise. But he was a man, and so he kept his expression bland and his tone even. It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.
    "I think that I have overstayed my welcome." He executed a passable bow to both of them. "If you will excuse me, I shall show myself out."
    "Edward, wait!" she cried, taking a step after him.
    But he couldn't stop. Not just yet. Not for perhaps a very long while.

 
     
     
    Chapter 10

     
    Edward didn't take her riding that afternoon. Gwen wasn't really surprised when his note arrived explaining that he would not be able to make their scheduled appointment. She wasn't surprised, but she was horribly disappointed. And she didn't see him that night at the ball either.
    In the end, she went home early, hoping he'd visit her that night. They could talk then, and she could apologize for turning down his marriage proposal so vehemently. She still didn't know what had happened. He had caught her off guard, though Heaven knew she shouldn't have been. He'd told her already that his honor demanded that he marry her. Even if he hadn't said it, she knew that he was the kind of man who proposed. If he weren't, she'd already be compromised and he'd have moved on to his next conquest.
    But she wasn't and he hadn't and her thoughts were so tortured now that she could only throw open her window and pray that he was waiting for her there.
    He wasn't. And even worse, sometime during the day, all the ivy had been stripped from the house. She stared at the denuded stone in dismay wondering if she could somehow discretely hide a ladder or act like Rapunzel and throw down her hair. She couldn't, of course, so she sat at her window and waited, thinking if nothing else that she could run outside and they could talk there.
    But he didn't come, and she ended up falling asleep by her window and having terrible dreams involving