Silence of Scandal by Jackie Williams Page A

relieved that her father had insisted on the heavy lace veil but having her face shrouded so thickly left her little space to breathe. She dragged the air into her lungs as she tried to fathom the reasons behind this union.
    It was clear that the man was being forced to marry her. She quailed at the thought. This wasn’t how marriage was meant to be. He was tall and well built, his face tanned and incredibly handsome; even the scar that marked his cheek didn’t detract from his appeal. His coat was a little tight across the shoulder but otherwise of a quality she had only recently come to recognize and his black boots shone like a like a piece of newly split coal.
    Elizabeth let her gaze drop to the stone floor. Someone this rich and this handsome clearly wasn’t meant for her. She would become an embarrassment, be a burden for years and he would hate her. She hesitated in her steps, desperate to think of any way out of the dreadful situation but she had nothing. She couldn’t even give voice to her concerns for there was no one here but Carter who she had ever had contact with before.
    Her tongue burned in her mouth as she formed the words of her oath, the oath her father had made her repeat for hours on end. When he had nodded and smiled at the two words flowing together she had felt relieved that she had pleased him. She had felt the sting of his hand once too often but now she hated herself for being weak enough to let them slide past her trembling lips. She let her eyes fall to the floor again, her thoughts in a turmoil of anxiety but it was only as he pressed the dainty ruby ring on her finger that she realized that she had missed her husbands name.
    The man in front of her would never forgive her when he discovered why she was being married off. Her father was right. No one else would have her. That was the simple truth of it. She was unwanted and undesirable and the only way she could catch a husband was for her father to find a man so deep in debt that he couldn’t say no. The coming festivities were going to be a nightmare but she only had to dance one dance and then claim a headache. Everyone would understand and pass the evening happily while she and her husband escaped the throng. She just had to remember to keep her mouth shut and her eyes down. Feigning shyness in front of all the guests wouldn’t be a problem at all.
    She sat staring out of the window of the carriage as guilt burned deep inside her and then her new husband had touched her arm. Fire leapt through her body as she faced him. She stared at him from beneath her veil as his full lips moved gently. He wanted to see her face and she could put off the moment no longer. For a fraction of a second she considered throwing herself from the carriage but as the ground sped by with alarming speed she lost her nerve. Gathering her courage, she lifted her veil and awaited his damnation.
    She dropped her eyelashes as the shock registered in his expression and she waited for the slap across her cheek, the angry scowl of frustration as he discovered the deception. She was no beauty, she knew that. Her skin was too pale, her lips too red, her nose too small and her eyes too dark. She looked like something from a tomb and in a way she supposed that she was, kept indoors as she had been and hidden from sight for so many years. Her pinched, haunted looks were exactly as her father had told her. When the man she had married discovered the rest that her father had planned she would be damned to a life of misery.
    Neither the slap or the scowl occurred and she lifted her eyes to his again. He sat there looking completely dumbfounded and then the heat of anger flickered in his gaze, the sapphires darkening into pools of midnight blue. She felt her heart pounding in her chest as tears began to flow and his whole demeanour changed. He was appalled and his rejection was instantaneous. He couldn’t bear what he saw, he didn’t want her, he’d been forced into this