The Thoroughly Compromised Bride by Catherine Reynolds

defensively, “You might have warned me!”
    “Your mistake, my love, was in taking me for a flat!”
    “I did not, but...” she shrugged slightly, hiding her chagrin and trying to tell herself that she had not had any real faith in so foolhardy a plan. “Well, I must bow to your superior ability, I see. Shall we play another rubber?”
    “It is growing late, and our dinner will be here shortly. But don’t you wish to know what stakes I choose to claim?”
    “Oh! Yes, of course,” she said with as much unconcern as she could inject into her voice.
    He said softly, “Our marriage, my dear, will be, in every way, a real one.”
    To her credit, she only blinked and inclined her head slightly, showing no sign of the sick turmoil she was feeling. In truth, she was filled with dread and did not afterwards know how she contrived to get through dinner with him with any degree of normalcy.
    However, she did contrive, and after the table was cleared, Elizabeth went to stand by the fireplace, her back to Charles, while he poured them each a glass of wine. When he brought the glass to her, she took it distractedly and set it upon the mantel-shelf without tasting it. The moment had come for the denouement. The time might be wrong, but she could think of no time that might be favourable for such an announcement. She only knew that she was making herself ill with the burden of holding it in.
    Charles was standing at her side, one arm resting casually along the mantel, and she threw one quick glance at his face before turning her head away.
    “Charles, I must tell you... that is, there is something you have a right to know. I...”
    He said nothing, but simply waited patiently for her to continue.
    She had rehearsed what she would say at least a thousand times, it seemed, but in the end none of those practised speeches came to her aid. To her horror, she heard herself blurt out the words baldly, with no pretty euphemisms to soften the telling. “I am not a virgin.”
    Though loud enough for him to hear, her voice came out very low, and she deplored the unsteadiness of it.
    He remained completely silent as the seconds ticked by, until she, her nerves stretched taut, wanted to scream at him to say something—anything.
    After an eternity, which in reality could have been no more than a few moments, he said quite calmly, “I see. So I have at last learned the secret behind your reluctance to marry.”
    “I am so sorry, Charles, but—”
    “No doubt!” he interrupted her tersely. “May I ask... Good God! Not Braxton!”
    “Certainly not!” she said with revulsion.
    He gave a sharp bark of mirthless laughter. “Well, at least you show some taste.”
    “There is no call to be insulting,” she told him indignantly. “What happened was not my fault.”
    His brows came together sharply and his whole body seemed to tense. “Were you taken against your will?”
    Her eyes met his, then moved quickly away. She suddenly knew that if she could say that she had been taken by force, Charles would, in all probability, be able to accept her unchaste condition, and might even sympathize with her. But she knew, to her lasting regret, that it was not so. She had put up very little resistance that night, innocent fool that she had been, and as much as she would have liked to change that one damning fact, she could not. And she had never been a very good liar.
    “No, don’t lie!” he said harshly, as though he had read her mind, giving her no opportunity either to lie or to speak the truth. “Believe me, your face gives you away,” he continued with a slight sneer. “So it was a seduction, then. May I ask who your lover was? Or should I say is?”
    “Was—and he was not a lover!” she exclaimed.
    “Who, then?” he demanded.
    As though the words were dragged from her, she whispered, “I do not know who he was. I...”
    “You allowed yourself to be seduced by a total stranger? How old were you?”
    “Nineteen,