The Thoroughly Compromised Bride by Catherine Reynolds Page B

herself to beg for his leniency or understanding.
    But his rudeness did not justify discourtesy on her part, and keeping her tone as pleasant as possible, she said, “Good morning.”
    He stared at her for a moment, his eyes like shards of ice, before saying with indifferent coolness, “Is it?”
    Thankfully, his attention returned immediately to his plate, so he could not see how her face blanched at this evidence of his lack of regard for her. She barely suppressed a gasp of shock at the extent of his hostility and reached, with an unsteady hand, for a piece of toast. She did not trust herself to try for her cup for fear it would clatter or slosh, thus betraying her cowardly trembling.
    She watched him covertly from beneath her lashes, saddened and somewhat bewildered that he could be so much changed, but she was forced to acknowledge, after a moment, that she really had not known him for so very long. Perhaps she had never truly known him at all; perhaps this was the real Charles, and the man she thought she had known was only a facade. If she could believe that, it would be easy to despise him as much as he despised her, for how could she care for a man who was such an implacable judge as to condemn her without a hearing?
    But the sad truth was, as much as she wished to hate him, she could not. She could no more stop longing for one of his smiles, for that certain look of warmth in his eyes, or for one of his teasing comments, than she could stop breathing. There must have been something frightfully wrong with her to continue loving him this way.
    If she could only meet his anger with her own, it might help to alleviate her unhappiness, but she hadn’t even that consolation. How could she be angry, or blame him, when she felt such remorse over her own complicity in her seduction on that long-ago night? She had never, afterwards, understood what had happened to her then, but she knew that ladies were not supposed to enjoy that sort of thing. With such shame on her conscience, how could she not feel that he had a right to hold her in contempt?
    Several minutes of strained silence had passed, and she knew that if they were to continue in close proximity for the next few hours, something must be done to ease the situation.
    Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage, she said in a conciliating tone, “Charles, this will not do. I am more sorry than I can say for having been such a sad disappointment to you, but, much as I might wish it, I cannot alter the past. Neither can I alter the fact that we cannot be rid of each other’s company for several hours yet. It would seem to me that the more comfortable course, for both of us, would be to try for a little more civility. Surely, sustained with the knowledge that you may be shed of me for all time once we reach Bath, you could manage just a trifle more amiability.”
    His eyebrows rose in exaggerated surprise. “Shed of you. Miss Ashton? You mistake the matter. Unfortunately, much as I might wish it, I cannot be shed of you so easily.”
    “I—what are you saying?”
    “You do not always think things through, do you? But I have, and it has occurred to me that you have managed, quite successfully, to avoid exposing your sordid past in public. In the eyes of Society, your reputation is unblemished—up to this point. It is my misfortune that after this little escapade, Society will see me as the man who compromised you. And, being a gentleman, I am barred from disclosing the information that you were already most thoroughly compromised before ever I had the dubious pleasure of meeting you.”
    “You cannot mean that you still wish to marry me!” she exclaimed.
    “It is not a matter of wishing. It is a matter of being constrained.”
    Elizabeth went quickly from stunned disbelief and hurt to deepest outrage. “Oh, no!” she cried. “I’d as lief be the world’s most defiled pariah as marry you now!”
    He shrugged indifferently, as though her wishes were of little