Lavinia couldn’t bring herself to respond. She stared out the window of the carriage. In her opinion, everything was positively horrible.
It had taken more strength than she’d imagined she could possibly summon to tell Matthew that she didn’t want to marry the duke. For a moment, it had felt like something that might actually happen, and if she hadn’t known for certain that he didn’t want her, she would have been tempted to allow it to happen.
But she knew for sure now. That kiss had answered all her questions. He hadn’t kissed her like someone who didn’t realize he had feelings for her, who might still discover them.
He had kissed her like someone who knew for sure that hedidcare for her.
If he knew that for sure and still didn’t want to marry her—if he was able to say that a marriage to her was the last thing he wanted—that meant he had some other reason. It wasn’t because of his feelings for her. It wasn’t because of her at all. At least, she didn’t think it was.
She didn’t know what his reason might be. But she did know how much she had dreaded the thought of being forced into a marriage she didn’t want. She wouldn’t do that to the duke. She wouldn’t be responsible for his unhappiness.
Not even if the price was her own unhappiness.
“I don’t know what you’re looking so miserable about,” her father said to her. “This is the best news you could have hoped for, Lavinia. Soon enough, Lord Hennington will come to make his formal proposal, and then you’ll be engaged. And after that, it won’t be long until you’re married.
I confess I didn’t believe you would be able to manage it. I thought I was going to have to make your arrangements for you. But you were right to insist on ten more days! If only you could have put this much effort into your affairs during your first season last year—perhaps you would be a year married already.”
“I didn’t want to be married,” Lavinia said. “I hadn’t met anyone last year that I wanted to be married to. I’m glad you’re happywith the results of this party, Father, but they don’t change the fact that the one thing I really wanted was to find love.”
“You can’t complain, then,” her father said contentedly. “You’ve found it. So it’s time to embrace your future. To think that before long you’ll have left my house and gone to his.”
“Is that it? You’re so eager to be rid of me?”
“You’re my daughter, Lavinia. It’s not that I want to be rid of you, but of course I want you to live a life that’s best for you—how could I not want that.”
“You’ve never trusted me to know what’s best for me, though.”
“I can’t see what you’re complaining about,” her father said. “What’s the matter with Lord Hennington?”
Lavinia sighed. “Nothing is wrong with him,” she said. “He’s a perfectly decent gentleman, and I know he’ll make a good husband.”Just not the husband I would have wanted.
But she needed to put that from her mind. She had promised the duke that she would. It was the price of their last kiss.
“Well, the next time you’re instructed to do something, maybe this experience will have taught you that it’s best to simply act on those instructions rather than second-guessing and thinking that you know best,” her father said. “If nothing else, that will be a benefit to your husband when you’re married.”
“Father,” Edwina said quietly. “I don’t think it’s helpful to dwell on the past.”
“Edwina, you might be married yourself if your sister had acted more quickly,” their father said. “I’m glad this has sorted itself out, but you can hardly expect me to forget the fact that these mistakes were made. And besides, you have no business speaking to me that way.”
“I agree with Edwina,” Matthew spoke up. He hadn’t arrived at the party with him, but he had made the decision to join them for the ride home. “Lavinia has done everything asked of her, Father. She’s agreed to a marriage. You have what you wanted. Let her be.”
Lavinia looked at him. She hadn’t spoken to Matthew since the confrontation in the garden, and she’d had the idea that he was still angry with her for what had happened there. But to look at him now, he didn’t seem angry. He had sympathy in his eyes, and she wondered whether it was possible that he genuinely understood her plight and felt badly about it.
She had always half wondered that about Matthew, because she knew and trusted that he cared for her in a way that her father never had, and yet he always insisted that she would be happiest if she did what their father wanted. It was something Lavinia didn’t know quite how to explain.
For now, at least, she didn’t have to try to explain it. She sat back in her seat, gazed out at the fields, and tried not to think about the duke.
“We’ll have to plan the perfect outfit for your proposal, of course,” Lavinia’s father said. He seemed ready to move on, to accept that whatever was the matter was something they weren’t going to talk about any further. Lavinia was glad. She didn’t want to spend any more time talking about the duke. She wanted to pretend that she wasn’t undone by the amount of pain her time with him had left her feeling.
I fell in love, she thought.I got what I wanted, and it was terrible.
“We don’t know when the proposal is coming,” Edwina pointed out.
“We don’t, but the viscount will send us word when he means to come over to our house,” Lavinia’s father said. “And we’ll know, when we hear from him, that the day has come. On that day, Lavinia will wear her finest gown—well, we’ll all dress our best, of course. We don’t want the viscount to think twice about his offer because he sees us in shoddy clothes.”
“He won’t,” Lavinia murmured.
“What?” Her father looked at her.
