“Don’t sink into a fit of blue devils,” her mother said as Clarity refilled all their teacups. “Lord Foxford has done the honorable thing so far.”
So far.Up until the wedding day and through the wedding night, Purity believed he would continue on the path.Especially on the wedding night. He’d made clear he wouldn’t miss that.
But afterward?She had no way of knowing whether he would stay faithful or return to his wicked ways. Unlike her father, Foxford mightnotbe a good man.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ididn’t want to say anything more in front of Clarity,” Purity confided as she and her mother rode home, “because she wants to believe everyone is good and can be as happy as she is. But my relationship with Foxford is not like yours and father’s or hers with Hollidge.”
“No one’s is like anyone else’s,” her mother said. “But how do you mean?”
“I’m notcertainabout him,” Purity confessed, her voice falling to a whisper.
Her mother sighed. “And yet you love him anyway.”
“Love him?” Purity’s heart started to race.
“Well, don’t you? You often seem glad in his company. You looked especially so when dancing with him.” Her mother tossed her head and considered. “Besides, I don’t think you would let yourself be caught by a man you didn’t love.”
Her mother was a mystery sometimes. “How was I caught by him?”
Lady Diamond smiled. “All that poppycock about him needing lessons in etiquette.”
“Mother! I promise you he did.”
“He made you think he did. I’ve seen him behave perfectly well when you weren’t around.”
Purity considered that he might have bamboozled her from the start.
“Now why do you suppose he wanted you to spend time with him?” her mother asked. “I say it was to win you over. And I believe he succeeded.”
“I suppose he did. I confess I enjoy his company more than any other man I’ve ever met.”
“And?” Lady Diamond persisted.
“And what?”
“It should be more than that, my dear daughter. There should be sparks.”
Purity felt her cheeks warm and pressed her gloved hands to her cheeks.
“Then there are sparks,” her mother declared, sounding confident. “I would hate for you to miss out on them.”
Having experienced the sizzle, Purity would hate to have missed out, too. But her heart was at stake.
“What if he doesn’t feel an equal ardor?” Purity asked, wondering aloud. Wanting a respectable wife and falling in love were two separate issues.
“If he doesn’t love you in return, then your heart is in grave danger,” her mother said. “Thus, if you truly think him a scoundrel, then perhaps your father had best have another word with him beyond dowries and wedding contracts.”
“To compare methods of compromising?” Purity snapped.
The notion of her father and Foxford discussing her future husband’s fidelity was mortifying. It ought not to be necessary, not if she were engaged to the correct man.
“Perhaps Grandfather Diamond should be consulted, too!” she added, her tone waspish.
“Purity! You’ve never said anything so disrespectful in all your years, so I shall forgive you. You are in a state of mental anguish, and there is little we can do.”
“Precisely. There is nothing we can do. I am at Foxford’s mercy. And Father cannot mold the man’s character, so having him speak to my fiancé is as useless as sweeping sand at the shore.”
