Phoebe’s father was sweating a bit, sitting in front of a pile of correspondence.
Phoebe closed the door and crossed to his desk. “It’s so hot that it’s hard to sleep, isn’t it? Are you well?”
Her father belched into his fist. “Just this damnable dyspepsia. Your mother is threatening to curtail all kinds of foods for me in the future. I shall be eating only the dullest things.” He patted his rounded stomach. “I might get this a little smaller, too.”
“Well, I might have to join you.” She smiled. “No more honey cakes. I don’t want Thornwick and I to look like Jack Sprat and his wife when we marry.”
“You are perfect, just as you are. You will be a beautiful bride. The most beautiful.”
She had been so right to come to her father. Already she felt better. “Oh, Papa, thank you.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you any different, eh? Including your bridegroom.”
“I won’t.” She fingered the edge of her father’s desk. How would she say this to him? She didn’t want to change his opinion of her. She wanted to stay hisdearest girlforever. But she had no one else right now to turn to.
“Is there something I can do for you, Phoebe?”
“I wondered . . .”
“Yes?”
“On Saturday at breakfast, you hinted you and Mother—well, I wondered if you thought having intimacy before marriage was a sin.”
She had said it. Now, he might hate her. Or he might help her. She looked at him. Her father studied her, the smile gone from his face.
“I’m not a theologian, Phoebe. I can’t say if it’s a sin. But it is one of the rules of society. And often there are very good reasons for those rules. Has Thornwick ventured something that made you uncomfortable?”
“No.” She felt herself blush. “But, Papa, why is the rule in society only for women and not for men?”
“I think most would say it has to do with child-bearing. Women have to bear the consequences and men don’t.”
“Yes.”
“But it also has to do with men. We don’t like to share. We are possessive, acquisitive beasts.”
“I see. And women aren’t?”
“I suspect you are the more generous sex.”
“Maybe.” Although it seemed to Phoebe that between her parents, her father was the more generous one. At least, toward her. But maybe her father only meant in terms of carnal matters.
“Are you worried about your betrothed’s past peccadilloes?”
“Not really, no. I can’t change that. But he’ll be true once he’s married, won’t he? Like you?”
“One would hope. But it helps, of course, to keep a watchful eye.”
“If Mother didn’t keep a watchful eye, would you . . . ?”
Her father swept her hand up in his and squeezed. “I love your mother, dearest girl. I was completely infatuated when I was courting her. I was overjoyed when she agreed to marry me. And once we were married, I fell in love with her. I would never do anything to hurt her. I do not wander. She’s everything to me.”
“I know, Papa. You say it often enough, in front of everyone.”
“I want my duchess to be very sure of me and my feelings.”
“So you were sure of your own feelings before you married?”
“I’d like to say yes, but until you are husband and wife, it’s very difficult to know. You have to guess what it will be like to go through life with this person beside you. What are your feelings about Thornwick? I would have thought you wouldn’t have accepted him unless you thought the two of you might suit.”
