“Nick! My gown!”
How could she think about her gown at a time like this? Didn’t she know how hard this was for him? “I’ll buy you another. I’ll buy you a hundred; just please say yes.”
“Thank you very much, but I’ll purchase my own clothing.” Rising, she shook out her skirts. “I’ll tell you my decision in the morning.” She left, sweeping grandly back into the house.
Damnation!That had not gone as he’d wanted it to. Then again, when had anything with Miss Silvia Stubborn Corbet gone the way he’d wished the first time? Standing, he brushed off his pantaloons. He’d have to think of something between now and the morning to convince her to wed him.
Silvia’s head spun as she made her way unseeing back to the terrace. Memories of their first kiss melded with the ones they’d just shared. Frissons of pleasure still coursed through her body. As a girl she had thought he was wonderful until they argued with each other, yet even then she’d wanted to spend more time with him.
Still, she had to think about this. Was Nick lying when he told her about her father, or had Papa lied? That would have to be worked out first. And what about her mother? Nick hadn’t said that what Mama had told her about kissing was false, but he had seemed terribly surprised. She must ask someone how one became pregnant. She must also sort through her thoughts and emotions. If everything he’d said to her was the truth, then she had been wrong to detest him for so long and wrong to treat him as she had been doing.
“Silvia.” Lady Telford joined her at the table on the terrace.
She blinked. “Where is Vivian?”
“She had to go out.” Her ladyship’s gaze traveled from Silvia’s head to her hem. “How are things going with Lord Beresford? I almost stepped in a time or two, but you seemed to have the situation well in hand.”
Oh no! She must have seen Nick kiss her. “I’m not sure. He said some things, and I don’t know if they are true or not.”
Clara gave Silvia a shrewd look. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Perhaps.” She had to ask someone, and her ladyship had given birth to several children. “Can a lady become pregnant by kissing a gentleman?”
Brows snapping together, Clara asked, “Is that what you were told?”
Silvia sat in one of the chairs and fiddled, pleating and unpleating her skirt. “Um, yes.”
“Well, that is certainly an interesting tale to tell girls, but it is not the truth. Getting with child is rather more involved than that.” She paused for a moment. “Though not much more, and I suppose when one gets down to it, kissing eases the way.”
“But it takes more than kissing?”
“Yes. Vastly more.”
That answered one question. “How long do you think it would take for a letter to get to my father and for me to receive his response?”
“The question you really need an answer to is how long will it take him to respond.” Clara’s lips firmed. “Something tells me you’ve been fed a quantity of Banbury tales. If you will tell me what exactly is going on, I may be able to give you the truth you deserve, not what others wished to tell you.”
Silvia was so tired of all of this. Of fighting her feelings for Nick, of not knowing what her future held, of her father clinging to her until he found a replacement for her mother. “Before Mama died . . .”
In the end, Clara had the whole story, including the part about Vivian’s dead husband.
“All of this makes much more sense now.” Clara ordered wine and poured them both a glass. “I do not know Lord Beresford well, but”—Silvia opened her mouth, and Clara held up one finger—“I do not believe he is capable of calculated cruelty, especially toward someone he cares for. Look at what he did for his cousin after the man’s death. Even if he thought Vivian wouldn’t accept him, he was taking a risk.” She took a sip of the chilled wine while Silvia let Cousin Clara’s words sink in. “I also now understand why you were so angry with him.” Silvia nodded so hard a curl fell down, then her friend continued. “But would you have eloped with him?”
“Before Mama died, I was to have come out that next spring. I was almost seventeen.”
“Yes, my dear,” Clara said kindly. “Yet would your father have allowed you to marry and leave with Beresford? If he thought you would have remained at home, he might have countenanced the match, but”—Silvia hated buts—“would you have been content to remain in Beresford while your new husband went off to Spain or wherever he was going?”
Silvia took a large drink of wine. “No. I would have insisted upon going with him.”
“Precisely my point.”
“Was Nick—were we—being selfish, wanting me to leave?”
“No, child. You were being in love.” Clara reached over and covered Silvia’s hands. “Your father was most likely afraid to lose you as he had your mother, and there were the younger girls he had to think about.”
“What you are saying is that I can believe Nick when he claims to love me and that he would not have left me if he thought I was breeding?”
Clara’s brows raised, and although she pressed her lips together, they twitched. “If that young man thought you wereenceinte, you would have been on your way to Scotland, and no one would have been able to stop him from marrying you.”
