‘No, you’ve got it all wrong.’ She turned to the Duke. ‘It was all my—’
The Duke lightly placed his finger on her lip. ‘It’s all right. Do as your father asks. We’ll talk later.’
No, it was not all right. It was all wrong and it was all her fault. But she could see her furious father was not going to listen to reason, so, with her mind a tempest and her body heavy with embarrassment, she stepped down from the carriage and followed her mother up the pathway.
‘There’s going to be wedding bells a lot sooner than we planned,’ her mother trilled as they entered the house.
‘What?’
‘After what your father and I just witnessed, there’s no other option.’
‘Oh, no!’ Margaret gasped, moving quickly towards the nearest chair and collapsing into it before her legs gave way beneath her. ‘This is a disaster.’
‘No, it’s not. It just means things will happen a lot more quickly than you had inexplicably insisted and we’ll get the Duke up the aisle before there’s any chance of anything going wrong.’
Margaret looked up at her mother, who was still smiling fit to burst.
‘Did you plan this?’
‘How could I possibly do so?’ her mother said, trying to look the picture of innocence but failing miserably.
‘Is that why you sent us off together without a chaperone, because you expected this to happen? Is that why you waited before coming out to the carriage, and came yourself rather than sending a servant to escort me inside?’
Her mother giggled. ‘Margaret, dear, what do you take me for? As if I would put my only daughter’s virtue in such jeopardy by sending her off to the theatre alone with a man if I had even the slightest inkling that any of this might happen? And yes, perhaps I should have instructed a servant to escort you inside, and not waited until I saw the carriage start to rock before insisting your father go out and see what the delay was, but what’s done is done and there’s no point thinking about any of that now.’
The two women stared at each other, one smiling, one scowling, then Margaret collapsed back into the chair. She had been played and her mother had won this round. But she still did not have her victory and Margaret would be doing everything in her power to make sure this marriage did not take place.
Her father entered the drawing room, his face like thunder. ‘It’s all settled. The Duke will apply for a special licence and the two of you will be married within the week.’
Margaret jumped to her feet while her mother clapped her hands.
‘What? No!’ Margaret shouted over her mother’s squeals of joy. ‘No, Father, that’s not fair!’
‘It is fair,’ her father replied, pacing up and down as if trying to walk off his rage. ‘And at least he had the decency to suggest the immediate wedding before I demanded it of him.’
‘No, you can’t force him to marry me.’
‘I am not. You were already going to wed, but his actions mean it must happen a lot sooner than planned. My God, he has known you for less than a week. You’ve been officially courting for only a few days and already he’s taking liberties.’
‘It wasn’t like that. He didn’t take liberties.’
Both parents watched her intently, her father’s face still red with anger, her mother still looking triumphant.
‘I know what I saw, Margaret,’ her father said.
The last thing Margaret wanted was to have this embarrassing conversation with her parents, but the Duke could not be punished for something that was not his fault. ‘He didn’t kiss me. I kissed him.’
Her father’s brow furrowed more deeply. ‘You kissed him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, relieved that he had understood so quickly.
‘Then you’ll have no objection to marrying him sooner than you intended.’
‘What? No! That’s not fair. I kissed him, so he should not be punished by being forced into a marriage he doesn’t want.’
‘He’s not being forced into marriage. The two of you are engaged.’
Margaret drew in a deep breath and gritted her teeth together to steady herself for a conversation she did not want to have with her father. ‘Yes, but we never intended to marry,’ she said quietly.
