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She frowned. “What?”
“Why you are in London at all when you made it so very obvious that you are not interested in marriage?” he replied, a haughty, amused look upon his face.
She stopped right there in the middle of the thoroughfare. “You have missed one important detail there, Your Grace: not interested in marriage with you. I said nothing of marriage in general.”
“So, you are seeking a husband?” The dubious note in his voice made her bristle with irritation.
Who was he to make assumptions about her opinion of marriage, even if they were correct?
“Come now, you do not have to pretend,” he continued, smirking. “Your uncle is too far ahead to be able to hear your true thoughts on the matter of matrimony.”
“Why, because you would like to unburden yourself with someone you believe to be of like mind?” she asked with a tight smile. “You cannot be too enamored with the idea, or your son would not have taken it upon himself to play matchmaker.”
The duke’s green eyes narrowed. “It is a duty that all must undertake, at some point.”
“Is it?” she challenged. “By whose reckoning?”
“Society’s.”
She nodded, a cold laugh escaping her throat. “Society’s gentlemen, you mean. If you were to ask any number of ladies at any number of events if they wished they were not married, I think the answer would surprise you.”
“I had no idea you had done such thorough research, considering I have never seen you at a society event until the garden party,” he countered, and rather well too. “Marriage means security for ladies; do not diminish that.”
“Of course it means security. There is nowhere more secure than a prison,” she shot back.
“A prison?” the duke scoffed. “Do not be so dramatic.”
Marina folded her arms across her chest. “Women lose their name, their home, their ambitions, wrenched away from everything they know to serve, in many cases, a complete stranger. Women lose their identity, becoming ‘the wife of’ and ‘the mother of’ while the life of a gentleman barely alters. He can carouse as he pleases, while his wife remains at home, often miserable and unfulfilled. Most do not even love each other.”
“I would not have suspected you to be a sentimentalist,” he remarked.
“Sentimental? What is sentimental about everything I have just said? There is nothing sentimental about the sacrifice of women,” she replied curtly. “There might be a woman out there with a mind that could cure the world of influenza, but we shall never know because she was not allowed to be educated and was married off at eighteen to a man who neither cares about nor encourages her intellect or interests. To him, she is just his wife.”
She had no doubt that people were staring, and if they were closer, there would probably be gasps of horror at her rhetoric, but she did not care. When it came to a subject of such importance, people could stare and whisper all they liked.
The duke blinked at her. “I happen to know many well-read, intelligent women who are also wives, in very loving marriages.”
“And I am telling you they are the exceptions,” Marina retorted, for though she did not know many women, none at all really, she read of them. Pamphlets and books so clandestine that they were not known among society.
The duke rolled his eyes and began to walk again. When Marina did not follow, he looked back at her, remarking, “You should probably accompany me if you do not wish to begin your time in London in the scandal sheets.”
“Surely, accompanying you would put me at greater risk?” she said, though she did move to join him, more to catch up to her uncle than to engage in further conversation.
Indeed, if she had not been certain before, she was convinced now that the Duke of Knotgill was the very last person she would consider for a husband.
The trouble was, she had the feeling that she was about to meet a great many men like him.
It is no wonder she is unwed, with such blunt opinions.
Anthony might not have been particularly interested in the idea of marriage either, but at least he understood its merits and the duty of it. Clearly, for all her talk of education, Marina needed a few lessons in what it was actually like to be a society lady.
How could she make such grand claims about being a wife and mother when she was neither? And, according to Octavia, whom he had spoken to last week, Marina was not known in society at all. As such, she could not possibly have any friends who might verify or deny her assertions.
“How is your son?” Marina asked suddenly. “He must be disappointed that his plan came to naught.”
Anthony had to laugh. “You made quite the impression. He is driving my grandmother quite mad, calling her every curt word ‘apoplectic’. I do believe you are responsible for that. Not to mention, he pestered a friend of mine, Doctor Stanforth, at dinner the other night, asking a thousand questions about broken hearts.”
Just then, like the sun coming out from behind gray clouds, Marina’s face brightened with the most… beautiful smile he had ever seen. Her nose crinkled, her eyes shining with mirth, her cheeks flushing with happy roses, her entire face somehow changed by her smile, becoming radiant.
