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“I disagree. I fully intended to marry at some point in the future, but I would rather chose that date myself.”

“Well, is it so bad to marry now rather than later?” She fixed her eyes pleadingly on his. She had never felt quite so sick to her stomach.

He gave a short laugh, more like a bark than a laugh. “I meant to marry—” he ran a hand through his hair. “I meant to marry someone I could bed.”

Color rose in her cheeks.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded.

“What the hell am I to do with a wife I can’t bed? Believe it or not, I thought of myself as someone who would be faithful to a wife, once I had one. But this is impossible.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wrote the letter before I knew. Before I completely understood that side of marriage.” She thought desperately about how she could bring up the sheath, but it simply wasn’t a decent topic of conversation. “You must continue to engage yourself outside of our marriage. That is the only tenable solution.”

He laughed, a brutal humorless noise. “A tenable solution, is it? So you want me to keep a mistress?”

“I can’t see that it matters one way or the other. Had we married in the normal course of things, I expect it wouldn’t have been much different. Many men—” She hesitated.

“Many men have mistresses.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “But I didn’t fancy myself joining their ranks.”

It seemed a petty trifle to her. Perhaps he was afraid that his wife would cause an unpleasant scene, the way Lady 216 Eloisa

James

Witherspoon did at the Regent’s ball last spring. “I would never make a fuss over such a thing,” she said in her most consoling tone. “I promise you, I truly am a very sensible person.”

“Sensible? You? ”

She colored. “I am very sensible in person. And I will be a good mother to your little sisters. I would never say a word about your mistress—”

“Even if I flaunt her before your eyes? What if I take a woman from your circle of acquaintances? What if I dance with her before I dance with you?”

“I can’t dance. And I promise you, I won’t turn a hair whatever you do. I truly apologize for writing the letter. But it never occurred to me that anyone would see it except me. Even so, it may be the best for all of us.”

He looked at her sweet oval face, framed by silken hair, and longed to shake her. “You understand nothing,” he said savagely. “Nothing!”

“What don’t I understand? I do realize that you’re disappointed—”

“There is no such thing as a chaste marriage. I cannot live with you under those circumstances, Henrietta.”

As he watched, her eyes grew hazy with tears. She swallowed, but not one tear slid down her cheek.

“My stepmother explained to me that gentlemen have expectations about that intimacy,” she said, finally.

“I cannot imagine living with you without being able to bed you,” he said fiercely.

“I see.” She was biting her lip hard, but still she didn’t cry. Her very self-control made him feel insane, made him want to destroy her composure.

He wasn’t sure where his own equilibrium had gone. It was swallowed into the dizzying prospect of marrying Henrietta—of not bedding Henrietta—of bedding Henrietta—

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“Why didn’t you think when you entangled me in your ridiculous set of lies?” he snarled, with all the force of his confusion. “Did you think of anyone but yourself?”