Page 66 of Bride By Mistake
She punched his shoulder. “I was trapped into it, too, you know!”
“You?” he snorted.
“Yes, me. And I’m the one who’s stuck with a bad-tempered Englishman who’s going to take me away to a foreign country where it rains all the time and I don’t know a soul.”
His jaw dropped.
“You’re not that big a prize, you know,” she raged, tears—angry ones—blurring her sight. “I was an heiress before you married me! I could have had any man in Spain, almost.”
He frowned, an arrested expression on his face.
“Don’t look at me like that. Don’t you dare look at me like that! I know I’m not pretty, but with my mother’s fortune, I could have married well. Very well!”
Her mother’s fortune was substantial. There were bonds and land and various investments—a manufactory of some sort and a woolen mill. Bella had an idea there might even be a ship or two, for her mother’s grandfather had been a ship captain, and English, so most of the investments were in England.
Papa used to rant about it. It infuriated him that the fortune was so huge but he couldn’t get his hands on any of it. After Mama died it was kept in trust for Bella, until she turned twenty-one, or married.
That was why Papa had quarrelled so bitterly with her grandparents and banned them from Valle Verde. Her grandparents had died soon afterward. She’d been so sad when Papa told her, because they’d died alone, without family. As she was now.
She glared at the man who was her husband. “I didn’t need to entrap anyone into marriage, let alone a horrid, suspicious Englishman. And besides, it was your idea to marry me! I was only thirteen. What did I know?”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes, all right, I know I agreed to it. I was even happy about it, God help me for a naive fool. Saving my fortune from Ramón—so generous of you! Besides, I wasn’t the one who denied the annulment. I didn’t even know about it.”
He made an exasperated sound, and she wanted to hit him again. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t.”
“But you must have told someone—”
“That I wasn’t a virgin? Wrong! Reverend Mother toldme.”
“Shetold you?”
“Yes.” She scrubbed at her eyes with angry fists. “When I was first at the convent, I used to have bad dreams, nightmares about… you know, that day. I kept waking up screaming, and it upset the other girls, so they moved me to a room by myself.”
“Go on.”
“Reverend Mother—well she wasn’t Reverend Mother then, just my Aunt Serafina—she asked me about my dreams and what happened that day, and I told her.” Her mouth wobbled, and for a horrible moment Bella thought she might burst into tears, and she was damned if she’d give him the satisfaction. “And then she said it was a good thing I was married because I was no longer a virgin. That that man who attacked me hadknownme—in the Bilical sense, you understand—and therefore…”
He gave her one of those long, enigmatic looks she was starting to hate.
She made a frustrated gesture. “Well, how was I to know any different? They never tell us anything! I knew how horses and dogs and chickens did it, but when I asked Mama about it she was horrified and told me we weren’t animals and it wasn’t like that between a man and a woman at all.” She broke off, frowning. “But it is like that, isn’t it? Only face-to-face and lying down.”
He said nothing.
“But I didn’t know what being a virgin meant until you hurt me just now. I mean, I knew it was supposed to hurt, but that man in the forest hurt me, too. They never said what kind of hurt it should be.”
Still he said nothing; only watched her with that steady, unnerving gaze.
“So I didn’t lie. Or try to trick you.”
There was a long silence, and she waited for him to say it was all right, that he understood, that he didn’t blame her for the mistake. But all he said was, “It’s late and we have another long day’s travel ahead of us. We’d better get to sleep.”
And then, as if nothing had happened, as if her world hadn’t just been shattered, he pulled on his drawers, passed her her nightgown, blew out the candles, walked around to the other side of the bed, and climbed in.
And then there was silence.
Bella was incredulous. “Is that all you have to say?” she said after a few minutes of lying tense and expectant in the dark.
