Page 67 of Enticing the Devil

“Nonsense,” Emma replied quickly. “It’s no fuss at all.”

“After all, it’s not every day a woman is forced to marry someone she’d rather not,” Portia noted, then added with a frown and a groan, “then again, it is, isn’t it?”

Anne looked to the young woman with wide eyes. “How did you know?”

Portia gave a cagey smile as she leaned forward to pass the bottle into Anne’s hands. “It’s what I do. I know things.”

“What’s this?” Bethany asked, fiercely indignant. “You’re being forced to marry?”

Anne avoided answering by taking a tentative sip of the whisky. A delightful burn rolled over her tongue and down her throat to instantly warm her belly.

“I’m sorry, Anne,” Lily, seated beside her, said with genuine remorse as Anne passed the bottle to her. “I had no idea your partnership with Mr. Thomas would lead to...this.”

“Please don’t, Lily. The responsibility for what happened lies securely between myself and Mr. Thomas.”

“I knew that man was a scoundrel, right from the start,” Bethany declared.

Anne shook her head. “No. It’s not like that.”

“Would you like to tell us what did happen?” Emma asked.

There was just a moment of embarrassment—more because such things were not often spoken of freely than due to any true shame—before Anne gave a short sigh. “I’m afraid we quite crossed the lines of propriety.”

There was a brief moment as the other women stared at her—no doubt shocked to hear the ever-proper Lady Anne might have engaged in something scandalous.

Portia recovered first. “I’ve never understood why a few stolen kisses must result in an engagement,” the young woman noted in obvious frustration.

Anne coughed. “It went a bit beyond stolen kisses.”

Lily’s eyes widened. “How far beyond?”

Anne’s answer was a quick blush.

Bethany gasped in delight. “Anne, you perfect hoyden!”

Lily’s smile was understanding and Emma leaned forward to add pragmatically, “You’re not the first, my dear, and won’t be the last.”

“Just to be clear,” Portia interjected with an uncharacteristically sober expression, “you were an enthusiastic participant in these activities?”

Understanding the other woman’s concern and appreciating it even though it required an uncomfortably honest answer, Anne quickly replied, “Yes, of course.”

Portia gave a satisfied nod and settled back into the corner of her chair.

“Mr. Thomas is not what everyone says he is,” Lily commented. “I’ve come to see him as a rather sensitive and compassionate sort. He just struggles a bit with society’s expectations, I think.”

“I agree,” Emma stated with a nod. “He can come off a bit disgruntled at first, but he may just be one of the most loyal and constant men I know.”

They weren’t saying anything Anne didn’t know already, but she remained firm in her response. “None of that means he’d make me a good husband.”

Emma tilted her head as a furrow formed between her brows. “Are you concerned about his lack of wealth and station?”

Anne met the other woman’s questioning stare. “Not at all. Such things have no bearing on my reticence.”

“Then what, exactly, is the problem?” Bethany asked bluntly, confusion and compassion clear in her tone.

Glancing down at her hands linked tightly in her lap, Anne admitted the true origin of her distress. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the man I marry to actually want me.”

As soon as the words left her lips, she realized how pitiable they sounded, and she hated it.

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