“Had she ever met your mother?”
“No.”
“And she should have seen at that moment that the loss of your mother was what was hurting you most of all—that it had nothing to do with dancing,” Lydia said. “She should have avoided trying to tell you what your mother would want for you. You’re the person who would know best about that. You don’t need to listen to anyone else’s opinions on the matter.”
“That’s a very generous thing to say.”
“What happened next?”
“I told Colin I wasn’t going to have anything more to do with her, that he could continue the relationship he was building with her, but that I wouldn’t have any involvement. I never did trust her. Ever since the day she married my father, she’s been trying to convince him to invest in her father’s business—it belongs to her brother now. She’s never let up.”
“What about after your father died?”
“She started trying to persuade me. This is why we don’t get along to this day. She persists in asking me for money. I’ve never given her any, and I never will, and she resents it because my father did, apparently. That’s something I didn’t know until after his death.”
“It all sounds so complicated.”
“It is. Do you see now why I don’t like to speak about this to anybody? It’s simpler to just tell people I don’t want to dance.”
“We don’t have to dance,” she said.
He nodded. “I appreciate your understanding. And we can still attend balls together if you don’t mind the questions. The attention that we’ll attract by never taking to the dance floor.”
Lydia laughed. She couldn’t help it. “I think we’ll attract attention no matter what we do,” she observed. “Today has proven that. All we had to do was walk into the room to get people talking, and now, they’re likely talking about us because we’re not there. Poor Lady Charlotte can’t stop talking about the fact that youdidn’tmake an improper advance on her. I don’t think there’s any way we can stop people from looking at us, so we might as well do what we want to do and let them say whatever they like.”
“You really don’t mind gossip?”
“Do you?”
“No, I don’t. But I suppose living with Margaret has given me the idea that there are no ladies who are capable of setting aside the fear of gossip.”
“I don’t fear it,” Lydia said. “And if what you’ve told me tonight about Margaret is true, I don’t think she and I have as much in common as I would have once believed we did.”
“No,” Edward agreed, his voice low in a way that ensured Lydia had to lean close in order to hear him. “I wouldn’t say the two of you have very much in common at all.”
Lydia shivered. It felt like the highest compliment he had paid her so far in all their time knowing one another, and it made her feel happy—but uneasy at the same time.
She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t imagined that tonight would involve the two of them sharing such an intimate moment.
Where would they go from here?
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
“Tell me about your family,” Edward suggested.
The two of them had been sitting in silence for a while in the wake of the compliment he had paid her.
Edward didn’t believe that, before today, Lydia would have understood that his telling her she wasn’t anything like Margaretwasa compliment. She had been doing her very best to be like Margaret. But things had changed tonight. She understood him better than she ever had and knew why he was so resistant to everything Margaret said and did. And though he did feel guilty about it—it was sad that he had had to come between Lydia and Margaret like that—he was satisfied with the fact that Lydia seemed to have taken his side in it all. That pleased him.
“What do you want to know?” Lydia asked him.
“I hardly know anything about them,” Edward said. “I only met your father the one time, apart from the wedding when we had no time to talk at all. What are they like?”
“Well, they’re very strict,” Lydia started. “I was their only daughter—you know that much—I was their onlychild, in fact. So, all their hopes were always pinned on me, and it was always my duty to see to it that I behaved in ways that would ensure the future they wanted for our family.”
“I can relate to that,” Edward noted. “I was always groomed to take over as Duke, so I know what it’s like to have a family that has a purpose in mind for you all your life. But what did that look like for you? What was your purpose?”
“I was to marry a wealthy gentleman, a gentleman of good standing, and bring honor and privilege to our family,” Lydia explained.
