Page 62 of In With a Chance

“I want you to be happy. That is all,” Ernest said quietly, a wry smile dancing upon his lips. “So… So whatever will make you happy, Gwen. That is what I wish for you.”

You make me happy.

Those were the words she did not say, could not say.

Once said, Gwen knew they could never be taken back. Forgetting she had said them would be impossible for them both—and how could she go forward with her marriage to another man?

“You… You are really going to marry him, then.”

Gwen looked up into Ernest’s eyes and saw the pain there that she herself felt.

It was so ridiculous, wasn’t it?

Twenty thousand pounds. That was all it was. Money. Without that distance between them, perhaps they would be having a very different conversation. Perhaps… Perhaps this would be their wedding that they would be planning. Perhaps they would be laughing over the menu instead of bickering, and her father would have had to bundle a laughing Ernest out of the room as her mother started to talk about wedding gowns…

For a moment, just a moment, Gwen allowed herself to enjoy the delight of that potential future.

And then it faded. The reality standing before her was Ernest, a man who needed to wed forty thousand pounds, and herself, a woman without it.

And to think, she had had nothing until her Cousin Samuel’s generous gift. And yet a fortune would not be enough.

“You… You are really going to marry him, then.”

“Yes,” Gwen exhaled, unable somehow to look away from his handsome face. “At least… No one has given me any reason not to.”

It was perhaps a cruel thing to say. After all, she had more than a small inkling that should her dowry have been twice the size, there would certainly have been someone to give her a reason not to.

If her dowry were larger.

If Ernest did not need a great sum.

If things had been different.

The ifs could pile up, but that could not change the reality before her, Gwen told herself sternly.

Ernest’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Gwen—”

“Right, now you chaps had better leave. We need to talk about… Well. Lady things,” said Gwen’s mother from the other side of the room. “Go on with you, Lord Frasemere, out!”

She was smiling as she said it, and Gwen made sure to force a smile upon her own face, though it was a rather challenging thing. How could she smile, when she was starting to wonder…

Well. If she was marrying the wrong person?

“‘Lady things’? That sounds dangerous,” said her father with a chuckle. “Come, Frasemere, I’d like your opinion on precisely what one should wear to this Axwick picnic. The weather, you see, so inclement…”

The two gentlemen left the dining room and Gwen felt unexpectedly deflated. As though all the air had been removed from the room with them.

“Right,” said her mother cheerfully as she shut the door behind them and turned to her daughter. “Now, there are certain things it is important you know for… Well. After the wedding.”

Gwen tried not to groan. “Mama, you don’t need to…” With so many older married siblings and cousins, Gwen at least had some sort of idea.

Goodness, this was going to be even more excruciating than the conversation she’d just had…and she hadn’t thought that possible.

Is it my imagination, or are my mother’s cheeks pinking?

“I just—well, by the time I spoke to Jessica and Irene about it, it was… Well, I don’t want to say too late—”

Well, that was interesting. Gwen’s stomach lurched; did her mother mean her sisters had…already before they were married?