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Wicked Wager
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From Waif to Gentleman's Wife
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Regency Secrets
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Jenna Montague’s conscience smote her as the warm light died in Major Garrett Fairchild’s eyes.

“Though I may be only an earl’s untitled younger son,” he said with a wry half smile, “he is a rich earl. My wife will want for nothing, and should I be killed in battle my widow -”

“Don’t say that!” Jenna cried, putting a finger to his lips. Hands shaking, she could barely refrain from making the sign of the cross over him to ward off bad luck, as Sancha would have done. “You know how little I care for money or fancy titles.”

“What is it, then? I thought we were friends. It is a bit battering to my self-esteem to twice have the lady to whom I’ve pledged my troth break off our engagement.”

“But we were never truly engaged,” she objected. “It’s not that I don’t honor and respect you, or harbor a - a fond affection for you. It’s just…well, though you may reject ‘love’ as a basis for wedlock, I…I had always hoped to share that emotion with the gentleman I married. My parents did.”

“Perhaps for some fortunate individuals, happiness follows love,” he conceded. “Though my own regrettable experience argues that such passion is more likely to end in heartache. Certainly I wish never to be caught in its toils again! A mutual friendship like ours is surely a much better guarantee of lasting harmony. Besides, if it is love you must have, there is every reason to believe our warm affection will deepen over time. I pledge to do my utmost to make you happy. You believe that, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes,” she stuttered, frantic to find some convincing grounds to refuse him, lest he manage to ferret out her real objections. “But…what if we were to marry and you later met a-another lady who inspired you to passion? Never would I wish to be an impediment keeping you from following your heart.”

Garrett shook his head. “The last thing I want is to experience again such a painful excess of emotion! Besides, once I’ve vowed my life to you, I would never look at another lady. So…shall I go down on one knee and ask for your hand properly?”

Not when I already love you to “painful excess”! she wanted to snap back. But she couldn’t tell him that. Feeling honor bound to marry her as he did, such a revelation would only reinforce his conviction.

Her previous rash admission - that she wished for a husband who loved her - only gave her a more compelling reason to resist him. Should they wed, how could she ever be sure that any love he professed to develop for her afterward was sincere? Knowing now how she valued the emotion, he might well avow those tender sentiments in a gentlemanly attempt to make her happy.

She couldn’t bear a lifetime of wondering whether the emotions he pledged were genuine. Wondering, if he should seem distracted or irritable, whether he was merely out of sorts - or had met another lady who’d captured his heart and felt obliged to renounce her.

Or to visit her secretly.

A sick feeling settled in her gut. No, she couldn’t marry Garrett.

But her tattered nerves and raw emotions left her too drained now to come up with an argument that would withstand his soldierly single-mindedness. In desperation, she fell back on the excuse of fatigue.

“Please, Garrett, not now! I’m so weary I can scarce keep my eyes open, and Papa’s loss is still so fresh….” She didn’t have to feign the anguish that made her voice ragged and clogged her throat. “I don’t want to do something hasty, and I simply can’t think now.”

Though she saw hurt in his eyes at her rebuff, he was instantly solicitous. “Of course not. I’m sorry to have pressed you. With all you’ve had to do, I doubt you got much sleep last night. Why not return to your chamber and rest? I’ll take the trunk out and get Mrs. Anderson settled. We’ll talk of this again tomorrow.”

“Yes,” she said gratefully. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

By which time, she devoutly hoped to have come up with a way to avoid marrying a man she wanted with every fiber of her being - who planned to wed her out of tepid inclination and a strong sense of duty.

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