Page 30 of A Stormy Season

“It is humiliating.” Jane felt the angry tears sting her eyes.

“But Mr. Watley is a good man,” Penelope said.

“Yes, but I don’t want him to marry me out of obligation.” Jane could feel her face getting hot, her blood rising. “That is what is humiliating. Can any man love a woman he is forced to marry?”

This was especially hard, considering the unhappy circumstances of Luke’s first marriage.

“Of course he can,” Penelope said.

At the same time, Henry said, “Yes, of course.”

Jane stared back at them, the two of them looking so earnest and—was that hopefulness in their expressions?

“You bothwantme to marry him. Henry has wanted me to marry Luke Watley four years ago, before he married Anne. Well, I won’t do it. Let my reputation suffer. It isn’t as if a dozen suitors were beating down our door for me before I was kidnapped.”

“But Jane.” Penelope’s eyes were wide.

“You could do a lot worse than Luke Watley.” Henry’s expression was severe, his brows drawing together.

“But he doesn’t want to marry me. He’s not in love with me!” Jane’s voice was growing quite loud, but she had to make them understand. “I cannot marry someone who doesn’t love me.”

“How do you know he doesn’t love you?” Penelope said.

“I know. A woman knows. He hasn’t had enough time to form an attachment to me.”

Henry shook his head. “You were always the most stubborn girl.”

“Henry.” The way Penelope said his name was obviously a rebuke. She scowled at him in her gentle way and shook her head.

“I am stubborn, and you won’t see me marrying a man I don’t love and who doesn’t love me.” She regretted her words as soon as she said them, for they could be seen as a criticism of Penelope, who had married her first husband simply because her grandmother had wished it.

Thankfully, neither Penelope nor Henry seemed to catch her veiled allusion to Penelope’s lack of love for her first husband and her amenability to marrying someone she didn’t love.

“Do you not think you could love Luke Watley? That your feelings will not grow after you are married?”

“That is not my way, to hope that love will grow. It is completely against all my wishes for my husband.”

Henry turned away from Jane. “Well, it isn’t certain he will make you an offer anyway.”

Penelope looked distressed. She opened her mouth to speak, but finally closed it without saying anything.

“I am sorry, but to my own self I must be true, in marriage especially, since it is so important.”

“I could understand your attitude if it were anyone else,” Henry said, “but the fact is that this is Luke Watley, a good man, a man whose character is above almost any other man you could name.”

No one spoke as Henry’s words seemed to hang in the air.

“Well, I haven’t said Iwouldn’tmarry him—if he loved me and if I loved him.” Jane crossed her arms and met her brother’s eye.

Henry huffed out a breath and strode quickly from the room.

She would never tell Henry or even Penelope, but the first mention of her marrying Luke had sent her heart skipping and soaring. But that made no sense. She was not in love with him, and she absolutely would not marry him unless she was, and unless she knew he was also in love with her. To do otherwise would violate her own inner vows and sense of worth.

As good a man as Luke Watley seemed to be, and as handsome as he was, she was not even tempted to marry him, not without love.

~ ~ ~

After Luke had taken a bath and an hour-long nap, he’d been visited by not one but two of the middle-aged mothers and their eligible young daughters, the ones who had repeatedly called on him ever since less than a week after Anne’s death.