she fussed with her bodice when she didn’t know what to say.
Stone understood her.
“I am so very, very glad Chaswick threw you over his lap in The Willoughby’s garden.”
All three of them burst into giggles, and Bethany flushed a delightful pink.
Hearing her sister’s words, she recalled all the improper things she’d done over the past week. If she had become the Duchess of Culpepper, she would have condemned herself to a life without love—without the one man she didn’t want to live without.
“And I am so very, very glad you decided not to marry Culpepper.”
Tabetha nodded. “Me too.” And then she winced. “There cannot be an annulment. I don’t want one, anyway. I want to stay married to Stone. I want to be Mrs. Spencer forever!”
“There can’t be an annulment?” Bethany’s brows shot nearly into her hair but her sister-in-law merely nodded in understanding.
“You love him,” Charley declared.
Tabetha dipped her chin. “I do. I really do. But it’s complicated.”
“It always is, Tabetha, it always is.” Charley sighed when a knock sounded at the door. “And I’ve no doubt we can figure things out, but before we begin, can we eat? I’m positively famished.”
As the three ladies set out their plates and went to work on the meats and stews, Tabetha explained everything… mostly everything. She didn’t go into details regarding how her marriage had been consummated, nor how many times, but since she’d announced the impossibility of an annulment, they’d have to extrapolate that fact on their own.
“Eloping was my idea,” she confessed. She wondered if a part of her had done it intentionally. Because in an ironic twist, marrying Stone had freed her.
But waking up the next morning, and then being sick in front of him, had been mortifying. She’d been embarrassed for so many things! And Stone had been witness to most of them.
Her first mistake had been agreeing to marry Culpepper. Her second mistake, she’d believed that morning, had been marrying a man who considered her spoiled and silly.
Had she already been half in love with him then?
“I was so mad when I saw that certificate that I went storming out—in my dressing gown!” She winced.
“In a public inn?” Bethany stared at her admonishingly.
But when Tabetha told her how she fell down the stairs and woke up not even knowing her name, all admonishment fled and Bethany’s expression turned to one of horror-stricken concern.
“You hit your head so hard that you didn’t know who you were?” Bethany blinked back tears, dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
“But I’ve remembered everything now. At least I think I’ve remembered everything.”
“Were you terrified?” Charley asked.
This was where things truly became complicated. “I wasn’t. I mean, I was a little scared, but I was mostly just… in love.”
The room fell unusually quiet after that. Tabetha could even hear sounds drifting up from the taproom.
“But he wasn’t being totally honest with me. He never contradicted my belief that we’d eloped because we were in love. He pretended…”
Tabetha blinked hard. Had it all just been pretend?
Charley and Bethany were staring meaningfully at one another and then back at Tabetha.
“He made love to you,” Charley said.
“To be fair, I…” Tabetha bit her lip. “I didn’t give him much of a choice.”
“They always have a choice,” Bethany all but growled.
“But the two of them were married,” Charley pointed out. “What if he was already in love with you? Just as you were already in love with him? And not having to deal with the past merely paved the way for the two of you to admit it to yourselves?”
“But I went and ruined everything.”
“Because he’s not a duke,” Bethany guessed.
Charley winced.
“Yes. He was so angry. And I was horrid to him about that before.” Tabetha squeezed her eyes together.
“He isn’t a duke, he doesn’t hold a title, and most likely never will. He’s a mister, Tabby, and if you stay married to him, you’ll never be anything more than a missus.” Bethany, it seemed, would play the part of devil’s advocate. “Aside from that, he participates in that boxing club. Rather base, when you really consider him. You could always deny consummating the marriage and set your cap for a different duke—”
“I don’t want a duke!” Tabetha was on her feet. “And he isn’t base! And if he hadn’t become such a skilled fighter, I’d have had to marry Culpepper and Archie would have been sold to the highest bidder. There is nothing at all wrong with being Mrs. Stone Spencer. At this point, I