simply to be cruel. She’d stolen Thomas because she could.
Now she was to marry Sullivan. No one had asked her if that’s what she wanted. Her mother had seemed satisfied to hide her in the country, convinced no one would even notice her absence after a few months.
Nothing had truly happened in that inn. Yes, that was the most intimacy she’d ever shared with a man, but it had been accidental and in the name of protection and comfort. Her virtue remained firmly intact, which, oddly enough, her mother hadn’t even questioned. As if there were nothing remotely tempting about Matilda that would make Sullivan try to take advantage of such a situation. It was merely assumed that, despite being alone together for an entire night inside a room in an inn, Sullivan had not touched her.
Not that she wanted him to touch her. Or wanted him to desire her. She certainly did not, because he was the vilest man of her acquaintance. But it would be nice if her mother might have at least questioned whether or not her virtue was intact instead of assuming she repulsed all men. They were her family and she loved them, but they definitely made it challenging at times to like them.
There came a scratching at her bedroom door and Tilly sat up. “Enter.”
Instead of her mother or a maid, as she expected, her friends and fellow Ladies of Virtue members, Harriet and Agnes, came in.
Tilly frowned. “Is everything all right?”
“We heard the rumor. About you and Glenbrook,” Harriet said.
Her cheeks heated. “Already? Good gracious but the gossip in this town moves quickly.”
“What happened?” Agnes asked.
Her friends came in and climbed up to sit with her on her bed. Tilly clutched a pillow to her chest, feeling as if she needed some sort of barrier between her and the other girls.
“My carriage broke down on my return from our country estate. He rescued me from a storm and we had to spend the night in an inn. That is it.”
Agnes exhaled, the air whistling through her teeth. “That is more than enough to ruin your reputation.”
“Evidently,” Tilly said.
“Nothing happened at the inn?” Harriet asked.
Tilly swallowed hard and hoped she didn’t blush. They’d been naked. Together. In a bed. He’d touched her—in his sleep—still, the scrape of his palm across her breast had been tantalizing. Heat flushed over her skin, warming her cheeks and neck and pooling at the juncture of her thighs.
Yes, he had touched her, but he seemed wholly unaffected by it. She had felt warm and tingly, heated in places she never had before. Meanwhile, he had felt…what was that phrase he’d used? Oh, yes. He’d felt, “A normal reaction that occurs during sleep.”
His obvious apathy to her naked body did not bode well for their upcoming nuptials. Not that she wanted him to be…well, not apathetic. She didn’t.
She shook her head, unsure if she was responding to Harriet’s question or her own troubling thoughts.
Harriet leaned forward and squeezed Tilly’s knee. “What shall you do?”
“Sullivan has offered to do the right thing and marry me. My mother tried to talk him out of it.” Tilly snorted, then rolled her eyes. “She wants to send me to the country until the rumors blow over so that he doesn’t have to sacrifice his entire life being saddled with me.”
Harriet winced. “I’m certain she didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“No, she did. She even lauded him before he left about how amazing he was to rise to this challenge.”
“Never mind what your mother thinks.” Agnes smiled warmly. “The important thing is your reputation will be salvaged. You shall marry Sullivan.” Her expression turned earnest. “I know the two of you have had your differences—”
“Our differences? We hate each other!”
“I don’t believe he hates you. And I know him to be a good man, Tilly,” Agnes continued as if Tilly had not spoken.
“He most certainly is not a good man,” she argued, even though she had little evidence to uphold her argument other than his incessant teasing of her and the things Thomas had said about how he shirked his duties as viscount. In truth, her own experiences with him suggested he was, in fact, a good man. He’d kept her secret and rescued her. Now he had stepped up to do the honorable thing. That didn’t mean she could hold any affection toward him. He teased her far too much for that. “He teases me and gave me that terrible nickname.”
“And,” Harriet chimed in,