Temptation by Leda Swann Page B

hardly conducive to a rhapsody of love from her in return. She wasn’t in the mood for rhapsodies anyway.
    Married women shouldn’t write such familiar letters to men, she knew. Not that unmarried women should write such letters, either, but as an unmarried woman she was more free to please herself. Fornication was only unforgiveable if one was caught out in it, while adultery was always severely frowned upon.
    “And I was hoping you would consider doing me the inestimable honor of becoming my wife.”
    She let out the breath she didn’t even know she had been holding. This was the moment she had been waiting for. To her astonishment, she didn’t feel overwhelmed by happiness, or passion. She didn’t even feel so much as a nervous butterfly in her stomach. All she felt was a vague sense of irritated letdown. Is this all there was to life? Where were the fireworks that Louisa had described to her, the sense of rightness, of inevitability?
    She meant to say yes. She tried to say yes, but her mouth refused to form the word. “I don’t know what to say.”
    “You could accept my offer for a start,” Dr. Hyde remarked, with a flash of his usual wit returning.
    “No.” Where had that word come from? She hadn’t meant to say that. “I mean, not yet,” she said hastily, covering her mistake as quickly as she could. What was wrong with her? She meant to marry the man. She had meant to marry him for months. Why was she getting cold feet just as his had finally started to get warm?
    “Not yet?” He raised his eyebrows for an explanation. “Does that mean maybe, or is it a kinder way of saying no?”
    She had none to give him. “It’s all rather sudden,” she lied, not knowing what else to say. “Marriage is such an important step for a woman. I need some time to think about it.”
    He tugged on his goatee in thought. “That is fair enough. Come walking with me next Sunday, and let me know your thoughts then.” He rose to his feet and held out his hand to assist her from the ground. “Come, I shall escort you back to your boardinghouse.”
    Beatrice was thankful that she was wearing cotton gloves. Her skin was cold and clammy. It frightened her, how close she had come to throwing away everything she had worked for in the past year.
    They walked the two miles back to her boardinghouse in near silence. Clouds covered any hint of sunshine and Beatrice shivered in her light cloak. Her Sunday outing had turned into a disaster. A disaster completely of her own making.
    When they reached the door, Dr. Hyde bowed over her hand. “I shall see you on the wards in the morning, I trust?” His words were as courteous as ever, but he looked as sour as if he had eaten a peck of lemons. Sour enough to curdle milk at ten paces.
    She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Who knew what might come out of her mouth?
    Not until she reached the safety of her room, did she burst into noisy tears. He had proposed to her, and she had almost refused him? Really, she was barking mad and ought not to be allowed out of the house without a keeper.
    What would Mrs. Bettina say, or Lenora? They liked Dr. Hyde and would be horrified to think she had just been trifling with his affections.
    She was mad to secretly think about waiting to see if the captain survived the war. Even if he were to present himself at her door tomorrow with a bunch of flowers in his hand and beg her to marry him, she would refuse. She knew practically nothing about him. She would never marry a man she did not know to be good and honorable. He might turn out to be an arrant scoundrel, and then where would she be? All she knew about the captain was that he wrote to her in warmer terms than any man ought to write to a woman who was not his wife.
    And that his words made her feel warm and loved, as Dr. Hyde’s presence did not.
    She threw herself full length onto the bed and wept harder than ever. Her obsession with the captain had to stop. Now, before she ruined the