Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride. Annie Burrows

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      ‘Your attentions are not unwelcome,’ she hastily reassured him. ‘And of course I will marry you. It was just the way you put it…’

      He got to his feet, looking down at her with an expression so fierce she felt almost afraid of him.

      ‘You must not expect honeyed words, or any insincere flattery from me, Miss Gillies. I may not have put my proposal with any great eloquence, but at least you know exactly what it is I am offering. I am offering you financial security, a chance at a good, comfortable future. You are about to marry a man who has been a soldier all his adult life. A man who has fought hard and lived rough. I am not going to spout some silly romantic nonsense to try to deceive you into expecting what I cannot give.’

      She blinked in astonishment. Hurt tears sprung to her eyes. Had any woman ever received such an insulting proposal or had her acceptance met with such a stinging rebuke? If she had a grain of sense, she would tell him what he could do with his proposal, and walk away.

      But then she would never see him again.

      She would become a teacher, just as she had planned, but with the knowledge that, had she had more courage, she could have been Captain Fawley’s wife.

      She could have endured that lonely life of drudgery, had he never proposed to her. But now, such a future would be unbearable.

      A cold hand seemed to reach into her bowels, and twist them into a knot as another horrible thought occurred to her. Seeing the ruthless way he had tried to bludgeon her into a marriage he was convinced she could not want, was he not bound to bully some other hapless female into taking him on, so that he could get at his inheritance? She could not deceive herself into thinking she was anything more to him than the first on a list of prospective wives, drawn from the pool of available females in desperate straits.

      ‘I do not expect anything from you,’ she said despondently. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that he was in love with Susannah? She might have fanciful visions of creating a happy family with the man she loved, but as far as he was concerned, she could be any female.

      A means to an end.