“And what if he does have a few vices? What gentleman does not have a few gaming debts and occasionally drinks too much? Are you so fine that you can look down your nose at the one man who is asking for your hand in marriage?”
Julia felt the blood drain from her face at her uncle’s words. She could no longer meet his hard stare, and he turned his back on her.
Dear heavenly host, what could she possibly say? She’d rather become a governess than marry Mr. Edgerton. But her uncle’s words made her feel as if she were being ungrateful by refusing to marry him. Perhaps marriage to the man would not be so terrible. But she could not resign herself to marry someone she felt no affection for, someone who filled her with mistrust. It was too abhorrent, the thought of giving herself, mind and body, to a man she did not love. She simply could not do it.
But the thought of her uncle being angry with her, thinking less of her than she had ever believed he could . . . Tears pricked her eyes.
She blinked and fought them back. This was no time to give in to weakness and emotional displays. Her uncle would respect her even less than he already did.
He went on, keeping his back to her. “I believe I know what is best for you, and it is my wish, as your guardian, that you marry this young man.”
“Please forgive me, Uncle. You must know that I have always, and still do, wish to please you in every possible way that does not violate my conscience. I . . .”
“Your aunt and I took you in when you had no other place to go.” He glanced over his shoulder at her.
“Yes, sir, and I’m very grateful to you and Aunt.” The tears were encroaching again. “You have been the utmost in charity and kindness, and I—”
“I gave you all the same advantages my own daughter enjoyed.”
“Yes, sir, and I am terribly mindful of that, very thankful and mindful.”
“Then why do you defy me now with the insinuation that the man who wishes to marry you, and to whom I have already given my approval, is not good enough for you? Does that smack of gratitude, I ask you?”
Julia’s face went hot, and her stomach sank. She clasped her damp hands together to keep them from trembling. “I never meant—”
“What high and lofty ambitions are you expecting out of life, Miss Grey?”
She forced herself to meet her uncle’s hard stare. “I have no high and lofty ambitions. My aunt has made it quite clear that I have no choice but to be sent away to be someone’s governess.”
“I should think, if that be the case, that you would be very grateful for a gentleman’s offer such as Mr. Edgerton’s.”
Perhaps this was why her aunt had made such humiliating statements about Julia. Perhaps they had planned to make her feel forced into marriage to Mr. Edgerton. But why?
“Do you doubt his ability to support you?”
“I doubt his ability to secure my affections. I regret that it is so, but it is, and it violates my conscience to marry someone I do not love and could not respect.”
The way her uncle looked at her . . . her mind was flooded with the memory: She was seven years old and had only just come to live with the Wilherns. She was standing on the front lawn when her uncle’s horse threw him. She’d been paralyzed with fear that her uncle might have been killed or seriously hurt.
Mr. Wilhern had picked himself off the ground and started beating the horse, repeatedly, with his riding crop. The horse screamed, over and over. Uncle Wilhern yanked on the reins until the horse reared, and still he continued beating him. Julia fell to the ground and covered her ears with her hands, squeezing her eyes tight.
That was where the nursemaid found her, trembling and crying.
“Julia! Get up off the ground,” Betsy had said. “What are you doing? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
She wasn’t sure how long she had been crouching on the ground, but she had been trembling all over as she looked around. Her uncle and the poor horse were gone.
Now, as he glared down at her, Mr. Wilhern’s face was the same shade of red it had been that day as he was beating the horse.
“I will advise you to think on this matter some more, to consider the inferiority of your life as a governess, the struggles and lowliness of your position compared to what you could enjoy as a gentleman’s wife.”
All her life she had striven to avoid her uncle’s anger. Her heart was sinking, her stomach twisting, the painful manifestations of a guilty, utterly miserable awareness of her uncle’s disappointment in her, as well as what she felt were his unjust demands. But what else could she do? She could not, would not, agree to marry someone she could not love or respect.