Free Bride By Mistake by Anne Gracíe Page B

that it was meant to be.
    Stupid, dreamy fool…
    When the others found out he’d tried to annul the marriage, how they’d pity her. She couldn’t bear it.
    There were whispers once, about someone’s cousin whose marriage had been annulled because she didn’t please her husband. The girl was returned home, shamed and disgraced.
    How much worse to have had your husband try for an annulment and fail? All of the shame, and none of the comfort of escape. She’d become one of those stories that girls whispered about. Utter, public, never-ending mortification.
    “Isabella?” Reverend Mother’s voice came from the courtyard entrance.
    Isabella hastily wiped her eyes and turned to face her, expecting a scold, but though it was Reverend Mother who came toward her, it was her aunt who held out loving, sympathetic arms, saying softly, “Oh, my dear.” Isabella fell into them, sobbing afresh.
    “My dear, I thought you knew,” Reverend Mother said when Isabella had finally sobbed herself out. She handed Isabella a clean handkerchief. “Wipe your eyes and blow your nose.”
    “What do you mean, knew? How could I know?” Isabella blew her nose loudly.
    “Lord Ripton was correct; annulment was the plan from the beginning.”
    “It
was
?” Isabella whispered.
    Her aunt nodded. “I thought you knew.” She gave her a compassionate hug. “But there was a lot for you to take in that day, I know, and you were still a child, so I suppose it’s understandable that you didn’t fully comprehend.”
    “But…” Isabella swallowed to remove the lump in her throat.
    “Lord Ripton married you solely to protect you from a forced marriage to Ramón.”
    Isabella nodded. “I knew that. But the marriage was still real.” Wasn’t it?
    “It was legal, of course, but at the time it was just a stratagem. His intention—
our
intention—was to have it annulled when you were twenty-one.” She patted Isabella’s hand. “He planned to set you free to make your own choice, my dear.”
    Bella sniffed. “Why didn’t you warn me—you must have… Didn’t you know how I feel—felt about him?”
    A rueful expression crossed Reverend Mother’s face. “I could see you had a schoolgirl crush—not surprising when a heroic young man rescues you, and such a handsome one, too. But I believed you’d grow out of it, and you did.” She eyed Bella with a mixture of concern and doubt. “Didn’t you?”
    “Yes,” Bella said dully. She did, she told herself. She felt nothing at all for him—now.
    Humiliation twisted in her gut. How foolish, getting all upset about an arrangement that had been in place for eight years, only she’d been too stupid to remember it.
    All the dreams, all the glorious romantic stories she’d told about her husband.
    All stupid, vain, childish… lies.
    She stared down at the worn stone cobbles of the courtyard and wished she could seep between the cracks and dissolve deep into the earth.
    “In any case,” Reverend Mother continued, “shortly after you came here I knew an annulment was not possible.”
    “How did you know?”
    “My dear, you told me yourself of the… attack.”
    “Yes, but… but what has that to do with it? Was it because Lieutenant Ripton killed the man? Because he was a deserter and—”
    “No, my dear, it was because the man… er… compromised your virginity and that is why no annulment could be granted.”
    “But Lieutenant Ripton didn’t—”
    “No, no, of course not. But after that, no other man—no gentleman, I mean—would be prepared to take you to wife.”
    Bella frowned. “Lieutenant Ripton is a gentleman.”
    “He is indeed, and now a titled one—you really must learn to call him Lord Ripton—and so we must be grateful for his forbearance in this matter.”
    Bella wove the handkerchief between her fingers. So now she must be
grateful
he was willing to overlook this terrible flaw in her—because he had no choice in the matter. Grateful that he’d come to