Difficult? Her jaw came unhinged. He wanted her to feign a pregnancy and then claim another woman’s child as her own? And he called that difficult?

“. . . but I think you will see that it is the only solution.”

No. She shook her head. “That cannot be possible. There must be some other way.”

“Do you really think I came to this decision lightly?” Richard said, his voice rising with temper. “Do you imagine I did not consider every possible alternative?”

Iris’s lungs grew tight, and she fought the need to suck in great big gulps of air. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely think. Who was this man? He’d been almost a stranger when they married, but she had thought he was at heart a good and honest person. She had let him kiss her in the most mortifyingly intimate way imaginable, and she did not even know him.

She’d thought she might even be falling in love.

And the worst part was, he could force her to do this. They both knew that. In marriage, the man’s word was law, and the woman’s lot was to obey. Oh, she could run to her parents, but they would just send her back to Maycliffe. They might be shocked, they might think Richard was mad to consider such a scheme, but in the end, they would tell her that he was her husband, and if this was his choice, she must go along with it.

“You deceived me,” she whispered. “You deliberately tricked me into marriage.”

“I am sorry.”

And he probably was, but that did not excuse him.

Then she asked the most terrifying question of all. “Why me?”

Richard blanched.

Iris felt her blood drain from her body, and she stumbled back, the force of his unsaid reply a punch to her gut. He didn’t need to say anything; the answer was right there on his face. Richard had chosen her because he could. Because he’d known that with her modest dowry and unremarkable looks she would not have suitors clamoring for her hand. A girl like her would be eager for marriage. A girl like her would never refuse a man like him.

Good Lord, had he researched her? Of course. He must have done. Why else would he have attended the Smythe-Smith musicale, if not to seek an introduction?

Winston Bevelstoke’s face suddenly flashed in her mind, his smile so practiced and suave as he introduced them. Had he helped Richard to choose a bride?

Iris nearly choked with the horror of it. Richard must have asked his friends to draw up lists of the most desperate women in London. And she had topped the charts.

She had been judged. And she had been pitied.

“You have humiliated me,” she said, barely able to find her voice.