Nixon and his henchman are summarily dispatched and, having ascertained Lily’s identity, Edward determines to take her home. Edward Galbraith, a notorious rake and friend of Cal’s, who immediately comes to her rescue. Lily may be quiet and shy, but she discovers her backbone during the uncomfortable journey, and at last manages to escape, running headlong into the path of the coach containing Mr. Drugged, bound and confused, Lily doesn’t know what’s happening until she hears her captor and his companion bandying around words like ‘bride’ and ‘heiress’ – and realises they must be heading to Gretna Green. At the function, she is introduced to the handsome and charming Victor Nixon – who proceeds to slip Lily a mickey, construct a weak excuse to get her outside and then bundle her into a carriage that immediately takes off at speed. Sadly for Lily however, her promise almost proves her undoing. Agatha always makes her feel fat (naturally, Lily isn’t fat, but lusciously curved) and stupid, and she wants to escape from her aunt’s censure for a few hours and besides, she has agreed to attend another event because she has promised to meet an old schoolmate there. It’s unusual for Lily to stand up to their aunt so strongly, but she refuses to be cowed on this occasion. All Lily wants is someone who will love and care for her, and whom she can love and care for in return, yet Aunt Agatha insists on thrusting the trio of young ladies into the paths of the sorts of cold, ennui-laden, self-important gentlemen they dislike – and Lily’s refusal to attend the opera so she can meet a duke and two of his friends all but sends the older lady into apoplexy.
Lily’s ‘shortcoming’ is not widely known however, and given she is an heiress, their aunt holds out hope that there may be a man out there who is desperate enough to marry her. Now eighteen years old, Lily, her sister, Rose and their niece, Georgiana (who is of an age with them) are all partaking of the London season under the chaperonage of their dragon of an Aunt Augusta, who orders them about, and bullies them (or tries to) into doing whatever she wants them to.īeing the quieter of the three, Lily is usually the main target for Aunt Augusta’s lectures and disparaging comments, many of which relate to the fact that Lily has never been able to learn to read or write, and was regarded by their late father as stupid. Readers first met Lily Rutherford, heroine of Marry in Scandal (the second book in Anne Gracie’s Marriage of Convenience series), in Marry in Haste, where she was introduced as one of the two somewhat unruly sisters of its hero, Cal, Earl of Ashendon.
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