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Layla’s lap.
    There was nothing that Edie could do for Layla’s marriage, but the whole situation did get her thinking after she found her way back to her room and into a hot bath.
    She was betrothed to a duke whom she wouldn’t be able to pick out from a crowd. That fact didn’t actually bother her much.
    It had been impressed upon her from the age of five that her thirty-thousand-pound dowry and her blue blood ensured that her marriage would be a matter of dynastic lines, a way to create children and to concentrate wealth. She had never conceived of marriage as more than a meeting of (hopefully) compatible minds.
    However, she definitely wouldn’t want to live through the kind of drama that accompanied Layla and her father’s marriage. Hopefully, the man with the enchanting Scottish burr in his voice would be a reasonable fellow, with as little nonsense about him as there was about her.
    In fact, despite her irritation with his lack of courtship, the truth was that Kinross’s swift proposal was a point in his favor, as it indicated that nothing about her person had entered into his decision. He had likely decided to marry her before attending the ball, and he had danced with her merely to ascertain that she didn’t have a hump or a wooden leg.
    Edie sank lower into her bath, letting the water lap at her chin. She found this explanation of her fiancé’s brisk proposal very reassuring. She wouldn’t care for an impulsive man. She much preferred to think of Kinross as having made a reasoned decision.
    She never wanted to face the sort of emotional storm that surrounded her father and Layla. Never.
    When she finally rose from the bath, pink and wrinkly, her natural optimism was restored for the first time since she had fallen ill. She could handle a man like her father.
    Her stepmother had made the mistake of falling in love, probably because the earl had wooed her with such unexpected ardor. If Layla didn’t care so much, she wouldn’t flirt with other men to try to get her husband’s attention. And if he didn’t care so much, he wouldn’t get so angry. Surely Edie and Kinross could avoid that vicious circle by establishing some ground rules for suitably mature discourse.
    In fact, why wait until they met again? It might be a good idea to express her ideas in writing.
    The more she thought about it, the more she liked the sound of an exchange of letters. She would write her betrothed, and lay out what she considered to be the features of a successful marriage. He was in Brighton; very well, she would send a groom there with a letter in hand. It would take the man only a day if he went by mail coach. A duke who traveled with two carriages and eight footmen shouldn’t be difficult to locate.
    Pulling on her wrapper, she waited until her maid left before she sat down at her writing desk. Her demands must be tactfully phrased. Mutual respect was an obvious requirement. And plenty of time alone: she didn’t want a husband who trailed her about and interrupted her cello practice.
    The most delicate issue was that of mistresses. As she understood it, a gentleman generally had a mistress. She didn’t have a strong objection; one could hardly claim that a vow between strangers, motivated by power and money, was sacrosanct. On the other hand, she did not want her husband to treat her with the cavalier disdain that her father demonstrated toward Layla, staying out all night, and so on.
    And she definitely didn’t wish to catch a disease from a woman in her husband’s employ, if that was the right terminology for such an arrangement. Edie pulled out a sheet of letter paper and paused. Should she specify that such a disease would be grounds to break their betrothal?
    Surely her father would have asked that question.
    She made a mental note to check, and began to write. At the end of an hour, she had filled two pages. She read them over and found them quite satisfactory.
    The letter was respectful, but candid.
    To her