She might have asked kept talking about the suit, as he had – it must have been for some particular occasion, for whoever ordinarily wore white suits? – but he pivoted unexpectedly to the vicar. She gave a little smile of bewilderment, wondering where he was going with it – and a little internally mortified that he was getting lectured by anyone for being a rake when he hadn’t so much as kissed her that night.

Or tonight, yet – but perhaps kissing was entirely its own thing, and not actually a necessary part of what ought to happen tonight. (She had kissed people outside of marriage and nothing bad had ever really come of it, after all – kissing had always seemed rather harmless. But maybe that was part of the problem; maybe she had been endangering her reputation even then, and this fall came well-deserved.)

“Only a little – about the service, and the duties of marriage,” she said, in the be faithful and obey your husband sort of manner, but he had not said a great deal to her directly, and he had not lectured her outright about her behaviour: either he had left such reproaches to her parents (and her parents had not been parsimonious with those), or – Jemima considered, with a sinking feeling – perhaps he hadn’t bothered because a ruined woman, a well-known hussy, was simply past all reform, past being saved? She let out a small giggle, entirely in spite of herself; a nonsensical laugh, borne out of nerves. “Why?” she asked, biting her lip. “What did he say to you?”

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