“She what?” Lady Ingrahme gave him a look of such great incredulity, Harland might have had an easier time convincing her he’d had an intelligent conversation about the finer points of esoteric mathematical principles with a hairy old swine on its way to the butcher.

“She did not accept my suit.”

They were in the small parlor her ladyship usually only used in the mornings before breakfast when she attended her correspondence. It was an intimate space, entirely feminine after her own heart, and one that rarely saw guests, even family members, and smelled faintly of toast. Harland had slipped inside hoping for privacy, and, after the company had all retired, his aunt had sought him out.

With nothing but the light of a few candles, the room was dim. Without a fire, a winter chill bit the indoor air.

It’d all come pouring out. He’d told her everything that had come to pass in the last two days—with one major omission. Nobody need know Harland had brought Abigail to the cottage, never mind what had come to pass between them there.

“She couldn’t have meant—”

“I know what you’re going to say, and no. She left me no reason to hope. No indication she spoke contrary to her feelings out of any sense of…of whatever it is that might motivate a female to refuse the man she wants to accept.”

The older woman blinked, staring into the distance as if patiently allowing time to do its work in helping her absorb the information. “Until this moment, I had no notion of such a possibility existing. Think of it—a woman refusing you.”

Harland frowned. “Yes, thank you, aunt.”

She paid him no mind. “And a woman of such—well, one who makes her living as a companion.”

To her credit, she didn’t pronounce companion with the same disdain she might have used when forced to utter, say, Bonaparte. Or slop bucket.

“And she refused you.” His aunt stared in wonderment, as if Harland had tried claiming he’d glimpsed a unicorn in the forest.

He sighed. “Stop rubbing salt in that particular wound, won’t you aunt?”

“Are you quite certain you made her an honorable offer, nephew?” She peered at him. “Women have a great sensitivity in these matters.”

“Never more certain in my life.”

“And there is no possibility of a misunderstanding?”

“None.”

“Then she refused an offer of…” His aunt was sitting sideways on the chair, and held onto the back with one hand as she leaned forward as if in some doubt of speaking coherently herself. “…marriage?”

“That she did, indeed.”

“Oh. Oh, I say.” Lady Ingrahme blinked. “I say. I think I rather like this girl. What’s her name again? Sussex?”

“Sutton. Abigail Sutton. And if by refusing me, she’s earned your approbation—”

His aunt reached out to place a cold hand over his. “Don’t misunderstand me, nephew. You have title, status, and, most of all, fortune. All of these things put you squarely in the ranks of the greatest men alive in England today. If she refused you, it means she not only holds principles that not one in ten thousand of her sex can claim to be equal to, but she lives by them. That’s a rare quality in anybody, regardless of birth. I myself can make no claims of being wholly disinterested when your late uncle began courting me, you know.”

“I should have done it all differently.” If only he hadn’t been so eager. “Approached her with care and finesse. Proceeded slowly instead of charging in, certain of attaining what I wanted. I should have caressed and seduced instead of making so violent a grab.”

“You were quite certain of getting what you wanted, I daresay.”

“Too certain.”

“Greater men have fallen for less.”

“But none have lost what I have.” He tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. If imploring heaven would make any difference, he’d wear his knees bloody begging intercession like a papist. “My own stupidity cost me everything. I’d sooner abdicate my name and my title than lose her.”

“You speak as if you have a choice in the matter.”

“In which? My title or my happiness?”

“Either your title or her. Not your happiness, my boy.” She gave him a sharp look. “That is entirely in your hands, not hers or anybody else’s, no matter how much you think you might love this woman. Nobody has power over your feelings but you. Anybody claiming otherwise is a fool unworthy of your company.”

“Won’t anybody believe my sincerity? She won’t. You won’t.”

“It is…a mite bit difficult to understand all you claim, I must own. By your own admission, you barely know her. But, be that as it may, I do hope you minded me on my other point.”

“Happiness?” He paused for the word to sink in. “Yes, you’re quite right, of course.” She usually was. It was the best thing about her, as well as the worst. “It doesn’t change the fact that my life has been forever altered. That I’ve been forever altered.” He bit back the tremble in his voice. “Whatever the future holds, I know there will be an eternal emptiness—that place where she would have been, nothing else could ever fill. I’ve lost her. Forever. And I have only myself to blame.”

* * *

“It was the gown, wasn’t it?” Carter clasped her hands before her and twirled like a girl of eight or ten instead of a woman a breath away from her fifth decade. “I knew it—I always knew it. It was yours from the start. I knew from the first time I saw the mistress at her fitting with the dressmaker. It was the only time she ever wore it herself, you know. It was as good as decreed by Fate to be yours.”

It was plain and serviceable, this room Abigail had been given for her stay. A chamber fit for people in those in between worlds living neither as a member of the household, a true guest, nor a servant. The ghostly heat of a now-vanished fire lingered in the air, keeping the chill at bay. But only just.

With a sigh, Abigail sank back on her bed and looked at the pilfered object between her fingers.

Carter’s smile diminished, but didn’t entirely fade away. Concern lit in her eyes. “What is it? Aren’t you happy? You’ve won a marquess.”

“I don’t care about marquesses—and I certainly would not have been tempted to accept him for little more than his title.”

“But you did, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

“Accept him.”

“Of course not. How could I?”

Carter went serious. “Oh. Forgive me. I thought—well, I thought you rather favored him. I’m sorry to have been mistaken.”

Abigail’s heart tugged. Favored him. It was rather more than that, wasn’t it?

If only he weren’t of such high stature. How much easier it would have been had his status been no more than Edward’s, which was respectable and of well enough independent means to take a wife, but by no means lofty.

She never should have danced with him.

In her hands she had a small twig she’d plucked from an arrangement of fresh conservatory flowers in a large porcelain vase painted with stylized chrysanthemums placed on the landing of the main stairwell. It was a willow branch. Her mother had been laid to her eternal rest at the far corner of a small churchyard below the shade of a willow tree overlooking a stream. And, now that she paused to consider, Harland’s garden cottage had been below a willow as well.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel, does it? It could never work. We’re so different. I might as well be a scullery maid covered in soot trying to marry a king. How would it look? He’s far too high for the likes of me. It’s impossible.”

“You think you don’t deserve him because of your low birth?”

“Deserving has nothing to do with the matter, I assure you.” Abigail fought to keep sharpness from her tone. “The world doesn’t work on merit, does it? It never has. It never will. Think of the Beatitudes.”

“Yes, well. I’m not sure it’s a perfect analogy, but I know what you mean, although I’m not sure I agree.” She went thoughtful a moment. “Truth be told, I’ve always rather pitied the meek, poor devils. I shouldn’t want the earth, I’ll tell you that. So much trouble.”

“Be serious.”

Carter through up her hands. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me. You have more sense, Abigail, I know you have.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t place a higher value on what others might think than what you want for yourself. A gamekeeper’s daughter doesn’t rise as high as you have—”

“Risen to be a companion?” She made an expression of scorn. “It’s not such an achievement as all that, least of all when considering that luck played no small role.”

“And your innate tenacity shares no credit? Come now, I won’t have that. You made your own way, and don’t forget it. By rights, you should have gone into service. Maybe become the wife of a tenant farmer if you were lucky. Instead you mix in society—how you live now, you’re practically a lady in comparison to what you were born to be.”

And still so very far from the marquess.

“What he was asking of me, to be his wife, it was quite impossible.”

“Yes. I suppose it is. Because you’ve made it so. You have none to blame but yourself.”

Carter helped Abigail out of her gown, though, serviceable as the front-tying bib design was, no help was truly needed. Then she was left alone with nothing but her thoughts, enclosed in the solace of darkness and perfect silence.

Perfect silence until somewhere in the house, a clock began chiming the midnight hour.