The thing was, Alexander thought as he made the same journey four days later, that old dreams had an annoying habit of lingering long after they had no practical place in his life.

He was not made for dreams, for he had always felt compelled to put duty and responsibility before personal inclination, and the two were not compatible. He had put away dreams almost seven years ago when his father died. He had worked tirelessly to set things to rights at Riddings Park even though he had been a very young man at the time. He had made the mistake of reviving those dreams a year or so ago when Riddings was finally prospering, but then he had had to start all over again with Brambledean Court.

This time, however, the task was far more daunting. There were people’s lives and livelihoods at stake. And the only way he could do it was by marrying for money. He had tried to think of other ways, but there were none. Any mortgage or loan would have to be repaid. Any hope of winning a large fortune at the races or the tables would be risky, to say the least. It might just as easily yield a huge loss. No, marriage it would have to be.

The dream, when he had allowed himself to indulge in it, had been the eternal one of the young and hopeful, he supposed—that vision of something more vividly wonderful and magical than anyone else had ever experienced, the grand passion and romance that had inspired the world’s most memorable poetry. It was a bit embarrassing to remember now. He probably would not have found any such love anyway. But there lingered even now a yearning for something different from what he could expect, some … passion. It was not to be, however. Life had other plans for him.

He gazed out at the flowering hedgerows, at the trees whose leaves were still a bright spring green, at the blue sky dotted with fluffs of white cloud, at the sun warming everything below but with the freshness of spring rather than the more somnolent heat of summer. He could smell the good nature smells of the countryside through the open window, and he could hear birds singing above the crunching sound of the carriage wheels and the clopping of the horses’ hooves. Life was good despite everything. He must remember that. One could easily miss its blessings when one wallowed in what might have been. Dreams were all very well in their place, but they must never be allowed to encroach upon reality.

He had been planning to go to London before Easter, though the parliamentary session and the accompanying social Season would not begin until after. The Season was often known as the great marriage mart, and he had planned to shop there this year for a rich wife—ghastly thought, ghastly terminology, ghastly reality. As though ladies were commodities. But all too often they were. He could expect to succeed. He was, after all, a peer of the realm and young. There was, of course, his relative poverty, but it really was only relative. A little over a year ago he had been Mr. Westcott of Riddings Park, a prosperous eligible bachelor. He had been dreading the marriage mart. Was it possible he could be spared the ordeal by finding a wealthy wife even before he got there?

He still did not know exactly why he was making this journey. And why did distances always seem to shorten when one did not particularly want to reach one’s destination? he wondered as the carriage turned onto the driveway to Withington House. Perhaps he ought not to have come again. There was something about Miss Heyden that repelled him. It was not her face. She could not help that, and he fully believed what he had told her, that he would soon become so accustomed to the birthmark that he would no longer notice it. It was not her height either, though the fact that she must have been close to six feet tall might have daunted many men. He was taller. No, it had nothing to do with her appearance.

What repelled him was, paradoxically, the very thing that had brought him back here. Her pain. It was very carefully guarded. It was veiled more heavily than her face was, in fact. It was encased in a coolly poised manner. But it screamed at him from the very depths of her, and he was both horrified and fascinated. He was horrified because he did not want to get drawn into it and because he suspected the pain could engulf her if her poise ever slipped. He was compelled by her, though, because she was human and he had been blessed or cursed with a compassion for human suffering.

But here he was, regardless of all the thoughts and doubts that had teemed through his mind and prevented him from properly enjoying his surroundings. It was too late now not to come. She would probably have heard his arrival, though he was not expected specifically today, and a groom was already coming from the stables. Perhaps she was out, though it seemed unlikely when she was a recluse.

She was not out. She was not in the drawing room either. She came to him there a couple of minutes after he had been shown in, her gray dress looking old and a bit rumpled, her hair twisted up into a simple and rather untidy knot high on the back of her head, her right cheek a bit flushed—and yes, he could see that detail because she wore no veil. She seemed a little breathless, a little bright eyed, and for the first time it struck him that she was more than coldly beautiful. She was rather pretty.

“Lord Riverdale,” she said.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I have taken you by surprise. Is this an inconvenient time?”

“No.” She came across the room and offered him her hand. “I was in the study adding up a long column of figures. I shall have to start again when I go back, but that is my fault for not subdividing the column and adding one section at a time. I did not expect that you would come again, and I was so engrossed that I did not even hear your arrival. I hope I have not kept you waiting too long.”

“Not at all.” He took her hand in his and let his gaze linger on her. He had clearly surprised her, and it was taking her a few moments to don her accustomed armor. It was happening, though, before his eyes. Her breathing was being brought under control. The color was receding from her cheek and the sparkle from her eyes. Her manner was becoming cooler and more poised. It was a telling transformation.

Her eyes fell to their hands, and she removed her own. “Well?” she said. “Did you notice today?”

That she was not wearing a veil? But then he realized what she meant—though I noticed the last time and notice again now, I would be willing to wager that after seeing you a few more times I will not even see the blemish any longer. “Yes, I did,” he said. “But it is only the third time I have seen you. I have still not recoiled, however, or run screaming from the room.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “you are very desperate for my money.”

He drew a slow breath before allowing himself to reply. “And perhaps, Miss Heyden,” he said, “I will take my leave and allow you to start adding from the top of that column again.”

The color had flooded back into her cheek. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I ought not to have said that.”

“Why did you?” he asked her. “Do you value yourself so little that you believe only your money gives you any worth at all?”

She was taking the question seriously, he could see. She was thinking about it. “Yes,” she said.

It was the moment at which he really ought to have taken his leave. It was a devastating answer, and it had not even been given in haste. He could not possibly take on such brokenness, even if she had all the riches in the world to offer. Good God, all because of an unsightly birthmark?

“What happened to you?” he asked her, but he held up a staying hand even as he spoke the words. “No. I have no right to an answer. But I will not marry you for your money alone, Miss Heyden. If you truly believe that you have no more to offer than that, and if you truly believe that I have nothing but marriage to offer in exchange for your money, then say so now and we will put an end to this. I will take my leave and you need never see me again.”

She took a long time answering. She receded even further inside the cool shell of herself, becoming seemingly taller, thinner, more poised, more austere—good God, the woman really did not need a veil except to hide the birthmark. She could hide quite effectively in plain sight. He felt chilled, repelled again. He willed her to say the word, and he prayed she would not.

“I think,” she said at last, “you are a good man, Lord Riverdale. I think you deserve and … need more than I could possibly offer. You have been put in a desperate situation, made worse by the fact that you have a conscience. I cannot bring you anything but money. Go and find someone else—with my sincere good wishes.”

Good God!

She even stepped to one side, her hands clasped at her waist, to give him a clear path to the door.

He drew another slow breath and allowed it out and drew another before he said anything. And why did he not just go? “Do you ever step outdoors?” he asked her. “It is a beautiful spring day out there, even warm in a fresh sort of way. And you have what looks like a sizable and pretty garden. Come and walk there with me, and we will leave behind this tense drama we have been enacting and talk about the weather and the flowers and what is pleasant and meaningful in our lives. We will get to know each other a little better.”

She never said anything in haste, this woman. She regarded him in silence for several moments before answering. “I shall go fetch a shawl and bonnet,” she said at last, “and change my shoes.”

It was indeed a lovely day. Wren stood at the foot of the steps outside the front door, lifted her face to the sky, and inhaled deeply.

“Is it not a strange thing,” he said, “that we need all the dreary rain we get in these often soggy British Isles in order to be able to enjoy the lush beauty of gardens like this?”

“I have seen pictures of lands that get almost no rain,” she said. “Parched vegetation or outright desert. Yet even that appears to have a sort of beauty of its own. Our world is made up of such contrasts, as is life itself. Perhaps we could never enjoy this if there were not also that, or here if there were not also there, or now if there were not also then.”

“Or a perfect right side of a face if there were not also a blemished left,” he said.

She turned toward him in astonishment. He was smiling, and his eyes were laughing. But instead of being offended by his words, she was … arrested. “Perfect?” she said.

“You must have been told that before,” he said.

She had not. But then very few people had seen her. She did not like the direction this conversation was taking. “Come and see the daffodil bank,” she said, turning to her right and striding diagonally across the south lawn.

Her governess had expended much time and effort upon teaching her to take mincing ladylike little steps, and she had learned. She had not marched into the drawing room at Brambledean a few days ago, for example. But she still strode almost everywhere, especially when she was outdoors, her long legs moving in easy rhythm.

He walked comfortably beside her. She did not know many men. She did not know many people, for that matter. But most men she had met were shorter than she. Her uncle had been a whole head shorter. The Earl of Riverdale was a few inches taller, a fact that must put him over six feet.

She really had not expected him to come again, even though he had asked if he might. He had mentioned no specific day and that had seemed significant to her. She wished she were dressed a little more becomingly, but she had scorned to keep him waiting while she changed and restyled her hair. Besides, she was wearing a bonnet now.

“That is a rose arbor beside the house?” he asked, nodding in its direction.

“Yes,” she said. “My aunt’s creation and pride and joy. She loved her garden, and her garden loved her. I could plant a row of flower seeds at the correct distance from each other and at the correct depth and time of year. I could cover them carefully with soil and water them diligently—and never see them again. In the end I suggested an equitable division of labor. She would plant and I would enjoy.”

“Do you miss her?” he asked. “And your uncle? How long exactly has it been?”

“Fifteen months,” she said. “I thought the pain would grow duller with the passing of time. Then I thought that once my year of mourning was over and I put off my blacks, I would also put off the worst of my grief. And perhaps that has happened. But sometimes I think that grief is preferable to emptiness. At least grief is something. I have come to realize, I suppose, that they are not just dead. They are gone. There is nothing there where they were.”

They had walked through the copse of trees and crossed the humpbacked stone bridge, which five years ago had replaced a battered old wooden one over the stream that bubbled downhill and that she could watch and listen to for hours when she was alone. And they came to the top of the long slope that formed the western boundary of the garden. A week or two ago it had been thickly carpeted with golden daffodils and their bright green leaves. Some of them had died back, but there was still an impressive display.

“The rose arbor is lovely in the summer,” she said, “but I have always had a preference for the bank here in spring. The daffodils grow wild.”

“And you prefer wildness to cultivation?” he asked her.

“Perhaps,” she said. “I had not thought about it that way. But there could not possibly be a lovelier flower than the daffodil. A golden trumpet of hope.” She felt decidedly silly then. Golden trumpet of hope, indeed.

“Can we go down?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “They look even lovelier from down there.”

He offered his hand. She hesitated. She did not need assistance. She had been up and down this bank a thousand times. She had sat in the midst of the daffodils, hugging her knees. She had lain among them, arms spread wide, feeling the earth spin beneath her and watching the sky wheel overhead. But if she was going to marry him—and that was a large if on both their parts, it seemed—she was going to have to grow accustomed to his acting the gentleman. Miss Briggs had taught her all about the little details of gentility—how a gentleman was expected to behave toward a lady, how she was expected to behave toward him. She set her hand in his and it closed warmly and firmly about her own as they made their sedate way down, making her feel almost dainty, almost feminine. She usually half ran down the slope. Sometimes she even flapped her arms like wings and shrieked. Would not he be scandalized …

Perhaps, she thought when they had reached the bottom, their backs almost touching the rustic wooden boundary fence, gazing upward—her hand was still in his—perhaps if she wore yellow, or green, or some color other than the gray or the lavender of half mourning, she would recover her spirits more quickly. Perhaps the emptiness would seem less empty. Could the color one wore affect one’s spirit?

“You were very fond of them,” he said.

He was talking about her uncle and aunt again. She knew it was not just idle chatter. She knew he was trying to get to know her. He would probably want her to get to know him too. She had not thought of that in advance. She had somehow expected to choose a man almost upon instinct alone, with just a little research and very little personal acquaintance, make her offer, be accepted, marry him, and … And what? Live happily ever after? No, she was not that foolish. She just wanted to be married. All the way married. She wanted the physical things, and she wanted children. Plural, very definitely plural. She had not given much if any thought to getting to know her chosen husband, to allowing him to get to know her. It was almost as though she had expected their lives as a couple to begin on the day they met. No outside world. No histories. No baggage.

It would not be like that. Not with him, anyway. I will not marry you for your money alone, Miss Heyden. He had not ruled out marrying her. He had not even said that he would not marry her for her money. But he would not marry her just for the money. Which really meant that he would not marry her at all.

Do you value yourself so little …

“They were my life and my salvation,” she told him. “I knew we would lose my uncle. He was eighty-four years old, and his heart was weak and his breathing was sometimes labored. He did not take to his bed as often as many men in his condition would have done, and he never complained. He was still more active than perhaps he ought to have been and his mind was still sharp. But he had slowed down considerably, and we were all aware that the end was approaching. It would have been dreadfully sad, and I would have mourned him for a long time. But it would have been … What is the word? Acceptable? Everyone in the natural course of things loses elderly relatives. No one lives forever. But Aunt Megan’s death just before his was so sudden, so totally unexpected that—” She swallowed but could not go on. She did not need to, however. Her meaning was clear, and his grip on her hand tightened in obvious sympathy.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I am not the only person who has ever lost loved ones. You too have lost people you loved.”

“My father,” he said. “He frequently exasperated me. He lived his life upon far different principles from my own. He lived to enjoy life, and enjoy it he did. Perhaps it was not until after his death that I realized just how much I had loved him—and how much he had loved me.”

By unspoken consent they began to climb the hill again, picking their way among the daffodils so as not to crush any of them.

“Your aunt was elderly too?” he asked.

“Oh, not at all,” she said. “She was fifty-four. She was thirty-five when she took me to call upon the man who would become my uncle at his home in London. She went there to ask if he would help her find employment. She had once worked for him as companion to his first wife, who was an invalid for many years. He married Aunt Megan a week later and we went to live with him. They were happy. They shared their happiness with me and adopted me. I was the most blessed of mortals. I still am. He left me a vast fortune, Lord Riverdale. You will be entitled to know how vast, of course, if you decide to take matters further between us.”

She was aware that she had left more questions unanswered than explained. He had every right, she supposed, to ask those questions, but she hoped he would not. They were standing on the bridge, looking down at the gurgling water, and she slid her hand free when she realized it was still clasped in his. She drew the edges of her shawl together. It was chillier here in the shade of the trees.

“There is something soothing about the sound of water, is there not?” he said, and she knew he was not going to ask any of those questions. “And the sight of it.”

“Yes, there is,” she said. “I love coming here even when the daffodils are not in bloom. There is the illusion of seclusion and serenity here. Or perhaps it is not an illusion. Perhaps it is real. What happened to your young cousin who lost his title to you last year?”

“Harry?” He turned his head to look at her briefly. “He is out in the Peninsula fighting the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte as a lieutenant with the 95th Foot Regiment, also known as the Rifles. He claims to be enjoying the experience enormously, though he has been wounded a few times and is a constant source of worry to his mother and sisters. I would have expected no less of the boy, however. He was always full of energy and enthusiasm for life and is not the type to whine or grow bitter over circumstances that are beyond his control. Nevertheless, he must have had the stuffing knocked out of him. The changes to my life are nothing compared with the changes to his—plus the knowledge that his father deceived his mother in the worst possible way and callously caused his illegitimacy and his sisters’. I feel guilty about the outcome, as though I am somehow partly to blame for their misery. I would have refused the title if I could. Unfortunately, it was not possible.”

“And his sisters?” she asked.

“Camille and Abigail,” he told her. “They went to live with their maternal grandmother in Bath. Camille chose to teach at the orphanage where Anna grew up—their father’s only legitimate child, now the Duchess of Netherby, that is—and she married the art teacher last summer. He is also a portrait painter of some renown and came into an unexpected inheritance last year. The two of them are now living in a large manor in the hills above Bath, running a retreat house that offers quiet study time and classes in a wide range of subjects, from dancing to drama to painting to writing. It offers guest lectures and concerts and plays. Sometimes the children from the orphanage go there for picnics and parties. They have two adopted children, and one of their own is imminent. Camille has been a huge surprise to us all. There was no lady more proper or high in the instep—or, frankly, more hard to like—than she was as Lady Camille Westcott.”

“The disaster that happened to her, then, was actually a blessing?” she said.

“I do believe it was,” he agreed, “though it seems almost heartless to say so. Her mother at first went to live with her brother, who is a clergyman in Dorsetshire, but now she has been persuaded to move back to her old home in Hampshire with Abigail, the younger sister. Hinsford Manor actually belongs to Anna, and it is at her request that the ladies have moved there. They are all still trying to come to terms with the changes in their lives, I suspect, as are the rest of the members of the Westcott family. Sometimes I feel very helpless.”

“But are you not doing the very same thing?” she asked. “Are you not indeed one of the central figures in the turmoil?”

“The one who would appear to have benefited most,” he said. “I often fear Harry and his mother and sisters must hate me, though to be fair they have never shown any open resentment.”

“Does the rest of the family support them?” she asked. “Or have they been shunned?”

“Oh, never that,” he said. “The Westcotts have rallied around—the dowager countess, my father’s first cousin, and her three daughters and their families. Then there is the Duke of Netherby, whose father made a second marriage with one of the Westcott daughters. The present Netherby was Harry’s guardian until his twenty-first birthday recently. It was he who purchased Harry’s commission. And there are my mother and my sister. At first, however, Cousin Viola—the former countess—and her daughters and Harry were not willing to accept any sort of support from the Westcott family. Cousin Viola felt strongly the fact that her marriage had never been valid and that therefore she was in no way related to any of us. She even calls herself by her maiden name of Kingsley. And Camille and Abigail felt their illegitimacy keenly and chose to lick their wounds in private for a while. There will, by the way, be a written test on all these family connections when we return to the house.”

She turned her face toward him and smiled. She liked his occasional flashes of humor. “But it would be too easy to pass with flying colors,” she said. “You have not told me the names of all the Westcotts and their spouses and children.”

“First names, last names, and title names?” he said. “You would need a week to study.”

Wren led the way off the bridge, and they walked side by side through the copse and back out onto the lawn. She took him toward the rose arbor, though there was not much to see there this early in the year. He had been very forthcoming with her. She had offered little in return.

“My uncle was from a small family,” she said, “and outlived those there were. He had no children with either his first wife or Aunt Megan. They were both kind enough to tell me I was all the children they could ever want.” She could almost see him debating with himself whether to ask about her aunt’s connections. His face was turned toward her, though she deliberately did not look back. “In the summer,” she added before he could speak again, “I could find the rose arbor with my eyes closed if ever I should be foolish enough to try. Even I have to admit that roses have all the advantage over daffodils when it comes to fragrance.”

They kept the conversation away from personal topics for the rest of his visit. He did not reenter the house with her when they returned there but took his leave, assuring her that he did not need to have his carriage drawn up to the front doors.

He did not mention seeing her again.

She watched him stride off toward the stables and wished foolishly that she was normal. She was not—normal, that was. She knew it even though she had nothing much with which to compare herself except perhaps the ladies, young and not so young, who had been at his tea—amiable, smiling, laughing, talking on a dozen different topics, totally at their ease. But if she were normal, she would not have met him, would she?

Did she want to see him again? She had the strange feeling that she could be hurt if she pursued the acquaintance. She had not thought of that, had she?

Oh, she wished she were normal. But, alas, she was as she was.