After spending a whole day deliberating and changing his mind and changing it back and then changing it once more, Alexander sent off an invitation to Miss Heyden to come to Brambledean alone. It was not quite proper. It was not proper at all, in fact. But there was no point in trying to organize another social event to make her coming more acceptable. He would not get to know her that way. And he needed to know her if he was to give serious consideration to marrying her.

They had made a start at Withington. It was not nearly enough, but it was a start. He wondered if she knew exactly what she would be getting into if indeed she purchased him as a husband. He needed to know what he would be getting into. The idea of being bought was repellent to him, to say the least.

She came to Brambledean two days later, bringing her maid for propriety’s sake. It was a gloomy, blustery day, a fact that ought not to have mattered for as long as they remained indoors, but did. The maid was taken to the servants’ quarters, and he showed Miss Heyden about the house. Shabby, unlived-in rooms looked even more gloomy with heavy gray clouds beyond the windows. He showed her all of it—the ancient library to which no new book had been added for half a century or more, or if one had, Alexander had not discovered it yet. He showed her the visitor salons and offices, all on the ground floor. He bypassed the drawing room on the first floor, since she had seen it already, but showed her the so-called music room next to it, though there was not a single musical instrument there. He even showed her all the rooms for which there was no specific description, as well as the dining room and the ballroom, in which it was doubtful anyone had danced for a century. He showed her some of the guest chambers and the portrait gallery on the second floor. The gallery was sadly out-of-date, and all the paintings and their heavy frames were in dire need of cleaning and restoration. He took her down to the kitchens, where Mrs. Dearing and Mrs. Mathers said nothing about the many deficiencies of equipment that had not been updated in goodness knew how long.

They tramped about the inner stretches of the park to the west of the house, though he gave her the option of staying indoors and taking tea in the drawing room. She had brought a heavy cloak with her and wore stout walking shoes. She also wore a bonnet, which she had kept on indoors, the veil pulled down over her face, presumably for the benefit of servants she did not know. She glanced about her as they walked, not saying a great deal, and she turned frequently to look at the house from various vantage points. She was looking critically, he could see—at the roof, at the chimneys, at the ivy on the walls. Her eyes moved to the stables and carriage house. The park was vast, not quite wild, but failing to please either as a cultivated garden or as a deliberate piece of unspoiled wilderness. It was not the sort of space in which one felt drawn to stroll for relaxation.

“It is shabby and neglected,” he said, “though the gardeners work long hours and do the best they can. There are just not enough of them.” And there was not enough money to hire more, he might have added, though that must be obvious to her.

“Tell me about the farms, the crops, the livestock, the laborers,” she said. “How progressive are the methods used here?”

They were brisk, businesslike questions, matched by her manner. She was studying everything with an appraising eye, he realized, and listening with an attentive ear. She was, in fact, interviewing him—as she had every right to do. He would not have invited her here, after all, if he had not been considering her offer, and she would not have come if the offer had already been withdrawn. He would have expected to have this sort of meeting and to answer these sorts of questions with the father of any lady for whom he offered, though not with the bride herself. It felt strange and wrong, and deuced embarrassing, even humiliating. But there was no reason why she should not do business on her own account. She was obviously intelligent, and just as obviously she saw no reason to hide it, to simper and gaze at him with wide, worshipful eyes and pretend to be helpless. Picturing her behaving that way was a bit amusing, in fact.

“It is a Herculean task that faces me,” he said at last. “Do you wonder I did not want the title?”

“No, I do not,” she said. “But you have it and that is that. I can see that you have a clear choice to make. You can either go away from here and forget all about it while your steward does his best—or his worst—to keep things rolling along as they have for many years past. Or you can marry a rich wife. But I know that with you it is no real choice at all, for you are a man with a conscience. I suspect it is not so much the house and park or even the farms that concern you, but the people involved. Actually, I more than suspect. So a rich wife it must be. But even in that you are hampered by your conscience. You could have seized the offer I made you ten days or so ago, despite my appearance, and thus have solved all your problems. But you could not do that. You would not—will not—marry me unless I know exactly what I am facing. Now I believe I do. And you will not marry me unless you can be sure that you can at least respect me. Do you? Respect me, that is?”

She was the strangest woman he had ever known, and that was a vast understatement. She was the strangest person of either gender, actually. She was so very direct in her speech and manner that there was no hiding from her; there was no social smoothing of edges, no gentle way of being tactful. But he was irritated by the fact that she was frank and open about business but entirely closed up about herself.

“Miss Heyden,” he said, coming to a stop beneath a huge old oak tree and setting his back against the trunk while he folded his arms over his chest. “My motive for considering marriage with you is perfectly obvious. But what about yours for marrying me? You appear to have everything you could possibly need, including that rare commodity for a woman—independence. Why give it all up to a virtual stranger? You told me you wished to be wed. But to just anybody? And will you please pull back your veil?”

She hesitated and then did so. He had felt that he was talking with a mirage, he realized. Now at least she looked human. “I have grown up with a strong sense of myself as a person,” she said. “My uncle and aunt are largely responsible for that. In addition to providing me with a strict governess, who instructed me in everything both academic and social that a lady ought to know, my uncle exposed me to all the work of running a prosperous and successful business, and my aunt encouraged both him and me. Although in many ways the bottom fell out of my world a little over a year ago, I was able to stop myself from tumbling to the depths of despair by taking the reins of the business into my own hands. I am very much in charge of it even when I am here in the country, though I have a competent manager.

“Most women, in contrast, grow up to acquire a sense of themselves as women. They see themselves in the expected roles of daughter, wife, mother, and hostess, devoted to the care of the men in their lives and of their dependent children. I suspect many if not most of them never really see themselves as persons, though I suppose some must. My aunt did, even though she took upon herself the roles of wife and mother and performed them consummately well and was very happy for the last eighteen or nineteen years of her life. If I must choose between being a person and being a typical woman of our times, Lord Riverdale, I would choose personhood without hesitation. Having experienced it, I could not easily give it up. But why can I not be both? This is what I have asked myself recently. Why can I not be a woman as well as a person? Why cannot I marry?”

He remained as he was and looked at her for long moments after she paused, her eyebrows raised, awaiting his reply. She stood a few feet away in the sunshine, tall and slender, proud, chin raised, making no further attempt to hide her face. Yes, he thought, that was what it was about her he had been unable to define thus far. She was not typically feminine. She was more a person than a woman—a strange thought he would have to ponder at his leisure. And yet … could she not be both? Could a woman with a strong sense of herself as a person not also be as attractive as her peers who had been raised for marriage and motherhood—and dependence?

“What if I—or another man—turned out to be different from what you expected?” he asked Miss Heyden. “What if I were as you see me now when I am sober but turned ugly when I had been drinking and turned that ugliness upon my wife and children?” It had happened to his sister, though there had been no children.

She considered the question. “Life is fraught with risks,” she said. “All we can do to guard against them is make considered choices. Or we can make no choices at all and remain static in life. Even that is not really possible or without danger, though. Life changes about us and for us whether we wish it or not. I did not wish for my uncle and aunt to die. You did not wish to inherit all this.” She gestured about her with both hands.

“But if you make the wrong choice of husband,” he said, “you will have lost everything—your independence, your money, your happiness.”

“Oh, no, Lord Riverdale,” she said. “I would not turn all my money over to you with my person on our marriage. I am not an utter fool, or a fool at all. We would both sign a carefully worded contract before we wed.”

Sometimes he found her chilling. Often he found her chilling. But would he be feeling so chilled if this were a man speaking? Her father or uncle or guardian? And what did it say about him that the answer was no? He would expect to negotiate and sign a marriage settlement with a prospective father-in-law, after all. He would expect that man to guard the future interests of his daughter.

“You would keep hold of the purse strings, then?” he asked her. “And dole out money as you saw fit?”

“Absolutely not.” She turned and began to make her way back toward the house with her characteristic manly—though somehow not inelegant—stride. “How would I be able to tolerate a marriage in which I had made my husband my pensioner or my slave? I would not, just as I would not be able to tolerate one in which I had been made my husband’s slave. No man would marry me if I did not have money and lots of it, Lord Riverdale, but I have no wish whatsoever to buy a husband and then hold him in thrall for the rest of his life.”

They proceeded some distance in silence. “You have explained that you wish to marry because you want to be a woman as well as a person,” he said. “What does being a woman mean to you, Miss Heyden?” It was perhaps an unfair question. He would not have dreamed of asking it of anyone else. But she was different from every other woman he had met, and he was, God help him, considering marrying her.

She drew a breath, let it go, drew another. “I want to be kissed,” she said primly, on her dignity. “I know almost nothing of what lies beyond kisses. But I want it. All of it. And I want a child. Children. I received warmth and love in abundance from my aunt and uncle, but perversely I longed for other children. Siblings. Friends. Now everything has gone with them. I want human warmth again, but I want more than warmth this time. I want … Well, I do not know quite how else to put it into words. I am naive and probably sound pathetic, but you asked the question, and you have the right to an answer.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Baldly put, she wanted sex. She had decided to buy what she wanted, in the belief that she could not have it any other way because of that damned facial blemish. A man could buy it easily enough whenever he wished without also saddling himself with marriage. But she was not a man despite the fact that she was a proud, wealthy businesswoman. Besides, it was not only sex she wanted. It was human warmth in the form of a sexual relationship. She wanted far more than she seemed to realize. She wanted love, and, heaven help her, she thought it could be bought.

He felt chilled—again. How could he possibly offer her a fair exchange for what she would bring him? He could appreciate her beauty and elegance despite the blemish, and he could admire her independence and intelligence. But … where was the attraction? He could feel none. She wanted to be kissed. Even that he could not imagine doing.

“Where do we go from here, Lord Riverdale?” she asked as they approached the house. “You have seen me. I have seen your house and part of the park and learned something of your whole estate. We have conversed and become somewhat acquainted. Will it now be your turn to visit me and then mine to come here again? Time is of value. We will both need to get on with the job of finding other partners if we are not to find them in each other. Is there some point to proceeding, or is there not?”

So she was going to press the issue, was she? But she was quite right about time. When he had come here, to see how his new steward was settling, to assess with him what needed doing and what might be done with his limited resources and what must be given highest priority, he had intended to stay only until the end of this week. He had planned then to go to London, where his mother and sister were to join him for Easter. But he had already made the decision to delay his departure until next week, after Easter, and had written to his mother. He had even added that he was not quite sure about next week. He had not explained the reason because he had not known if it was one worth sharing. He had written something vague about the press of business, and in a sense he had not been lying. It was his business to marry a wife who would give him heirs and bring him funds. It was a ghastly way to look upon his own future and that of the young lady he would marry, and for a moment he was engulfed in self-loathing.

“Miss Heyden,” he said, coming to an abrupt halt with her at the foot of the steps to the front doors and noticing irrelevantly that there was grass pushing up through the seams between each rise. “There must be affection or the hope of some sort of affectionate regard. I will not call it love. That is for poets and dreamers. But there must be … affection. I cannot stomach the prospect of a marriage without. Is there any remote chance that there can be affection between us?” He could not imagine it for himself, but what about her? And if her answer was yes, was he willing to try to match her hope?

“It is what I meant by human warmth,” she said. “I do not know if it is possible between us. I am well aware of our differing perspectives. I look at you and see extraordinary beauty. You look at me and see … this.” She indicated the left side of her face with one hand. “It would be difficult for you to—”

“Damn your face!” he exclaimed, and then stared at her in dismay as her hand froze in place an inch or so from her cheek and her eyes widened. “Oh, dash it all, I do beg your pardon. I did not intend that at all as it sounded. I meant—”

But he was stopped by an unexpected sight and sound. She was laughing. “I thought you were all gentlemanly perfection,” she said. “How delightful it is to discover that you are human. What did you mean?”

He remembered then the way she had appeared for a brief few moments when he had taken her by surprise at Withington—flushed and bright eyed and slightly disheveled and breathless—and pretty. And he looked at her now, surprised into laughter by his outburst, and it struck him that it was possible to feel a twinge of attraction toward her. But only when she was startled into allowing glimpses into a self she normally kept well hidden.

“Your face is just your face,” he said. “It is not you. And it is not nearly as unsightly as you think it is. You have allowed it to define you, and that fact has surely not served you well. I do beg your pardon, Miss Heyden. And for my language too. But in fearing that your face will preclude you from all human warmth and affection for the rest of your life, you cut yourself off from those very things.”

“Could you ever feel an affection for me?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I do not know,” he said. “I honestly do not, Miss Heyden. And I will not feign an affection just to convince you that your face does not repulse me.”

“That is fair,” she said.

“Could you ever feel an affection for me?” he asked.

She gazed steadily at him for a few moments. “If I could grow accustomed to your very good looks,” she said. “But I believe I am still a bit intimidated by them.”

He was the one to laugh then, softly but with genuine amusement. Did not women—and men—usually fall in love on looks alone and discover affection or its opposite only later?

“So,” she said, “do we proceed? Or do we not?”

There were a number of reasons why they should—and just as many reasons why they should not. He hesitated before replying. It would be a huge step to begin an actual courtship. Perhaps an irrevocable one. It was the reason he had invited her today, though—to decide if that next step could and ought to be taken. Now he was still finding it difficult to decide. But perhaps he always would. Perhaps the idea of marrying for mercenary reasons alone would always bother him. But would he ever be able to deal with the darkness that lurked just behind her surface firmness of character and mind? And would he be able to deal with her independence and success? She was a person with so many complexities—and it was probable he did not know even half of them yet—that he felt quite dizzy. But one could not go through life as a procrastinator. At least, he would not go through life that way. And one could never know everything.

There had been a reply to his letter home this morning.

“My mother and sister are on the way here from Kent,” he said. “They were to meet me in London this week, but when I wrote to tell them I would be delayed, they decided to come here instead to celebrate Easter with me. I would like you to join us here for tea on Sunday.”

She stared at him for a long time. “They would be horrified,” she said.

“Did you imagine when you decided to marry,” he asked her, “that you would live the rest of your life in isolation with your husband?”

She thought about it. “I suppose I did,” she admitted.

“It would never happen,” he said. “Will you come?”

“We are proceeding, then, are we?” she asked him.

“With no commitment on either side,” he said.

“And I suppose,” she said, “you would expect me to arrive unveiled in your drawing room.”

“Yes,” he said.

She turned to climb the steps ahead of him without another word.

“He must be seriously considering your proposal,” Maude said, “if he wants you to meet his mother and sister.”

Wren, sitting beside her maid in the carriage, kept her eyes closed. How foolish she had been and how very naive. How totally ignorant of the world. Her uncle had exposed her to the business that was now hers, but it had involved no social interaction with any of his employees, now her own, not even with Philip Croft, the manager. Her uncle had tried to persuade her to mingle socially with her peers but had never insisted. Aunt Megan, more protective of her, had always supported her decision to remain behind closed doors whenever there was a chance she might be seen and behind a veil when being seen could not be avoided. Miss Briggs, Wren’s governess, had never expressed an opinion, though she had been quite adamant about educating her pupil in all aspects of being a lady. There had even been dancing lessons.

But Miss Briggs had left when she was eighteen, and ten years later her aunt and uncle had died. She had been left isolated from the world and had come up with the brilliant idea of using her wealth to purchase a husband. It had seemed a wonderfully practical idea. It was almost embarrassing to realize with what naïveté she had conceived it and put it into execution. She would choose her candidates with care, she had decided—there were always people from whom to gather information—and then interview each until she found the one she wanted. She would make her offer, be accepted, and proceed to the wedding. And yes, in her imagination it was a wedding with only two people present apart from the requisite number of witnesses, to be succeeded by a married life that involved only the same two people for the rest of their days.

It was more than almost embarrassing. How could anyone who prided herself upon her intelligence and good sense have been so foolishly ignorant?

First he had invited her to tea with his neighbors.

Now he had invited her to tea with his mother and sister.

What next? The whole Westcott family? The relatives on his mother’s side of the family? She had not even asked about them yet.

“I am not sure I can do it,” she said when Maude must have thought she was not going to answer at all. “I am not sure I want to do it.”

“You are going to let yourself turn into an eccentric old maid, then?” Maude asked.

Wren smiled without opening her eyes. “I already am an eccentric old maid,” she said. “I am almost thirty, Maude.”

“You are going to allow her the victory, then, are you?” Maude asked.

Wren stiffened. She did not doubt for a moment to whom Maude referred. Aunt Megan had told her the story. Wren had even overheard them once when she was still a young child. Taking her bodily away from the woman was one thing, Mrs. Heyden, Maude had been saying, but what was the point if you cannot also take her out of the child’s mind? She is going to be destroyed forever. That is what is going to happen. Mark my words. You need to force her out in the world a bit so she knows the world is not her enemy. Both of them had ended up in tears while Wren had crept away and diverted her mind from what she had heard with some unremembered game or activity.

“I am my own person,” Wren said now. “I run my own life, Maude, and have not sought your advice.”

Maude clucked her tongue.

“I am sorry,” Wren said, opening her eyes at last and turning her head. “I know you care for me. So which am I to do? Go and meet his mother and sister or proceed to live eccentrically ever after?”

Maude adopted a deliberately mulish expression, crossed her arms, and stared at the back of the seat opposite.

Wren laughed. “Oh very well,” she said. “You win. I shall go.”

“I have not uttered a word,” her maid protested.

“You did not need to.” Wren laughed again. “That look and the folded arms are eloquent enough, as you very well know. I shall go and make you proud, though you would not admit it even under torture. But, Maude, I wish he were not so handsome. He predicts that after he has met me a few times he will not even notice my birthmark. Do you think that after a few times I will not notice his good looks?”

“Whoever would want not to notice them?” Maude asked, exasperated. “I could gaze at him all day long and never grow tired of the sight.”

Wren sighed and closed her eyes again. And she could see him standing against the trunk of that oak tree, looking both elegant and relaxed, his arms crossed over his chest, and so gorgeous that her insides had clenched up and made her feel quite bilious. She could hear herself telling him that she wanted to be kissed and she could imagine him doing it.

She wanted it. Very badly.

But he could not possibly ever want to kiss her. Her face …

Damn your face.

She smiled again at the memory. His words, his outburst, had been so very unexpected. And so strangely endearing.

Oh, she must not, she must not, she must not fall in love with him.