Joseph called on Tessa at Berymede every morning for the next five days. On the sixth day, their discussion of marriage turned from conjecture (Do we dare?) to reality (How soon can it happen?).

On the seventh day, Joseph asked Wallace St. Croix for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

If there had been more time, Joseph would have happily stretched their courtship by weeks, if not months, but the guano expedition was already underway, buyers were expecting delivery on the fertilizer, and Tessa herself seemed urgently motivated to pass over an extended betrothal and proceed immediately to the altar. He would be lying if he said her urgency did not thrill him.

Despite their shared rush, Tessa’s parents imposed a two-day consideration period during which they would weigh Joseph’s proposal.

Joseph had expected this—in all honesty, Joseph was shocked that they’d welcomed his escalating devotion from the start—but Tessa had been angry and indignant about the delay. Joseph assured her, imploring her to remain patient and respectful. Meanwhile, he kissed her good-bye and forced himself to stay away until some summons—yea or nay—came from the St. Croixs. He holed up at the Pixham Inn in the meantime, enduring the skepticism of his partners, Jon Stoker and Brent Caulder.

Brent, the Earl of Cassin, had his own complicated proposal to sort out. He had managed to shackle himself to the leader of this unlikely trio of “dowry investors,” Tessa’s girlhood friend Willow. Cassin was back and forth to London as he reconciled himself to a marriage of convenience.

Unbelievably, it appeared Jon Stoker would marry before either of them, as his Convenient Bride was under the dominion of a violent uncle, and few things motivated Stoker more than abuse. Stoker was sorting out a special license and skulking about, alternately complaining about the marriages of convenience and not being able to wed his bride sooner.

If Joseph thought his friends would congratulate and encourage his own rushed marriage (the only affectionate and authentic marriage of the lot), he was mistaken. The men riddled him with questions and cautions instead, heaping on doubts and dire speculations. By the second drink-fueled night of scrutiny, Joseph had had enough. The three men sat before a blazing fire in the common room of the inn, drinking ale and eating roasted chestnuts.

“I refuse to answer another accusation about her,” he told his friends, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I’ve enough to answer for from her parents.”

“And what is it that her parents accuse her of?” asked Jon Stoker.

Joseph glared. “Tessa is blameless in this. Her parents will accuse me, which I’m sure you realize.”

“Accuse you of what?” asked the Earl of Cassin. “You’re a rich shipping merchant with an even richer future. Your manners are above reproach, you dress like a courtier, and aspire to run for bloody Parliament. I’d marry you myself if I could.”

Joseph made a face but Cassin continued, “Best of all, you’ve made no secret of falling madly, adoringly in love with their daughter. In record time, no less. And let’s not forget that you’ve saved her from any other rotter who might answer the advert.”

“First of all,” sighed Joseph, “I don’t dress like a courtier, I dress like a gentleman. If you’d begun life polishing someone’s boots instead of wearing them, perhaps you would value the pleasure of your own fine pair.”

“But don’t you mean pairs?” Stoker cut in. “How many in your collection at the moment? Three? Four?”

“Second,” continued Joseph, “her parents are blissfully unaware of the advert, as you well know. And there’s no credit for being the best of the worst, if that’s what you mean.”

“What I mean,” said Cassin, “is Tessa St. Croix and her esteemed parents should be grateful to have you.” He raised his glass. “And I’ve no doubt that their joyful permission will come down from on high any hour. My concern was always that Miss St. Croix and her lot deserve you.”

“Deserve me?” said Joseph. “A man who could be laying her supper instead of eating it beside her?”

Cassin said, “You’re preoccupied with your past life in service.”

“Says the man in possession of an ancient earldom,” Joseph shot back.

“What did her parents say when you explained about your previous life below stairs?” Cassin took a drink.

“She’s asked me not to elaborate on it.”

Cassin’s tankard froze, halfway to his mouth. “Define elaborate?”

Joseph sighed. “It would take too much time to convince them to endorse the marriage if they knew I was not . . .”

“. . . A rich shipping merchant who may one day be prime minister?” provided Cassin.

“. . . if they know we are not of the same class,” Joseph finished.

“You know what I think?” said Stoker. “I think you like it that she is so very haute and modish, and she has set her cap for you.”

“You’re full of shite.”

“Stoker makes an excellent point,” said Cassin. “Are you certain the mad love into which you’ve fallen is tied to the girl and not her place in society?

“Wealthy gentlemen’s daughters abound,” Cassin went on. “Despite your so-called ‘humble beginnings,’ you could have your pick of fine ladies . . . assuming fine ladies are what you want.”

“And you’ve borne witness to my long history pursuing society misses, have you?” Joseph asked.

His friends considered this, sharing a look. He’d won the point, and they knew it. He’d never courted anyone as wealthy or esteemed as Tessa St. Croix.

“All we’re asking,” said Stoker, “is why this girl? You’ve only known her for a bloody week.”

“And yet I knew the first day,” said Joseph carefully. He pushed up from his chair and threw a handful of chestnut shells into the fire. His friends were merely trying to protect him, he knew this, but their suspicions grated. He was a grown man, well in touch with reality. He was familiar with the notion of class envy. He was not shallow—or envious for that matter. It was Tessa he wanted, not her place in the haute ton.

“You knew what the first day?” asked Stoker.

Joseph turned away from the fire. “That I was changed.”

“That you were randy, more like,” guessed Stoker.

“Careful, Stoker,” Joseph warned, shoving off the mantel. A brawl in the stable yard would bring a satisfying end to this conversation, and Joseph suddenly wanted that very much. Stoker merely rolled his eyes.

“Was I drawn to her at first sight?” asked Joseph. “Yes. Do I desire her? More than any woman I’ve known. But it is more than desire. And it’s more than her bloody family and their bloody money. She is . . . buoyant in a way that holds me up. She is so clever. Her wit makes mine funnier. She is wholly confident and capable, and yet I find myself wanting to provide for her. She is alive in a way that makes my own life seem a little less livable without her in it.”

There was a pause, and Cassin raised his glass again.

Stoker said, “And she would say the same of you, no doubt?”

“She does not hide her enthusiasm for me,” Joseph said, biting back a smile. “From the beginning, she has wanted me. She has made that very clear.”

The dining table of Berymede seated twenty-four, but when her brothers were away and there were no guests to dinner, Tessa and her parents took their evening meal in a small windowed alcove that overlooked her mother’s roses.

Joseph had joined the family there on Wednesday, the day before he proposed. He had laughed with her father and described tropical flowers to her mother. He had winked at Tessa across the table and asked her to tell them about her antique German piano.

Until that meal, Tessa had never realized how rare it was for anyone to ask her to contribute to dinner conversation. Oh, she had always made herself heard at mealtimes. In a family of four brothers, she’d learned early to interject and tease and speak loud enough to be heard over the din, but she couldn’t remember ever being asked.

What are you reading, Tessa?

What piece are you working on at the pianoforte?

What new music would you like us to collect for you when we are in Town?

But Joseph had asked. He’d asked this and more.

And no matter what she said, he appeared captivated. His attention thrilled her in a way that no male attention ever had, after years of earning the attention of so many men. He truly wished to know—and not simply the what, he wanted to know why.

If Tessa waited for a certain question—Why a rushed convenient marriage, why me?—she did not prompt him, and he did not ask. Thank God.

If he had asked her, would she have told him about the baby?

Possibly.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Hopefully she would have blurted out the truth and begged him to understand her desperation—and also her burgeoning love.

Because she was falling so very much in love with Joseph Chance. And not simply because he was saving her and not simply because he was handsome and charming.

She loved him because he seemed to truly see her, to decipher her.

He understood that she was pretty and silly and gay, but also that she was curious and empathetic and felt happiest when she encouraged other people. Had anyone at Berymede ever seen her as more than entertaining or cute? To Joseph, she felt entertaining and interesting; she was pretty but also so very clever.

And despite the secret about the baby and the manipulation of her parents, she believed she understood him too. She understood what he had overcome, the brilliance and hard work that had hastened that triumph. She saw the humility, the strength, the desire—desire to achieve all of his wild aspirations and desire for her.

Her parents, of course, were oblivious to all of it. Her parents, as always, were concerned with only one thing: the appearance of the St. Croix family in the eyes of the world—or rather, in the eyes of their world, which was lofty London society. What would their friends and peers think? How would the gossip papers depict their union? What level of envy was painted by the picture of Joseph Chance and Tessa St. Croix?

“I had held out hope for a title,” said her father, Wallace St. Croix, a day after Joseph’s proposal. He was seated with his back to the alcove window, sawing into the bony side of fish. “You could have been a countess or even a duchess, I daresay.”

Although the St. Croix family boasted wealth and refinement, their bloodline was more French than English, with nary an aristocratic relation in sight. It was no secret that Tessa’s beauty and dowry might one day see her married into this previously unattained rung of society.

And perhaps at one time, Tessa had dreamed of marrying a lord. But only vaguely, only in as much as she dreamed of having curly hair instead of straight, or of seeing Venice instead of the canals of any other place in the world. It sounded nice, but so did so many things.

Her more defined, more authentic dream had been far purer—simple, really. She had dreamed of falling in love. Real love, like in a play, like Orpheus and Eurydice. She dreamed of falling in love the way Berymede’s head groom, Virgil, loved his wife, Susan, the kitchen maid. She wished to be in love like her friend Sabine’s mother and father, before her father had died.

In contrast, the marriage of Tessa’s parents was a partnership. Wallace St. Croix was wealthy and well connected, and Isobel St. Croix was beautiful, stylish, and exacting. Together, they shared one goal, which was to be revered in society. They worked in tandem to achieve this, they reveled in their strides, they cursed their setbacks.

Her mother had brought her up to marry the most eligible man she could possibly ensnare, but Tessa’s own intent had been to use her considerable allure to marry for love.

She would be lying if she said she had not enjoyed four seasons of auditioning one potential True Love after another. There had been many men, yes, but was True Love special if it was easy to find? If she stumbled upon it with the first man or the second . . . or any number of wrong men? Mostly, she told her friends, who teased her about her many beaux, she would meet the wrong man. But she would not find the correct man if she did not weed through all the others.

In the end, she cared less about eligibility and more about finding her one, perfect match. What good, she’d thought, were the dresses and the dance cards if the end result was not True Love? She wanted the fairy-tale union with a handsome, dashing man and a passionate wedding night that swept them both away.

The life after the wedding night? She had perhaps given this less thought. More of the same, she thought, more dash and more passion?

The great irony was of course that “what came after” actually seized Tessa first. Within one month of Captain Marking and the tree.

Just like that, Tessa’s long idealized romantic love was set aside in favor of survival. In favor of “what came after.”

And then Joseph Chance magically appeared, and she wondered if fate might have actually sent her a savior and a happily-ever-after all in the same man.

The possibility made her doubly determined to extract her parents’ speedy blessing, and for every challenge issued by her parents, she had an answer.

“Mr. Chance is not a titled gentleman, no,” Tessa told her father at dinner, “but his dearest friend, a man he loves like a brother, is an earl of considerable means. The Earl of Falcondale. Many of his friends are highly esteemed, I believe. One of his partners is also an earl. The Earl of Cassin.”

Tessa idly set a copy of Burke’s Guide to Peerage beside her mother’s plate. Isobel St. Croix raised her eyebrow and picked it up, thumbing to the Fs.

“And perhaps I have known my share of young lords through the years,” Tessa went on, “but the titled men who have called on me have been rather . . . impoverished, if I’m being honest. Debt-ridden or otherwise sniffing around for my dowry. I abhor the notion that I should be married only for your money, Papa. How much more confident we will appear when I marry for actual affection. Joseph is successful in his own right. His interest in me is me. And me alone.”

“Is he successful?” challenged her father. “I hardly see him refusing the dowry, do I?”

“Oh, quite successful, Papa, as you well know. The boys told me they’ve looked in on his company in London. He’s taking the dowry only to finance his next expedition without dipping into his own fortune. He is a shrewd businessman. All of London will marvel at his wealth when he returns from Barbadoes.”

“But this is another concern,” said her mother. “Why marry a man set to leave the country within days of your wedding? A young couple should devote their first year to establishing themselves in London. You should be seen out, you should start a family. How will society acknowledge his business acumen if he is on the other side of the world? Out of sight, out of mind, as you know.”

“Oh, but this way,” said Tessa, scrambling, “we shall have two opportunities to make an impression. This year, we’ll have a grand wedding in high style, and all of your friends will attend. Next year, Joseph will return with his new riches, and that is when we will make the rounds to parties and society functions. Don’t you see? His travels will forestall the usual slide into matronly obscurity after the wedding. We will wait a year and then burst onto the scene anew.”

Tessa forced her most dazzling expressions, gesturing with her hands to paint the picture of acclaim her mother’s vanity could see. Inside, she was trembling, praying she was convincing them.

“Well, he has impressed us more than any other man you’ve trotted out,” her father finally said.

Tessa cringed at the thought of her old life and “trotting out” men. This, she thought, must end. The men, obviously. But also the flirtation, the coquettishness.

If she managed to marry Joseph, she vowed to become a new woman.

“He is very handsome and successful,” conceded her mother. “I should relish the looks on people’s faces, I daresay, when he returns and you may bask in your new wealth. One would never wish to boast, of course, but what is boasting and what is a triumphant homecoming? Can you imagine the ball we might give in London, Wallace?” Isobel St. Croix looked into the distance, fantasizing. “And afterward, you would likely move across town . . . to Mayfair, perhaps? Or Knightsbridge? New vehicles, of course. And who’s not to say—maybe even a country house?”

“Perhaps,” said Tessa, trying not to think of the reality of Joseph’s triumphant homecoming.

“Very well,” said her father, sharing a look with her mother. “Your Maman has taught you nothing if not distinction, Tess. To sparkle. To be special. To be envied. What could be more distinctive than a marriage to an upstart who is poised to shower you with riches? But you must give us time to plan a proper wedding. We will send you off in high style. There will be no doubt in anyone’s minds that this is a union that matters.”

Tessa’s heart caught in her throat. “How much time?”

“Four months?” said her mother.

And now Tessa did stomp her foot. She pushed up from the table. “We shall do it in three weeks,” she said.

“Three weeks?” said her mother, strangled.

Tessa nodded with finality. “Joseph cannot enjoy his triumphant return if he postpones his opportunity to go. His partners are already sailing without him. The wedding must be in three weeks or . . . or we elope.”

Isobel’s face went white and Wallace’s glass froze halfway to his mouth.

An elopement, of course, would be the ultimate embarrassment. Well, perhaps not the ultimate embarrassment, but she dare not threaten that.

Tessa crossed her arms over her chest.

“No elopement,” conceded her father, and her mother said, “We shall see what we can manage in three weeks.”