God bless her sister Georgie, the chatterbox with a heart of gold. Her sister had taken one look at her after Nicholas left the room and had sat beside her, wrapping her in a warm embrace as she’d talked at length about how it would all work out and how lucky she was to be so loved, etcetera.

Honestly she’d stopped listening fairly early on in her sister’s speech. Not because her sister’s words weren’t kind or helpful, but because she was incapable of focusing on anything, it seemed. Her mind was all over the place, flitting from one memory to the next.

Georgie’s chatter was cut short by the arrival of Anne, who their butler took great joy announcing as the Countess of Davenport. Well, as much joy as their somber old butler took in anything, she supposed.

Claire could not steady herself for anything or anyone so when Anne caught sight of her, she rushed forward, her eyes wide with shock. “Claire, dear, what is it? What has happened?”

Claire saw Anne look to Georgie when she didn’t immediately answer and Georgie gave a shrug. “She has been like this since Galwin left.”

“What did they speak of?” Anne addressed Georgie instead of her. With a distant clarity, Claire realized just how shaken she must appear if they did not believe her capable of speech.

She opened her mouth to intervene but couldn’t think of the words. Her mind was too busy processing Nicholas’s speech. Perhaps they were right to assume she could not answer.

Georgie explained how she had left them alone, ending with a rare frown as she and Anne both turned to face her where she was still tucked beneath her arm. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have left them alone. I thought it would be all right…they are marrying tomorrow, after all.”

“Maybe not.” The words came out as a whisper and her chest clenched painfully as she realized the truth of it. The decision was hers. She could walk away, start anew. She could hold out for someone else, a man who didn’t terrify her with his firm insistence that she be open and honest.

It wasn’t as though she were opposed to honesty, but being open? That meant being vulnerable. It would mean lowering her defenses and allowing him in.

And what then?

Then he could crush her if he chose. Her heart would be bare and she could not lie to herself any longer. If she allowed him in, she would fall in love.

Her chest tightened again and she clasped her hands to her breast as though to keep her heart from coming undone.

Perhaps she already had fallen in love.

She didn’t realize she’d started to cry until Anne came to her other side so she was now trapped in her sisters’ embrace. “There now, Claire. It will be all right, I promise.”

Anne’s voice had taken on that caring, nurturing tone Claire knew so well. While Claire may have been the eldest, Anne had always been the most maternal. She was the youngest of them all, but it was she they had all turned to when they needed comfort. Claire reached for her hand and squeezed.

Thanks to her mother’s apathetic view of Anne, she could have turned out so very different. Perhaps if her mother had treated Claire with the same level of disinterest she would have turned out differently as well.

But how so? She would like to think that she would have been like Anne, letting go of resentment and anger. Maybe like Anne she would turn her disappointment into dreams of a life filled with love.

Or maybe romance just wasn’t in her nature.

Either way, it did not matter because she wasn’t Anne and she could not change her past. She was who she was, and it was about time she face the fact that she had wasted her life trying to be the perfect daughter, the perfect debutante, the perfect future wife.

She had worked so hard to be that idyllic person that she didn’t know who she was. Not really. Not deep down where it counted.

Given one inch of freedom she had gone wild and wreaked all sorts of havoc that had landed her engaged…and to a man she might very well love.

“What is it, dear?” Anne asked. “Please talk to us.”

Claire shook her head and gratefully accepted the handkerchief that Georgie handed her. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Did Galwin say something to hurt you?” Georgie asked.

Anne straightened, her voice hardening with anger. “He better not have. I’ll have Davenport deal with him right this instant.”

Claire shook her head again. “No, no. Nothing like that. He didn’t hurt me…at least, not like that.”

“Did he try to call off the wedding?” Georgie asked. Her typically lighthearted sister looked so distraught, Claire managed a small smile.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly happened?” Anne asked, her hand squeezing hers for support.

Claire took a deep breath. “He gave me the option to call off the wedding if I so choose.” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “He offered me freedom.”

Freedom. The word alone called to her. How had he known that was what she needed and wanted more than anything? Sometimes it seemed as though he knew her better than she knew herself, and that was terrifying.

But was it bad? Not necessarily.

“I don’t understand,” Georgie said. “How? Why?”

The how was easy enough to answer so Claire filled them in on the gossip he’d learned about the baron. How he believed it possible to get him to change his story and alleviate some of the pressure to marry immediately.

“Why would he do that?” Anne asked. She looked honestly perplexed. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Georgie’s face brightened with a mischievous grin. “We all have.” She sighed and leaned back on the settee as though about to swoon. “Good gracious, the way he looks at you makes me believe in true love.”

Claire exchanged a quick grin of amusement with Anne. “Dear, you have always believed in true love.”

Georgie laughed. “Yes, in fairytales. But believing one could find it among the ton or while making a good match? That is a different story.”

Claire couldn’t have said it better herself. She wasn’t even entirely certain she believed in love, but love with a gentleman? Love with a man who wanted to marry her and who returned the feeling? It seemed too good to be true.

Georgie was right. It sounded like a fairytale.

“But then I watched the way Davenport dotes on Anne and now how Galwin fawns over you,” Georgie said with another sigh. “And I am now a true believer.”

Anne laughed. “Me too.”

“You were always a believer,” Georgie said.

“True,” Anne said, her attention turning back to Claire. “But Claire wasn’t.”

Claire met her sister’s keen gaze. “I wasn’t,” she agreed.

“And now?” Anne asked softly.

Both of her sisters seemed to be waiting anxiously for her answer and she delayed by rearranging her skirts. “Now…” Now, what? Thinking it was one thing, but admitting it was quite another.

That little voice that loved to challenge her came to the forefront. Oh go on, don’t be such a ninny.

There was no other explanation for the way her heart and body responded to Nicholas’s proximity, or the way her thoughts seemed to fixate on him when he wasn’t in the room. There was no other reason she should feel so giddy when the hour of his visits drew near.

“I think I may…” She cleared her throat. “That is, I believe that perhaps I am in love with Nicholas.”

Georgie released her grip on Claire to clap her hands with delight as Anne wrapped her arm around her even tighter in support. “It’s rather frightening, is it not?”

She asked it so quietly, Claire wasn’t certain if Georgie heard. She nodded. Yes, indeed it was. It was frightening and overwhelming and…beautiful.

It was thrilling, in a way. Funny, but saying the words aloud seemed to take away some of the terror and she caught herself smiling as the full rush of feelings enveloped her.

She loved him. She was in love. She, Claire Cleveland, the least romantic of them all, was in love…with a rake.

Pressing a hand to her mouth she stifled a hysterical giggle. She was in love with a rake. And now they were engaged to be married. It was ridiculous. This was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid. It was her mother’s fate, which she’d decided long ago would be a fate worse than death. A fate worse than the most disagreeable arranged marriage, to be certain.

But now…did she still feel that way? After all, Nicholas wasn’t like her father.

Wasn’t he?

No, he wasn’t.

She twisted her hands in her lap as the internal debate started up once again. Oh, how was she to know who to trust and what to believe?

Anne broke into her thoughts. “Has he told you how he feels as well?”

Claire nodded. “He says he…” Her breath caught in her throat at the memory and as the full meaning of his words registered, fitting inside her like a piece of a puzzle. “He says he loves me too.”

Georgie let out a little squeal of excitement and Anne was beaming at her as though it was all settled.

But then Georgie’s face fell. “I’m confused. If he loves you and you love him…why would he offer to back out of the wedding?”

Claire blinked at her. How to explain?

“You haven’t told him how you feel, have you?” Anne guessed.

Claire hesitated briefly and then shook her head.

Anne sighed. “Why not?”

Her hands trembled. That question seemed so simple but was anything but. “Because I don’t know if I can trust it,” she said.

There was a silence as all the women seemed to absorb that. Georgie spoke first. “You don’t know if you can trust what you feel or if you can trust him?”

Excellent question. Claire turned to her, not trying to hide the agony of her indecision. “Both.”

Anne grasped her hand tighter and Claire turned to her. Anne looked uncharacteristically serious. “Did you believe him when he said he loves you?”

Claire bit her lip as she replayed the moment in her mind. “I think so.”

Anne frowned slightly. “Don’t think about it, dear. Just answer. Did your heart know that he was speaking the truth?”

Claire’s mind called up the image of his striking face, the warmth in his eyes—that deep passion that was always there when he looked at her. “Yes,” she said on an exhale. “When he looks at me, I know.”

“Then you must have faith in that,” Anne said gently. “Love requires trust and faith, neither of which are easy to give, but nothing worth having comes easily.”

Claire nodded but her insides felt raw. This was all so new to her. None of it seemed easy, not even falling in love. She looked up again, glancing between her sisters with their kind, knowing gazes.

“Even if I can put my faith in him, how do I know I can trust what I’m feeling? I don’t know what I’m feeling, I can’t explain it and it doesn’t make sense. It’s all happened so quickly and when I think of what I should feel—”

“That is the crux of it,” Georgie interrupted. Though slightly younger, she suddenly looked old beyond her years as she tapped a finger to her forehead. “You think too much.”

Anne let out a little laugh but she was nodding in agreement. “Georgie is right, Claire. You’re trying to use your brain to solve a riddle only your heart knows the answer to.” She lifted their clasped hands to Claire’s breast. “You must trust this. Stop thinking it through and listen to what your heart tells you.”

Claire frowned. Anne made it sound so easy. “What if I don’t know what I want?”

That was it, the question that had been plaguing her this whole week. She’d always thoughts she’d known what she’d wanted—children she could dote on, and marriage based on respect and mutual appreciation. But now, everything was different. Over the course of one night, her expectations and what she was raised to believe was expected of her were no longer true. Or at least, they were not the only truth.

The world opened up before her, dangerous and new. Exciting but mysterious, like staring up into the fathomless depths of the night sky.

To her surprise it was Georgie who answered with a scoffing sound. When she looked over in surprise, she saw her sweet, cheerful sister donning a rueful smile. “Of course you do not know what you want, Claire. You were raised having no options, of course you would not dream or hope for things you knew were out of reach.”

Claire nodded. It was the truth. She had never allowed herself to want for anything more than she’d been given. And she had been given a great deal compared to her sisters. As the favorite, the one who her parents expected something from, she’d been doted on, she’d received all the attention and the money. Her gowns were always the finest as her sisters received her hand-me-downs.

But now she realized that her sisters may not have had the finest gowns, but they’d had the highest hopes. The wildest dreams.

She, on the other hand, had killed that part of herself when she was a child. Whatever it was that allowed a person to dream for things like love and happiness…she didn’t know if she possessed it any longer.

“You’re doing it again,” Georgie scolded gently, leaning over to tap her forehead. “Stop trying to analyze and just feel. Your heart will give you the answer. What do you yearn for?”

The question hung in the air between them and Claire’s breath caught in her throat. Not because she was surprised by the question but rather by the answer.

Nicholas.

The answer didn’t come from her mind but from somewhere deep inside of her, a place she hadn’t known existed and the sudden revelation was breathtaking.

Anne laughed softly beside her. “I do believe our very practical older sister has realized that she wants love, Georgie.”

Georgie’s eyes were brimming with tears. “Of course she does, she is not a fool.”

Oh, but she was.

Panic coursed through her and anxiety had her sitting up straight. What if she was too late? He may have given her until tonight to answer, but perhaps the damage had already been done.

She’d hurt him. Unintentionally, perhaps, but the end result was the same. He had laid himself out for her, making his feelings known. And what had she done?

She’d insulted his honor and his pride by suggesting that he would dishonor her with an affair. She had treated his genuine and noble intentions with disregard.

He had done nothing to deserve that sort of treatment. All he had done was be by her side, protect her and her silly reputation. He had made her laugh, at him and at herself. He had been willing to sacrifice everything for her and in return she had been cold and heartless.

Dropping her head into her hands, she let out a soft wail of dismay. “I have ruined everything.”

Her sisters gathered close. “Nonsense,” Anne said. “You have all the time in the world to make this right. The man still wants to marry you, doesn’t he? You’ll have every opportunity to tell him how you feel.”

She lifted her head, her gaze pleading. “But you don’t understand. I hurt him today. I can’t let him marry me without him knowing how I truly feel.”

Anne and Georgie exchanged a look of concern.

“Perhaps we can arrange for another meeting tomorrow morning,” Georgie suggested. “I could sneak away again and give you a moment alone before the wedding.”

Claire was shaking her head before she’d finished speaking. There was urgency in every heartbeat. Now that she knew what she wanted—who she wanted—she needed him to know it.

For the second time in her life a decision had been made that opened up her life and set her on a new course. But this time it was a decision that she’d made and that gave her a feeling of power over this newfound freedom rather than a floundering sense of unease.

“Tomorrow is not soon enough,” she said. She knew what had to be done…just not how it would be done. Sneaking out of a ball had been one thing, but sneaking into a duke’s home? That was quite another.

Anne squeezed her hand once more and when she glanced over, she saw her sister’s eyes were filled with mischief. “I can help you.”

Claire raised her brows and she saw Georgie’s mirrored expression of surprise. “You?” Georgie asked.

“You can?” Claire said at the same time.

Anne looked quite smug as she murmured her agreement. “Indeed I can. One doesn’t marry the Devil of Davenport and not learn a few tricks, you know.”