Grey had never been so upset, and yet, it took until Addy was smiling at him, not a stitch on her lovely person, before he could name his feelings for what they were.

He was furious. Reeling drunk with rage. Not with gentlemanly resentment, frustration, or quiet longing. He was angry enough to march the wilds of Dorset for years, angry enough to lose his soul to the harp and never ransom it back.

Addy was leaving him. He could feel the sorrow in her kisses, see it behind her smiles. She had decided to do him the great service of setting him aside, as a woman set aside a man she treasured because hers was the greater claim to honor.

He could not argue using words, but he could argue with everything else he had to offer. He carried Addy to the bed, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, and came down over her.

An allemande was a slow, graceful elaboration on a courtly promenade. Grey treated Addy to caresses that meandered over her shoulders, arms, breasts, and belly. He turned her over, glorying in the feminine wonder of her back, elegant curves flaring out to generous hips and a well-rounded derriere.

“I want to devour you.” Consume her present, past, and future. He crouched above her and draped his greater length over her from head to foot, reveling in the feel of their bodies pressed so closely together.

She raised her hips. “Do you want…?”

He wanted to bite her nape, though what she was offering became apparent before he’d done more than nibble. Grey had engaged in the usual frolics and depravities at university, albeit sparingly.

He didn’t care to engage in them again now, when he and Addy might never make love again.

“Stay right where you are.” He was off the bed and back, sheath in place, within the space of half a minute. “The next decision is yours, my lady.”

Addy had rolled to her back and lay before him, rosy and naked. Grey had never seen a lovelier nor a more heartbreaking sight. She held out her arms, and he joined her on the bed even as he resolved to locate some damned restraint.

Addy apparently had other plans for him. Her kisses were voracious and unrelenting, her hands were everywhere. She stroked Grey’s cock, then undulated against him until his sole defining ambition was to be inside her.

“Grey Dorning, must I beg?”

“Never.”

He meant to go slowly. He meant to savor and cherish, as a gentleman ought to when saying an intimate good-bye. Addy arched up into the joining and seized him in a single roll of her hips.

“Be still,” he rasped. “For the love of all that’s precious, Beatitude, do not move. Do not breathe, and please, I beg you, do not clench at me with your—”

She smiled against his neck—smirked, rather—as she gave him a sound, very intimate squeeze.

He bore that, barely. “I want this to last.” Forever, damn it.

“Sometimes we get what we need, not what we want.”

What followed was excruciating pleasure. Addy, in a mood Grey could not fathom, teased him within an inch of his sanity, until he was a human tuning fork humming to the pitch of mounting desire. Enormous satisfaction lay ahead. He knew that both as a rational conclusion and as a bodily conviction, but on the far side of that satisfaction lay perhaps the worst grief of his adult life.

Addy gently tugged on his chest hair. “Grey, stop being a gentleman. Let me give this to you.”

“We give this to each other.”

Those were his last coherent words for a good quarter hour. Addy sent him into a maelstrom of physical sensation that overwhelmed all thought, all hope and worry, to the point that he was entirely defined by what he shared with her.

She held nothing back, her passion a ferocious testament to female bravery, and then she was quiet, apparently content to stroke Grey’s back and marvel at their lovemaking.

Reality intruded several moments later with all the subtlety of a leaking roof. “I did not withdraw.”

“I did not want you to. I used the sponges and vinegar.”

He kissed her, grateful beyond words for that consideration, also heartbroken. She should be the mother of his children. He should be the father of hers.

While their bodies cooled, Grey searched in vain for some way to keep Addy by his side. He was the head of his family, given many privileges, but also many responsibilities. Was there no way to meet those responsibilities other than an advantageous match?

“Let’s cuddle for a bit,” Addy said, stroking his backside, “or steal a short nap.”

She offered only a bit of cuddling, a short nap. Grey knew for a certainty that she’d decided to send him on his way.

“As you wish, my lady.” He went behind the privacy screen to deal with the sheath, forcing himself to take the first steps toward the last shared moments. His reflection in the mirror showed a man who’d been thoroughly pleasured, but certainly not a strikingly attractive man. He was healthy, for which God be thanked, but no great physical prize.

He’d found the occasional gray hair near his temples, and if he let his beard grow, more gray would evidence itself there. Grey is going gray, as his brothers said.

If he waited another two years to marry, Dorset Hall would be a ruin, he’d be two years older and more worn, two years more deeply in debt. The fiction that he was anything more than an heiress hunter would have grown more worn as well. His brothers would be two years away from the status of young men seeking their way in life and two years closer to being poor relations.

They needed him to marry well. Tabitha needed him to marry well. Dorset Hall and its tenants needed him to marry well. He could kick as many doors as he pleased, and none of that would change.

“Grey, are you coming back to bed?”

“Of course.” He used Addy’s brush to put his hair halfway to rights, mustered a smile, and returned to her side.

She’d burrowed under the covers—no more gratuitous displays of nature’s wonders—and held the sheets up for Grey, then tucked herself against his side.

“You show me new pleasures, Beatitude. Will you allow yourself a respite in my arms?” Or would she deliver the coup de grace while he lay in her bed, naked and replete?

“You must not let me sleep too long,” she said, hiking a leg over his thighs. “We have matters to discuss.”

She yawned, patted his chest, and drifted into silence, while Grey watched shadows creep up the wall and awaited his doom. When he was certain she was truly asleep, he brushed the hair from her brow, kissed her temple, and allowed himself to whisper one, unassailable, hopeless truth.

“I love you, Beatitude, Lady Canmore.”

He felt a butterfly brush of her eyelashes against his chest. “I love you too, Grey Birch Dorning, Earl of Casriel, and that is why our affair has come to an end.”

“Casriel is concerned for you,” Tresham said. “He’s concerned for all of his family, but especially for you.”

Tresham delivered that salvo from the far side of the six-rowed abacus on Sycamore’s desk, which gave Cam the sense of being behind horizontal bars. The desk had once been Tresham’s, though use of it and the abacus had conveyed to Cam with the leasehold on The Coventry Club.

Sycamore set the abacus on the floor. “Did Casriel tell you he was concerned, or did he merely hint about, seeking information that’s none of his business?”

Tresham rose and prowled across the room. The mastiff of the day—Caesar? Comus?—watched him, but didn’t bother getting up from the hearth rug. Sycamore had learned from his brother Will that dogs were better at judging human moods than people were. If Tresham were truly agitated, that hound would be anxious, not calmly watchful.

“Casriel has made such general inquiries as one brother can about another, though he certainly hasn’t pried. He’s worried that you’re failing and that you either don’t realize it or you won’t admit it.”

Not quite. “Grey expects me to fail. They all do, with the possible exception of Ash, who I had hoped would throw in with me.” Though Ash had problems of his own, and they were not problems likely to be solved by spending every waking hour at a gaming club.

Tresham stalked to the reading table and studied schematics Sycamore had drawn of a plan to pipe water from a roof cistern into the retiring rooms and kitchen.

“If your brothers expect you to fail, Dorning, then you must prove them wrong, of course. That doesn’t mean you keep them guessing for no reason.”

Sycamore leaned back in his chair and propped his boots on the corner of the desk. “Do you see Casriel coming around of an evening, having a look for himself? Do you see any of my various concerned siblings taking an interest in this place?”

“Maybe they are doing you the courtesy of allowing you some privacy, some time to get on your feet. Maybe they have other challenges comparable to the one you face. Maybe they are engaged in the doomed endeavor of securing a wealthy bride, in case some brother who has never managed a commercial venture should fall upon his skinny, arrogant arse before all of London.”

Tresham peered at the drawings, while Sycamore considered his words—his accusations.

“You claim Casriel is marrying for my sake?”

“This is clever,” Tresham muttered. “I would not have thought to bring the piping down through the linen closets. The pipe is less likely to freeze if it’s within the building, but heaven help you if a pipe bursts.”

“Heaven help me if the roof leaks. You should hear Grey hold forth about the eighth biblical plague, the leaking roof.”

Tresham rolled up the drawings and rapped Sycamore on the top of his head. “I have, at length. He has nightmares about leaking roofs. Nightmares about his daughter having no dowry. Nightmares about his brothers needing his aid and him being unable to free them from debtors’ prison.”

Sycamore rose, snatched the plans from his guest, and smacked Tresham soundly across the chest. “I am not a new midshipman to be chastised, even if you are my landlord. Casriel never complains to me. All I hear from him is, ‘Let me know if you need a loan.’ That’s all any of us hear from him, as if we’re indigent incompetents rather than well-educated, hardworking fellows.”

The dog whined softly from the hearth rug.

“Perhaps you’re both,” Tresham said. “Well-educated, hardworking, indigent incompetents. I know this, though: Casriel is prepared to prostrate himself on the altar of the advantageous marriage, and that is not because he wants to build a folly by the lake at Dorning Hall, or because he’s developed a sudden infatuation with Miss Sarah Quinlan’s eyebrows.”

Sycamore set his plans on the desk. “We don’t need a folly. We have the real article, an abbey in ruins with a picturesque stream running by in case a fellow needs to do some fishing on a summer morning. If ever I could not find my oldest brother, I knew exactly where to locate him.”

“Among the ruins.”

Marriage had turned Tresham preachy. “Whiling away a few hours with a fishing pole.”

Tresham stepped closer. “Fretting over how he’ll afford a decent match for his illegitimate daughter. Worried about replacing the damned roof on Dorning Hall. Distraught that his countess will have no dower house. Guilty because the tenant repairs are not up to the moment. Exhausted because he’s the only peer of the realm I know who shears sheep, stacks hay, mucks out ditches, and repairs stone walls.”

“Grey likes to work hard.” Sycamore had viewed that as an eccentricity, like Papa’s preoccupation with horticulture, or Oak’s fascination with the visual arts.

“All the time, Sycamore? Does he like to work hard from dawn to midnight in every season? I’ve seen the earldom’s books. His staff at the Hall is more pensioners than able-bodied servants because he’s cut back as much as he dares. He’s let out every acre and building he can rent. He’s reduced the stables to only working stock, not a single brood mare. He sells everything, from cheese to jam to wicker baskets, at the local markets, and he hasn’t had a new pair of boots for three years.”

Tresham paced away, clearly not finished with his tirade. “He’s put spinning wheels into every cottage on the property, so the estate can sell not only wool, but also finished yarn, thus keeping more of the proceeds. If he could buy some looms… but he hasn’t any working capital. He’s too busy sending his brothers to university, repairing roofs, and courting young women who see him only as a title for sale.”

The longer Tresham ranted, the more Sycamore felt like an eight-year-old who’d used Mama’s best French embroidered coverlet to build a blanket cave.

Not that he’d made that mistake more than once.

“You’re saying he’s rolled-up. The Earl of Casriel hasn’t a feather to fly with.”

Tresham braced a hand on the mantel and stared at his boots—shiny, likely not a year old. “He’s been shrewd to the point of genius, he’s worked harder than any man should have to, and he’s denied himself much, but he’s one person, Sycamore, with many dependents. While you were frittering away a term at university, he was dredging the millpond at Dorning Hall. I don’t mean he was striding about on the bank, giving orders, and offering encouragement. He was in the muck, wielding a shovel.”

That picture was easy to imagine, for Sycamore had seen his brother wielding shears, a hay fork, a draft team, a mason’s trowel…

“He likes to work hard,” Sycamore said again, though he heard doubt in his own voice. “Papa was the same way, always planting this and inspecting that. Putting up another glass house or adding to the conservatory.”

Casriel had reduced the size of the conservatory by one-third, selling the enormous glass panes and custom iron framing to a neighbor who’d come into a fortune.

“When Casriel asked me to look over his books,” Tresham said, “he gave me the estate journal he’s been keeping for the past ten years. I saw, day by day, what filled his time. There’s hard work, Sycamore, and there’s indentured servitude to a losing proposition. If Casriel had any alternative to marrying for money, he’s explored it, probably more than once, and found it inadequate.”

“You’re saying this marriage scheme is a last resort?” The question was uncomfortable, because last resorts were inherently bad options, which was why they were left for last.

“What do you think?”

The dog rose, came over to Sycamore, and licked the back of his hand. Cam gave the dog a pat for its kindness and then another because petting a dog soothed a troubled soul.

“I think you have never had brothers,” Sycamore said, “so you don’t understand how complicated fraternal relationships can be.”

“Caesar, come.” Tresham made a hand gesture, and the dog padded to his side. “I would not have leased you this place unless I believed you’d make a go of it. I know it’s early days, but you owe your brother an accurate report of your status. He’s making decisions based in part on how his siblings fare and what he anticipates they’ll need from him. The least courtesy he’s owed is correct information.”

Downstairs on the empty club gambling floor, somebody was singing the old Jacobite ditty Charlie Is My Darling, though the voice was male. Charlie was the young pretender to the British throne, a Scottish upstart best forgotten by the history books.

“My brothers don’t see me, Tresham. They see a young lad always getting into scrapes, one desperate for attention any way he can get it. They don’t regard me as particularly bright or hardworking, and they expect me to fail.”

And Cam had obliged their expectations on any number of occasions.

Tresham headed for the door, the dog at his heels. He gave Sycamore one last pitying look. “Unless you want Miss Sarah Quinlan redecorating Dorning Hall for the rest of her days, you’d best stop feeling sorry for yourself and take a look at your brothers as they truly are. Casriel has carried the full load on his own for years. You’re not little boys anymore, though if you lot are any example of how brothers behave, I’m glad I don’t have any.”

He left, closing the door softly, taking his hound with him.

Learning of Roger’s death had hurt terribly. Addy had realized only then that she’d held out hope of seeing her marriage mature into a peaceful union. Perhaps a child would have come along. Perhaps Roger would have reconciled with Jason. Perhaps in time…

But death had stolen all the time she’d had left with her husband, and that had been sad. Sadness had eventually given way to a guilty sort of relief. She and Roger had had years to find peace and had instead annoyed each other more with each passing season.

No child had come along.

The rift with Jason had grown colder and wider as Jason and his wife had had more children, especially a fine healthy son.

What Addy had hoped might become peace had in fact been a balance between resentment and indifference.

And then Roger had hit upon his final scheme to deny Jason the succession…

Lying in Grey’s arms, Addy closed her eyes and felt no relief that she was saying farewell to the man she loved. This parting would have no silver lining, no unexpected gifts among the grief.

“Beatitude, I cannot lose you.” Grey’s touch could not have been more gentle or his tone sadder.

“You never had me,” she said. “We have enjoyed a few encounters, but you did not come to London for casual trysts. You must be about your courting, and I am a distraction.”

He remained silent when she wanted him to beg. If he begged, she would relent. She would put off the parting. She would bargain with God for more time, a few more weeks, a few more hours.

A waltz, a promenade, anything.

He got an arm under her shoulders and brought her over him, so they could cling to each other. His embrace was everything Addy had ever needed—sheltering, intimate, cherishing, strong. Her heart ached, her throat ached, every part of her ached at the loss of him, even as a corner of her mind knew that she’d survive this too.

She would survive the announcement of his engagement, survive hearing that the banns had been cried. She would even survive learning that the Earl of Casriel had an heir in his nursery.

Because she did love him.

“If you cry, I will not be able to leave this house,” Grey said, hands trailing over her back. “Please don’t cry. Tell me I am a pathetic lover, you are bored with me, you could never care for such a dull man. Don’t cry.”

She cried, at length, and he held her and dried her tears. He assisted her back into her clothing and let her help him dress as well. When he was again the dapper gentleman in his morning attire, and she was a lady with a red nose and puffy eyes, she subsided into sniffles.

He kissed her one final time, with damnable sweetness. “You will send for me if you ever need anything, Addy. Anything. Coin, a roof over your head, a friend. Promise me you will send for me if you are in need.”

He held her again, desperately tight, until Addy stepped back. “Thank you, Grey, for more than you will ever know. Be happy.”

“A gentleman does not argue with a lady, so I will take my leave of you.” He bowed and showed himself out.

Addy went back to bed, drew the covers over her head, and cried some more.

Addy’s sacrifice should not be in vain.

Grey lectured himself to that effect for three days and nights, during which he polished Mrs. Beauchamp’s harp to a brilliant shine, caught up on his correspondence, avoided Sycamore, and did not attend a single social event. Three days was not too much to ask when a man’s heart was broken beyond all mending.

And yet, he would have made the same choices, even if he’d known how brief his time with Addy would be—though he’d have chosen to embark on the affair sooner.

But, no. Addy had had to seize the initiative in that regard as well.

A triple tap on the study door inspired a scowl. That was Crevey’s knock, and Grey did not want to be taken from thoughts of Addy.

“Come in.”

Crevey was his usual, pleasantly unruffled self, which struck Grey as a cardinal injustice.

“Luncheon is ready, my lord. Shall you take another tray in here or use the dining room?”

Another tray. Everybody was a critic. “Is Sycamore awake yet?”

“Some hours ago, sir. In fact, he is from home and sent word from The Coventry not to expect him to return for several days.”

Grey rose, his back protesting too many hours in the same chair. “He’s removed to his club?” Probably a good thing if Cam was to properly manage the place, though Grey would—eventually—miss him.

“Mr. Sycamore did not say where he was off to, but he took your traveling coach and a small satchel.”

Grey did not have a Town coach, that conveyance having been sold to finance Sycamore’s time at Oxford.

“He took the only decent closed carriage I brought to Town and did not ask permission to borrow it. Where has he taken it?” This was so like Sycamore. Darting off with no plan, leaving no word, paying no heed to others.

“He did not say, sir.”

I will disown my brother. Grey could inquire at The Coventry regarding Cam’s whereabouts, but if this was a maneuver to avoid creditors, then sounding the alarm could spell Cam’s doom.

“I’m going out, Crevey. I’ll be back in time for a light supper.”

Crevey’s calm slipped to the extent of raised eyebrows. “But your luncheon, my lord. Surely you have time to sample Cook’s efforts? The roast fowl is one of her best dishes.”

For the past three days, Grey had been eating, or trying to, to appease Cook’s vanity, and because he was not entitled to inconvenience the staff with his pining.

“I’m not hungry, and I have a few calls to pay. I’m sure the staff will enjoy the fowl. My brother is likely brewing another scandal just when I need to secure the hand of the next Countess of Casriel.”

Crevey stepped away from the door. “The grooms might know where Mr. Sycamore was bound.”

“Then please make the appropriate inquiries. Sycamore Dorning at liberty without supervision does not bode well for the peace of the realm.”

“Something else you should know, sir.”

Not another leaking roof. “Don’t keep the news to yourself, Crevey.”

“You have received an invitation to the Quinlans’ soiree next week. It’s among the others awaiting your attention.”

Why would Crevey single out that one invitation? “Is this soiree of any particular note?”

“Mr. Quinlan brought it around himself, sir.” Crevey studied the seascape of Durdle Door on the opposite wall. “I believe you were out at the time.”

Grey’s last true outing had been to spend time with Addy on half day. Since then, he’d not been at home to callers.

“I’ll deal with the invitations when I’m done with today’s calls. If Sycamore should return, please tie him to the piano and don’t let him leave until I have a chance to question him.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“You think I’m joking.”

“I think you are a very good earl, sir, and an even better brother. Shall I have the gig brought around?”

If Sycamore had taken the team, then only Grey’s riding horse remained to pull the gig. The beast was certainly sturdy and well trained enough for any discipline, but he did not care for being driven and made that apparent.

“I’ll walk. I’m not going far.”

“Doing a bit of shopping? I can send a footman with you.”

“No footman, no grooms, no tiger. This is a personal call and nobody’s damned business but my own.”

Crevey bowed, though he made that courtesy a reproach. Grey left the office and marched straight for the music room before Crevey could ask even one more prying, unhelpful question, or remind Grey of one more hopeless, damnable invitation.

“Are you sure, Beatitude?” Theo’s tone hovered between dismay and concern, though her expression, as usual, was composed. She fit in well here at the Quimbey ducal town house, which she was gradually setting to rights after decades of haphazard care. The library was an especially handsome room, though the smiling portraits plucked at Addy’s nerves.

Would Dorning Hall need attention from its new countess? Addy’s imagination tormented her with questions like that by the hour.

“I have considered my situation for the past week, Theo.” A week in which Addy had sat at her bedroom window and watched for Grey walking past her house, not that he’d ever be so callow.

She’d begun, and tossed into the fire, any number of letters to him.

She’d tried to read poetry and ended up reading the journals she’d kept early in her marriage, which left her only more sad and angry.

She’d looked in on Aunt Freddy, who’d been asleep at midday on both occasions, and she’d made arrangements to have Aunt brought to her own home for “some cosseting.”

She had not stopped missing Grey. Not at all.

“Does this have to do with Roger’s passing?” Theo asked. “He died about this time of year, if I recall.”

Theo would remember that. “The anniversary of his accident comes at the end of the month. I do not want to be in London for that occasion. I am making arrangements to leave for Bath before the Season ends.”

Theo held up the plate of biscuits. Addy took one to be polite, though food had lost its appeal.

“You have a new nephew, Beatitude, and you are his godmother. Maybe you should make his acquaintance, as difficult as that might be.”

Everything was difficult. Waking, sleeping, recalling what day it was, working on Aunt Freddy’s shawl while Aunt gently snored her life away in Addy’s spare bedroom.

“When Roger died, I knew what to feel. I was a widow. Society tells us what to do when we’re bereaved of a spouse: hang crepe, wear weeds, stay home but for services, take down the knocker, and receive only close friends and family until the mourning calls may begin. That dance proceeds along steps known to all of society. We learn the pattern as we mature without even realizing the lesson has been taught.”

Addy set her cup and saucer along with the biscuit back onto the tray, though she wanted to pitch the lot of it against the silk-covered walls. The current Duke and Duchess of Quimbey, a love match late in life, beamed at each other in their gilt frame, their portrait mocking everything Addy felt.

“This is about Casriel, then,” Theo said, shifting from her armchair to take the place beside Addy on the sofa. “I’m so sorry.”

She put an arm around Addy’s shoulders, and Addy wanted to both weep noisily on her friend’s shoulder and bolt from the room.

“His lordship returned Aunt Freddy’s harp to her, Theo. Brought it to her personally. The instrument is beautiful now. All warm, rosy wood. Every string perfectly tuned. It sits by her bed, but there’s no one to play it, and Aunt is not awake to hear it played. I’ve moved her to my house, where there’s more staff to look in on her.”

The mercy of Aunt’s decline was that she could no longer deliver lectures or scolds. The heartache was that Addy missed even Aunt’s tart tongue. The shawl would soon be complete, though Aunt might not live long enough to wear it.

“You were hoping…” Theo gave Addy a squeeze and sat back. “You thought Casriel would return the harp to you?”

Addy rose, compelled by an urge to wrench off her slipper and hurl it at the window. “He is a gentleman, Theo. I gave him his congé. He was all that was decent and kind, and he took himself off without any drama or importuning.”

On his part.

“How awful of him, to be so mannerly at such a time.”

Awful, and entirely, absolutely Grey. “I trust you will keep an eye on him?” Addy turned her back on the smiling, besotted pair above the mantel, only to face instead a recent portrait of Theo and her husband.

Everywhere, besotted smiling couples. Grey, I miss you more than I can bear.

Theo took a bite of Addy’s biscuit. “By that, you mean I am to tell you when he becomes engaged. The Quinlans are holding a soiree later this week. Casriel hasn’t been seen in public for days, and Jonathan mentioned that Sycamore Dorning has left Town. Your swain might be rethinking his plan to marry wealth.”

“He’s not my swain, and he’s not rethinking his plan. If he had any other choice, he would have explored it.” Of that, Addy was confident, or she would never have let him go.

Never have all but pushed him out the door, rather.

Theo rose, brushing crumbs from her bodice. “I want you to know something, Beatitude.”

“Not a lecture, please, Theo. I cannot bear one more lecture, reproach, or second thought. I cannot leave Town while Aunt needs me, but I cannot bear to sit by and watch…”

While Grey Dorning sacrificed his happiness for the sake of duty.

“I will inform you of developments here in Town if that’s what you need me to do, but I will also remain your friend if you and the earl elope to Gretna Green, live in scandal, or defy all common sense to live in genteel ruin. Nobody took my part when my husband died except you, Beatitude. You sent me to a banker who could be trusted with my secrets. You kept the creditors from my door until I could think again. You warned me of the realities Society pretends widows need not face. You are more fierce and magnificent than you know, and you will always, always be my friend.”

Addy was grateful for that stirring declaration, also surprised by it. At any other time, she would have reciprocated with a recitation of all Theo had meant to her, and what Theo still meant to her.

Instead, she endured a hug, said polite thank-you’s and farewells, promised to write if she left London, and made it from the Quimbey town house with her dignity nominally intact. She eschewed Thiel’s proffered arm, though, and returned home without yielding to the temptation to walk past Grey’s town house.