That evening, Lucy looked down at the basket of flowers in her hand. Her gardeners had plucked every bloom from a section of the garden grown specifically for tonight’s activities. The annual ritual of decorating the Briarley mausoleum required thousands of flowers, planted in anticipation of one of the most important dates on the local calendar.

Those flowers were already at the cemetery, taken there by the cartload. But Lucy had cut the flowers in this basket herself. She touched the head of one of the roses, remembering the last bouquet she had taken to her grandfather in his sickroom. It had been almost a year since his death and she hadn’t visited the mausoleum since.

She still didn’t want to visit him. For once, spending the evening making inane conversation with her houseguests would be preferable.

But her houseguests were all chattering amongst themselves, preparing for the walk to the Briarley family graveyard. Their voices were too loud. Their laughter showed a lack of awareness that this was a sacred ritual, not a garden party. To them, this was a quaint, amusing country tradition.

Emma joined her in the entrance hall. “You can’t murder your guests,” she murmured in Lucy’s ear.

“And why do you think you must remind me of that?” Lucy asked.

Emma smiled. “For one, you’re a Briarley. For another, your face says it all.”

Lucy tried to school her features. “No murdering. But you surely know that I’d rather not visit the graveyard tonight.”

“I know.” Emma’s smile faded. “I’d rather not either. But we can’t ignore tradition, can we?”

The groundskeepers would have already gathered the wood for the bonfire. The chef had prepared a meal for hundreds of people — not just the wellborn guests who were staying at Maidenstone Abbey, but the tenants and villagers as well. The food would already be loaded onto trestle tables near the cemetery. The villagers would already be there, waiting for Lucy and Emma to arrive and lay the first bouquets at the base of the mausoleum.

Lucy had never, ever refused to follow through with a tradition.

But tonight, she was tempted.

Thoughts of fleeing flew from her head, though, at Max’s arrival. He wore a black suit with a white armband on his sleeve. It was exactly the choice her grandfather, and every earl before him, would have made — part mournful, part penitent. Cressida walked with him, wearing one of the white muslin dresses that the modiste had quickly made over when Lucy had offered to pay for the dresses Callie and Thorington had abandoned.

Her heart sped up as soon as he walked into the room. It was as though it recognized him even before her eyes did. The desire to see him had hummed through her all day like a buried stream — until she saw him, and her yearning sprang forth and flooded her.

He looked around and found her immediately. He walked directly toward her, not caring that everyone watched his path and guessed his destination. He didn’t care that he snubbed three people who tried to claim his attention on the way to her. He didn’t care that Cressida was clearly less interested in talking to Lucy and more interested in joining some of the men who were making eyes at her.

He seemed as singleminded in his desire to see her as she was in her desire to see him.

Lucy very nearly cursed under her breath. This was all going exactly to plan. She needed him to want her — it was crucial to make him desire her, and want to keep her, if she had any hope of winning Maidenstone.

But she wasn’t supposed to want him in return. That kind of desire was far too dangerous.

When he reached her, he bowed. She curtsied, as though he really was an earl, and extended her hand. “Are you ready to visit your ancestors, my lord?” she asked.

She had intended it to be a joke. But the curtsey and the honorific — neither of which she’d given him before — suddenly didn’t feel humorous. They felt right.

He took her hand, brushing his lips over her gloved knuckles. It was the casual sort of gesture that men and women made every day in the ton — but she saw the careful, intent look in his eyes.

“This can’t be an easy night for you,” he said, in a quiet voice that wouldn’t carry through the curious crowd. “Or you, Lady Maidenstone,” he said, including Emma with a nod of his head. “Is there any way that I can be of assistance?”

He may have intended to comfort her, but that statement — one none of the other guests had thought to make — came as a complete shock.

“Did you just offer to help me?” she blurted out.

She blushed before he could even arch an eyebrow. “Would you rather I not offer to help you?” he asked, in that dry voice she was starting to recognize — the one he used when he wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or amused.

“No, of course not.”

“No, you would rather I not offer to help you? Or no, you would like for me to offer?”

The dryness was gone, replaced with a smile that was meant only for her. He was teasing her. Part of her instinctively wanted to relax into him. She could tease him back. It could all stay light and easy — the way that it was supposed to stay.

But she was still on edge. Suddenly, it was all too much. How could anyone expect her to visit her grandfather’s grave that night, in front of a boisterous crowd, when she hadn’t gone even once on her own? How could she go there with Max — a man who wasn’t a Briarley, but who would be the next earl anyway if she succeeded in her scheme? How could she flirt with him, and laugh with him, and pretend to enjoy the evening as all of her guests would, when she wanted to bury her head in her pillows and cry?

Just when she felt herself start to crack open, she looked up into his eyes again.

There was so much she didn’t know about him. There were so many reasons why she shouldn’t trust him — why this should be a transaction to win Maidenstone, not anything deeper than that.

But the concern in his eyes was real. The help he’d offered was genuine.

If she wanted to get through the next few hours, she should probably take all the help she could get.

“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Vale,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s anything to be done, but will you walk with me?”

She couldn’t keep the vulnerable note out of her voice. When was the last time someone had walked with her because she needed them, and not the other way around?

Had that ever happened to her?

His smile turned softer, taking on a wistful air. “We’re often forced to walk alone, Miss Briarley. I’ve discovered that it’s important to savor the moments when we don’t have to.”

Later, she would remember this moment. She would try to recreate the quality of his voice, and the way his hazel eyes mirrored everything she felt — grief for the past, tempered by hope for the future, as though he really understood her. As though he was the only one who understood her.

But in the moment, all she felt was relief that she wouldn’t have to visit her grandfather’s grave alone.

Cressida touched her brother’s arm. “If you wish to escort Miss Briarley, shall I walk with someone else? Lord Anthony, perhaps?”

His sister didn’t have the same wistfulness as Max did. She was bright and cheerful — whatever Max had suffered as a youth, it hadn’t touched Cressida in the same way. Lucy had tried to ask her about their childhood while they were with the modiste, but the one trait Cressida definitely shared with Max was evasiveness — she gracefully avoided all talk of the past.

Still, Lucy was reasonably confident that the girl had never suffered anything particularly bad — or, if she had, she was better than anyone Lucy had ever met at pretending that her life was perfect. There were plenty of people in the ton who liked to pretend that their lives were better than they were, but Lucy thought Cressida was exactly who she seemed to be — a girl excited by her first house party and inexperienced with the probability of heartbreak.

Max frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t want you to form the wrong attachments.”

Lord Anthony was Thorington’s brother. He was only nineteen, but he was titled, wealthy, and relatively well-behaved — exactly the sort of young man that most matchmaking mamas would approve of. Cressida gave her brother a mock frown. “Who is the right attachment, then? A duke, perhaps?”

If he knew she was teasing him, he wasn’t amused. “I don’t think you should reach above your station until our claim is settled,” he said. “Too much risk that you’ll get hurt if you reach too high.”

Cressida shrugged. “Not much risk here compared to what I’ve seen in London, is there?”

“The risks are different, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” he said.

“I’m sure I can manage them,” she said, tilting her chin up like every girl who dealt with an overprotective brother.

Max seemed at a loss. Emma intervened. “I can walk with Miss Vale, if you’d like. And if we happen to walk next to Lord Anthony, all the better,” she added, winking at Cressida. “But I can help Miss Vale to navigate the dangers, if you allow me to chaperone.”

Trust Emma to solve the problem with little drama. Emma had been flirting with Lord Anthony throughout the party, but she showed no jealousy over Cressida’s interest. Lucy had already suspected that Emma flirted with Anthony to gain practice with men her own age, not because she had a tendre for him.

Max nodded. “Thank you for your offer, Lady Maidenstone. I fear we’re ill-equipped to deal with the marriage mart.”

“I can’t say it has much to recommend it,” Emma said cheerfully. “I’m not looking forward to reentering it myself.”

Lucy had been too distracted by her own grief to think of Emma’s — and Emma was too calm to draw attention to herself. But she took a closer look at Emma’s face. The girl was as serene as always, but there was the barest trace of red around her eyelids. She wore white — an appropriate color for half-mourning. But today, for the first time since the earl’s death, she wore the bright sapphire necklace and earrings that he had given her on their wedding day, rather than the black jet beads she’d often worn as a widow.

“You have my sympathies, Lady Maidenstone,” Max said. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment, I’ll give Cressida my lecture in private before I turn her loose with you.”

He took his sister off to an alcove on the side of the hall, whispering something to her that no one could catch. Cressida didn’t sulk or pout the way that most sisters would at such peremptory treatment — she laughed instead, swatting his arm for good measure when he said something that must have struck her as particularly ridiculous.

“I’m still not sure I approve of your plan,” Emma said quietly.

Lucy had kept her appraised of the situation over the past two days — it was also in Emma’s best interests if Lucy married Max and kept Maidenstone, since Emma could stay with them as long as she wanted. “It’s too late to second guess it,” Lucy said. “And no one else here seems interested in competing with him for my hand.”

Emma sighed. “You’re selling yourself short if you marry a stranger whom you barely know and can’t possibly love yet. But you could do worse than a man who treats his sister so well.”

Lucy suddenly pictured Max with Julia — teasing her, playing games with her, chasing her around the gardens. He treated Cressida with so much kindness. Would he give the same affection to Lucy’s daughter?

Even though Lucy’s daughter was a bastard, fathered by another man?

She tamped down the little flare of anxiety. “I hope you find the same, you know.”

Emma touched the necklace around her throat. “I already had a man who treated me well. But it’s time to move on from that. Do you mind?”

“Mind what?” Lucy asked.

“Mind that I’m ready to stop mourning,” Emma said. “You don’t seem ready, but I am.”

Lucy shrugged. “I’m sure Grandfather didn’t expect you to mourn even this long.”

The countess smiled, a little sadly. “His last instructions were for me to go off and have adventures — and if I ever came back to Devonshire, to have a drink at the mausoleum and tell him all about them.”

Lucy laughed. For the first time in a long time, the thought of one of her grandfather’s unusual proclamations only brought her joy, not grief. “That sounds like Grandfather. Promise you’ll have a drink with me when you come back too. If I’m still at Maidenstone, that is.”

Emma gestured at Max. He and Cressida looked a little more sober now, angled so that they could watch the crowd as he gave her whatever instructions he felt were necessary for her survival with the men of the ton. Lucy found it odd that he would do that now — but, like so many other things she found odd about him, she chose to ignore it.

“You’ll be at Maidenstone,” Emma said confidently. “If you prove he’s the heir, he’ll make a good earl. And a good husband and father.”

“Only if he agrees to marry me.”

“He’ll agree.”

Lucy wasn’t so sure. He seemed to want her. He enjoyed her company. That kiss couldn’t have been feigned — even if he was entirely too good at it. And he was kind — not just to her, but to his sister and the servants in equal measure, as though it came from his personality rather than from learned manners. He surely wouldn’t mislead her into thinking that he wanted to marry her if he had no intention of following through with his commitment.

But there was just enough doubt — about him, about his intentions, about her own heart — to keep her on edge. She’d been so sure of Chapman too. What if she was making the same mistake?

What if her destiny was to keep repeating the same patterns with different men?

Emma shook her shoulder. “Stop panicking,” she said firmly. “Have a little faith.”

Max looked over at Lucy. He winked at her. The gesture should have relaxed her.

But Chapman used to wink at her across a ballroom.

“Stop,” Emma said again. “And if faith doesn’t work, try this.”

She slipped a flask of something out of her basket of flowers and into Lucy’s. “What’s that?” Lucy asked.

“Whisky. Your grandfather’s suggestion sounded like a jest, but I’ve found a lot of peace by visiting his grave and telling him about my days while sharing a drink with him. If you need a little faith tonight, maybe you could try it yourself.”

Lucy eyed the flask. Then she looked at Max again.

Tonight she would see whether he was ready to commit to this life. And if he wasn’t — she would have to consider whether supporting his claim was too big of a risk to take.