“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.

Five

Mrs. Althea Westcott, Alexander’s mother, and Elizabeth, Lady Overfield, his sister, arrived at Brambledean Court early in the afternoon two days later. Alexander heard the carriage and hurried outside to hand them down and hug them warmly amid a flurry of greetings.