She was perfectly right, of course. “They want to see me happy,” he said. “I am an only son and an only brother, and we have always been a close family. But they are not possessive in their love. They are not predisposed to dislike anyone who might possibly end up as my wife. Indeed, they want me to marry. I am thirty years old.”

“But I am not anyone,” she said. “You cannot pretend to believe that this visit was anything but a disaster. And I am not blaming your mother and sister. They were very gracious. Neither am I blaming you. Or myself. I believe I ought to release you, Lord Riverdale. Not that you have made any formal commitment to me, but it is possible you are beginning to feel some sort of obligation now that we have called upon each other a few times and you have presented me to Mrs. Westcott and Lady Overfield. I assure you there is no such obligation. I think we should both forget the suggestion I made when you first visited me two weeks ago. You are a good man and a perfect gentleman, and I have appreciated your attempts to become acquainted with me. But it must end here.”

They had come to a stop in the middle of the alley, and she had slipped her hand free of his arm. They stood facing each other, and he found himself frowning. She was speaking like the cool businesswoman she was, and she was looking him directly in the eye. There was not a glimmer of emotion in her dismissal of all her plans and hopes concerning him. But … was she hurting inside? Was it conceited of him to believe she might be? It really had taken enormous courage on her part to come here this afternoon, yet she had done it. Why? Just to end things with him? She could have done that by letter—or simply by not coming. She had not needed to put herself through this ordeal. It was all about this visit, then. He wondered how very alone and how very exposed she had felt. It had been three against one—three close family members against a woman who had none. And she had not even had her veil to bolster her courage as she had the last time she came here to tea.

Dash it all, but she was right. He did feel an obligation even though she had just set him free of it. He had invited her here and put her through such an unpleasant experience. He should take her at her word. No doubt she was longing to get back to her familiar, reclusive world. And it would be a relief to him. He really could not see himself happily married to her—or married to her at all, in fact. Yet—

“You are going to lose your courage, then?” he asked.

“It is not a question of courage,” she protested.

“I beg to disagree,” he said. “It took a great deal of courage to invite me to your home, to make your proposal to me, to show me your face, to take tea with my neighbors, to visit me here alone, to come here again today. But since you conceived your plan, I believe you have realized that it will be virtually impossible for you to marry and continue with the almost totally isolated life you lived with your uncle and aunt. Indeed you admitted it the last time we met.”

“I have nothing more to say, Lord Riverdale,” she said.

“You met my mother and my sister today and have taken fright,” he said. “And so you are falling back upon instinct, which is to run for cover and remain there.”

He knew he was being unfair. But surely there was truth in what he said. It was as if, having put her toe into the ocean and found the water cold, she had abandoned her intention of bathing in it.

“I am exercising my right to live my life as I choose, Lord Riverdale,” she said, all cold, straight-backed dignity. “And I do not choose you. I withdraw my offer. I have nothing to bring to you except pots and pots of money. Nothing.”

It was noticeable that she had not said he had nothing to bring her, though that would seem more to the point. He clasped his hands behind him and gazed at her for several moments, trying to fathom what was going on behind all that cool poise. He might have concluded there was nothing, but her eyes wavered for a moment before she focused them steadily on his again. And he could almost feel the pain behind the words she had spoken—I have nothing to bring you except pots and pots of money.

“If we wed,” he said, “I would draw from you the story of your first ten years, Miss Heyden. And while I am not a violent man by nature, I suspect I would thereby learn there are a few people I would dearly like to pound into the middle of next week.”

Her eyes widened, and she pressed a hand to her mouth while her eyes brimmed with tears. She turned sharply away and strode off to one side of the path, to stand against one of the elm trees, facing away from him, both hands spread over her face.

Oh, good God. What had he done?

He followed her, stood in front of her for a few moments, and then set his hands against the trunk, one on either side of her head. She lowered her hands and gazed at him.

She was frowning, and he knew that at least for that moment he was gazing back into the darkness he had always known was within her. She had nothing to say and he could not think of anything that would make her feel better. Apologize? But for what? Besides, the words had been spoken now, and he knew that somehow he had plunged her into some sort of hell that was associated with those hidden years of her childhood.

“You told me you wanted to be kissed,” he heard himself say. “Let me kiss you.”

“Why?” she asked him. “To make me feel better? You cannot deny that you are relieved to have been released from any obligation you might have felt. You saw the impossibility of it all during that ghastly half hour. You will find someone else easily enough when you go to London. Someone more … normal. And rich enough to rescue you from your problems.”

“Let me kiss you,” he said again, bending his arms at the elbows to bring both his face and his body closer to hers. And he was surprised to discover that he wanted to kiss her, if only out of curiosity.

“Why?” she asked again. And, when he did not answer, “Yes, then. Kiss me. And then take me back to my carriage.”

He looked into her eyes for a few moments longer and then dropped his gaze to her mouth. He kissed her. Her lips stiffened against his own and then softened and then pushed tentatively back. Her hands came up to rest on either side of his waist, on the outside of his coat. He moved his own hands away from the trunk to cup her face. His thumbs stroked her closed eyelids and her cheeks—the skin on the damaged side was as smooth as it was on the other side, he discovered. He slid one hand behind her neck and up beneath her bonnet, and circled her waist with the other arm to draw her against him. She was all tall, lithe slimness. He could feel her legs, long against his own. He could feel her awkwardness too, her inexperience—he would be willing to wager this was her first kiss. It was bound to be, in fact.

But truth to tell, he was not really analyzing the embrace clinically. He was participating in it, surrendering to the unexpected sensuality of it, the equally unexpected femininity of her, the desire to go further with her, to open her mouth with his own and explore with his tongue, to let his hands roam and caress.

But it was undoubtedly her first kiss. He did not give in to his desires. Even so, she suddenly panicked. She pressed her hands almost violently against his chest, ducked under his arm, and strode back out onto the grass of the alley before coming to a halt in the middle of it.

“I beg your pardon,” he said as he followed her.

She wheeled on him. “I permitted it. But it changes nothing, Lord Riverdale. I am going back to the terrace now.”