But now he really did feel an obligation. “Miss Heyden,” he said, his hands behind his back again as he observed the flush in her cheek, the brightness of her eyes, her general loss of poise, “I will be going to London during the coming week. I have obligations there. Will you come too and be my mother’s guest at Westcott House? I can take rooms elsewhere. Will you come to experience some of the social life there? As much or as little as you choose? Will you meet some of your peers—or none, according to your choosing? Will you allow me to court you there, with no obligation on either side?”

“No!” Her eyes had widened with shock. “Whyever would I agree to do such a thing? Because you have obligations? I have them too, I would have you know. I need to spend time at my glassworks in Staffordshire. I have a business to run. Perhaps you would like to come there and meet some of my colleagues and employees.”

“If anything were to come of our courtship,” he said, “I believe I would rather like that, Miss Heyden. But not in the springtime.”

“I would not like to go to London at any season of the year,” she said, “and certainly not in the springtime. And that is my final word.” She turned on her heel and strode off in the direction from which they had come.

He walked in silence beside her. He had tried. He had tried not to accept her release with too obvious a relief. He had tried to suggest a further trial of their courtship—if it ever had been quite that. Now his conscience could be clear. This was what she chose, what she wanted, and there was nothing more to be said.

Her carriage was waiting on the terrace. Her coachman stood by the horses’ heads while her maid hovered outside the open carriage door. Alexander stopped a little distance away, took her hand in his, and bowed over it. “Thank you for giving me the pleasure of your acquaintance,” he said.

“Goodbye, Lord Riverdale,” she said.

“Goodbye, Miss Heyden.”

He handed her into the carriage and shut the door after the maid had taken the place beside her. The coachman climbed onto the box and gathered the ribbons in his hands. She did not look from the window as the vehicle moved away. He watched it as it disappeared from sight, trying and somehow failing to feel relief.

All because of a damned birthmark, he thought.

What the devil had happened during the first ten years of her life? It was clearly something catastrophic.

He turned to make his way slowly back into the house and up to the drawing room.

“You look like tragedy warmed over,” Maude said.

“Do I?” Wren set her head back against the cushions, turned her face slightly away from her maid, and closed her eyes. It was a rhetorical question and Maude did not attempt to answer it.

She had wanted to fling herself at him even after she had said goodbye. For she could not do this again with someone else. It had been an idea, she had tried it, and now she knew marriage was not a possibility for her. Though that was not the real reason why there would never be anyone else, of course, and there was no point in lying to herself. She could not do this with anyone else because no one else would be him. Yet he was an impossibility.

She relived their conversation, his kiss—she had had no idea, no idea that it could be like that. She thought of the visit with his mother and sister. She thought of his invitation to go to London as their guest and of his willingness to step into her world. She could not accuse him of being unreasonable, of acting the part of the lordly male, all take and no give. She could not accuse him of anything. Quite the contrary, in fact. She had not expected him to be a kind man. One did not with the excessively handsome—strange thought. No, the lack was all on her part. She could not enter his world, and that was that.

But oh, the pain, the emptiness, the abject self-pity. She would have it in hand by the time they arrived home, but for now she would wallow in it for the simple reason that she could not stop.

If we ever wed, 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 learn that there are a few people I would dearly like to pound into the middle of next week.

Wren bit her lip, her eyes still closed, and kept her composure even while she wept inside.

The drawing room was a hive of industry when Alexander returned. His mother was tatting and Elizabeth had her head bent over an embroidery frame. Both looked up to smile at him, but his mother was soon frowning.

“Alex,” she asked, “whatever happened to her?”

“It is a birthmark,” he said.

“Oh, that was obvious as soon as I realized it was not a burn,” she said. “It is unfortunate that it covers almost half her face, and I can understand that it must be a severe trial to her when she has to meet new people and endure the same reaction as mine each time. But I did not mean that. What happened to her?”

Elizabeth was still looking up at him too, her needle with its scarlet silk thread suspended above her work. “Mama and I came to the same conclusion, that she is shut up so far inside herself that she is well nigh invisible,” she said.

He stood halfway across the room, his hands behind him. It was one of those times when he wished he were alone in the house to brood and lick his wounds in private. Though why he should feel wounded, he was not sure. A failure, then. Or just guilty. He seemed to have been weighed down by guilt for more than a year despite the fact that he knew he had nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about. He felt it anyway every time he thought of Harry fighting with a foot regiment in Spain or Portugal and of Camille marrying a portrait painter, though she seemed happy enough with him, and of Abigail, who should have been making her come-out this spring but instead was hidden away in the country with her mother, who after almost twenty-five years of being the Countess of Riverdale was back to being Miss Viola Kingsley, mother of three illegitimate children. How could he not feel guilty? And now he had made the mistake of inviting Miss Heyden here when she was not ready for it. And of hurting her. He knew she was hurting.

“I do not know what happened,” he said. “But she is sensitive about her appearance out of all proportion to the visible facts. Today was the first time she has ever gone into company unveiled.”

“It was the first time you have seen her without a veil?” Elizabeth asked in clear surprise before threading her needle through the cloth and resting her hands in her lap.

“No,” he said. “She removed it the first time we met. She invited me to Withington House and I went, assuming wrongly that there would be other guests there too. She had summoned me in order to … offer me marriage. Her uncle left her very wealthy, and I suppose it is no secret that I lack the sort of funds I need as owner of Brambledean.”

“Oh, Alex.” His mother had abandoned her tatting and one hand had found its way to her throat.

“She has been all alone since her uncle and aunt died last year,” he said. “She has always been a recluse, but during the last year I believe she has been lonely. She wishes to wed.”

“But not you,” his mother said.

“Did you say yes?” Elizabeth asked.

“I did not,” he said. “Neither did I say no. I suggested we get to know each other better to see if there could be any other reason for us to marry apart from … money. She came, veiled, to the tea I gave here for my neighbors, and we have called upon each other a couple of times since. Today she came unveiled to meet you. It took great courage.”