some color, and pots of pansies added cheer to the terrace.
“This way,” she said. “The conservatory has a terrace that’s mostly private, and I would like to have you to myself for a time.”
That was very promising. “You don’t sound particularly ruined, Della Haddonfield, but I have to tell you, the club was rife with talk last night. Lady Caldicott didn’t waste a moment.”
“I received both the cut direct and nasty looks in the park this morning,” Della said. “I have truly put myself beyond the pale.”
“You did not put yourself there.” On that point, Ash was very firm. He’d spent much of the night in thought and gone for a long walk at dawn. Honor demanded that he offer Della marriage, and pure selfishness prayed she’d accept. She had all but proposed to him—he hoped—but Ash’s all-but-proposal might have been so much more of Della’s frank discussion in the aftermath of Lady Caldicott’s meddling.
Ash had avoided Della for months, with the best of intentions. Last night, he had kissed her behind a closed door, fully aware of the risks that behavior entailed. That he’d taken those risks suggested to him that he wanted an excuse to offer for Della, which suggested to him that… Well, he wasn’t sure what that suggested.
“You are determined to be gallant,” Della said, linking arms with him. “I am determined to be honest. I asked Sycamore to meet me in the park because I wanted his description of your melancholia.”
That too, was encouraging. “Did he oblige?”
“He really hadn’t much to say. You have tried some accepted remedies, which have failed you. Your malady prompts you to isolate yourself, and while it’s worse in winter, you are never entirely safe from it.”
They ambled down a path that in summer was likely shady, but now was carpeted in dead leaves. “Your description is prosaic, as if I suffer megrims instead of weeks of irrational despair.”
“I think we are making too much of your melancholia, Ash Dorning. The whole business of marriage is specifically set forth on for-better-or-for-worse terms, suggesting every couple deals with challenges. Perhaps the wife can’t carry a child to term, perhaps the husband is prone to drinking excessively. Maybe she becomes consumptive, or he loses his sight. We are frail creatures.”
“I want to argue with your logic, to claim that my particular frailty is the worst to ever befall mortal man, but that would be arrogant. Are you frail, Della?”
She seemed to him the picture of glowing good health, despite her petite stature. Della cut through life like a sloop running close to the wind. She harnessed the gale for her own ends, and the waves presented no obstacle.
“I am frail,” she said, “but I am also much enamored of you, Ash Dorning.”
That was very encouraging. “Why me, Della? I am not particularly wealthy, I am not entirely sound. When the current scandal fades, you will still be the daughter of an earl, comely, and wonderfully well connected. You could do better than to settle for a semi-addled younger son.”
Having embarked on a course of blunt truths with Della, Ash wanted to keep to that path, much to his surprise.
She dropped his arm to open a side door to the conservatory. “In here,” she said, extending her hand. “We have more to say to each other.”
The air inside was warm, and because cold weather approached, the space had the quality of a leafy bower. The tender plants had all been arranged along the glass walls, and lemon and orange trees created an overhead canopy of green.
She closed the door and gave the lock a twist. “I have made lists in my head,” she said, preceding Ash down a winding gravel walk, “why we would suit, why we would not. I excel at making lists. We are of appropriate stations, we dance wonderfully together, our families are already connected and of equal rank. Our siblings get on cordially, and our family seats aren’t that distant.”
She paused before the door that connected the conservatory to the main Haddonfield residence. “My lists were lengthy, and yet, they did not convince me that marriage is the right course for us.” She gave this lock a twist as well. “The gardeners are on half day. We will not be disturbed.”
An engaged couple was permitted some privacy, but then, Ash and Della weren’t quite engaged.
“You haven’t told me why you will consider marrying me, Della, as opposed to marrying any old younger son with a few groats and decent