and David were always there at the gatherings, trading barbs and disparagements.
Don’t look at him like that.
I shall look at him however I wish to.
He’s younger than you.
Doesn’t matter.
He has small feet.
Excellent. It will cost less to keep him in shoes.
Don’t you know what they say about men with small feet?
Yes: They are less arrogant.
He is too soft for you. You need a man made of steel, Miss Fitzhugh. He is like a bird’s nest, built of twigs and fluff.
Why so much interest in how I feel toward another man, Hastings? If you persist in talking about it, I shall have to believe that you are jealous.
Please, Miss Fitzhugh, you’ll make me laugh. Surely you know by now that for a woman to interest me she needs a pair of breasts. So my concern for you is entirely humanitarian. Mark my words: You will be yearning for a man with bigger feet and a stiffer…spine.
Andrew! They’d been speaking of Andrew.
She stumbled backward, her calves hitting the side rail of the bed. She barely felt anything, her horror and dismay obliterating everything else.
Andrew, always happy and eager to talk about all the books under the sun, always gentle and respectful when he didn’t agree with her assessment on any particular volume. Andrew, the first person to tell her that she would make a wonderful publisher, when her family still doubted the wisdom of such a course of action. Andrew, who’d left a bouquet of wildflowers outside her door every day, too shy to leave a card alongside the flowers, until she’d caught him in the act. If you love me, leave another one tomorrow, she’d told him. The next day he’d left three.
It had been such a magical time in her life.
When he’d broken down and sobbed, apologizing over and over again for misleading her—when he’d been perfectly frank from the very beginning that he was expected to marry someone else—she’d told him, with tears streaming down her face, that she could never be angry with him. That she was grateful to have known him and grateful for the memories.
And all it took was a kick in the head to make her forget everything.
It hurt to breathe. She staggered to the window and pushed it open, gulping. Her poor, sweet Andrew. How he must have felt during their most recent encounters, when she’d treated him as if he were just another bystander in her life.
How would she have felt if she woke up one day and the person she’d loved perennially no longer gave a damn about her?
Someone set his hands on her arms and kissed her on her nape. “Guess what arrived in the morning post? Our special license. Shall we start sending out those scandalous invitations?”
That pain in her heart was black and explosive. She flung aside his hands and stomped away from the window. “Don’t touch me.”
Behind her came a long silence, then, “I see.”
She could not look at him. But it was almost worse to look at the bed and be reminded of her shamelessness the night before. Had it been only lust, she might still have forgiven herself, but she had to talk about weddings and honeymoons, making the commitment of a lifetime.
The only saving grace, perhaps, was the fact that she had not said “I love you” in so many words—but that was only because she’d been saving it for their true wedding night.
Her disloyalty burned like acid upon her skin. She hated the feeling of it. She hated that she didn’t know better when she should have. And she hated that each time it had been she who had spread her legs and practically begged him to help himself to her.
“Helena—”
She spun around. “How could you? I’d lost my mind. I was barely cognizant, entirely uninformed, and utterly incapable of true consent. Were you any kind of gentleman, you would have restrained yourself and told me to wait. It took only a few weeks—you couldn’t have waited that long, you who claim to love me to the moon and the stars?”
“I did tell you to wait, Helena.” He looked grieved and hurt, his eyes bright with just the sort of sincerity she did not need to see. “I told you every time that you would be better served by patience.”
She couldn’t bear the truth of his words. “You knew how I felt about Mr. Martin. You knew how much I loved him. You better than anyone else knew that I would never betray his