away from Mr. Northam, I think this union is exactly what she is looking for. For my part, I wish it weren’t.”
I stared at her. “You wrote Mrs. Hickmore about Mr. Northam?”
My father lowered his paper. “Eloise, I specifically forbade you from—”
“Did you really expect me not to, Colin? Our daughter deserves to be happy. Or am I the only one who feels that way?” She returned her attention to me. “Mr. Northam does not appear to be the kind of man who would bring about such happiness, though, does he?”
“He isn’t,” Daniel interrupted. “Mr. Northam is a rake of the worst kind.”
“And what do you know of it, Daniel?” I asked dismissively, trying to ignore the pool of foreboding forming in my stomach.
His eyes narrowed. “I know enough. I caught him, Margaret, the first night we were there, creeping out of the house with a girl too young to know better.”
My face heated, but I shrugged. “Every woman at that party knew better. Besides, what do I care what he does when he isn’t with me?”
My mother gasped. “Margaret, you cannot be serious.”
“Why not? All it means is that he is like every other man of our acquaintance. Unlike Edward, though, Mr. Northam doesn’t pretend to be someone else. So at least with him I know what I am getting.”
“Margaret,” my father chastised.
I glanced at him. “Should I not say such things, even though they are true?” I turned to my mother. “It doesn’t matter anyway, since it makes no difference how I feel. Everything has already been ruined.”
“Unless you content yourself with Lord Williams,” Daniel said. “He is obviously determined to have you. And he is nothing like Edward.”
“He is exactly like Edward—pleasing and gentlemanly when he wants to be, yet ruining people’s lives without a second thought when he deems it fitting.” My voice was louder than I’d meant and I took a deep breath to calm down.
Daniel rolled his eyes. “Oh, come, Margaret. If you had met Lord Williams before the misunderstanding with Edward, you would be madly in love by now.”
“That’s enough, both of you,” my father interrupted. “This is not a conversation to have in the parlor.” He glanced at Alice, who was standing behind my mother, her eyes wide.
My chest heaved with the injustice of my situation. But I shouldn’t have spoken so in front of Alice. “I apologize,” I said to her.
My father nodded. “I think we have waited long enough for our guest. Margaret?” He gestured toward the breakfast table.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I find I’ve lost my appetite.” I strode out of the breakfast room and out of the house.
A trail of decimated leaves followed me around the lake. When I reached the boulder that Daniel had fallen off the morning after returning from the Hickmores’, I climbed onto it. The clouds in the distant sky had gathered, promising an impending storm, but for now only a slight breeze blew, pulling strands of my hair loose while its caress played along my skin. I scooted to the edge of the rock and leaned over.
The lake’s surface rippled and waved, but I searched it anyway. Faint traces of myself—a flash of skin, a hint of an eye, the trail of a curl—flickered into view. But mostly only the blues and greens of the ruffled water reflected back. I stretched down and dipped my finger into the lake, stirring it to produce my own wake, but my ripples were almost instantly consumed by the ones generated by the wind.
Daniel’s words ran through my mind even as I struggled to force them out. I couldn’t deny that Lord Williams, as he acted here, amongst my family, was someone to be admired. Mostly. He was still arrogant and unyielding. But he was also gentle and attentive. Under duress, his behavior betrayed a kind and patient man. He even displayed moments of humor and wit, and his unyielding manner meant he didn’t back down from an argument.
He’d insisted I call him by his first name. That wasn’t something the man from the Hickmores’ would have done.
The truth was, if we had met before Edward, I quite possibly might have been in love.
In love with Gregory.
How easy it was to think of him by that name.
I yanked my hand out of the water. It did not matter how Gregory or Lord Williams or that man made my pool of buried dreams spill across the dam I had erected to keep them contained. I