Aurelia looked up, faintly surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“You are six-and-twenty, are you not?”
“I am.”
Louisa inclined her head slightly.
“Then it is high time you settled. You cannot remain a companion to other young ladies indefinitely. When do you intend to marry?”
The question was asked plainly, as though it were no more than a matter of ordinary concern. For a fleeting moment, she remembered what it had once been to imagine such a future, to think of love not as something distant or impractical, but as something possible.
That had been before England, before the scandal, before she had learned how swiftly society could close its doors and how firmly they remained shut.
She allowed herself a small smile.
“I do not intend to marry at all,” she informed them.
Clara blinked in surprise. “Not at all?”
Aurelia’s expression did not change. “No.”
Louisa studied her, as though weighing the answer, but did not immediately press further. Aurelia lowered her gaze once more, her hands resting calmly in her lap.
Once, she had dreamed of love.
Now, she knew better than to expect it.
Chapter 2
“You cannot persuade me, Captain, that a gentleman might lose such a sum at whist without either shocking carelessness or very poor judgement,” the Dowager Marchioness of Westbridge, Tabitha Honeyfield spoke with amusement.
“Or, my lady,” said Captain Thomas Harrow with easy cheer, “an excess of confidence, which I have always understood to be a most forgivable fault in gentlemen.”
Owen Honeyfield, the Marquess of Westbridge, did not look up at the two people talking, though he heard the smile in his friend’s voice. His mother gave a small, approving laugh in a sound that was light but measured, as everything about her tended to be.
Harrow possessed the sort of easy charm that required neither effort nor intention. There was nothing imposing about him at first glance. He was of moderate height, with an open expression and a ready smile, but it was precisely that warmth which drew people in. His manner was relaxed, his humor quick and unforced, and he had a way of putting others at ease without appearing to try.
Now, Harrow leaned back slightly in his chair, entirely at ease, as though he had been born to such rooms rather than havingearned his place within them through mud, blood, and long marches beneath a merciless sun.
Owen watched him for a moment over the rim of his glass. It had always been thus with Harrow. Even in Spain, when rations ran thin and the nights stretched long with uncertainty, he had possessed that same ability to lighten a room, to draw men out of themselves and remind them, however briefly, that there was still something worth laughing for.
It had made him invaluable.
It made him, now, almost intolerable.
“Owen, my dear, you are remarkably silent this evening,” his mother observed.
Owen glanced toward her. “I was not aware I was required to speak.”
Harrow’s mouth curved faintly. “I assure you, Westbridge, you are missing a most spirited debate. I have just been accused of encouraging reckless behavior in the gentlemen of London.”
“And do you deny it?” Owen asked.
“Wholeheartedly. I merely believe a man should be allowed to make a fool of himself if he is so inclined. It builds character.”
“Or ruins it,” his mother returned.
“Ah, but which it is depends entirely upon the observer.”
