Maybe, like every other contradiction she’d been contemplating, both could be true.

“You didn’t like to play married,” Cassandra broke into the silence, “but surely you’ve done some dreaming about your future spouse.”

“I haven’t.” Although she very much feared she was going to dream of Redver tonight. “I’m not like you that way.”

“You’re more like me than you pretend to be. Whenever Harbury brings along that friend of his—the one with the dark hair and menacing expression—I’ve noticed you studying him.”

Eliza’s heart thumped. “Twaddle!”

Cassandra laughed half-heartedly. “Taradiddle! So, it’s the only bilgewater you suddenly find objectionable?”

“Go to sleep, Cassie.” Eliza reached out and tugged the bedcurtains closed, shutting out the daylight. “We’ll get this sorted. You will have your love match, I will find a tolerable husband, and Millicent, Lenora, and Annette will have choices we can’t even imagine at present.”

She willed her words to come true, as if she were casting a spell for the future. Only when she tried to picture that future, the gentleman she saw was Redver.