Page 76 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

Farah brightened. “How magical.”

He supposed it had been. Grey had never been the type to express his emotions with ease. And so, even when he had fallen in love, he’d kept it to himself, certain that Susanna would never settle for a man of his station or character. It didn’t matter that she kept returning, didn’t matter how dazzling her smiles were. But all that had changed when, one spring day, she had shyly confessed to her feelings for him.

Farah’s eyes were round in her face. “What did she say?”

“What do you mean, what did she say? There’s only three words to choose from, and you need all of them to form a complete sentence.”

Farah’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “That is not true. Did she at least tell you why she loved you?”

Perhaps everything would have been easier if she had. There had never been jealousy on Grey’s part, but uncertainty? Uncertainty had soon become his shadow, following him wherever he went.

Why me?

Ignoring Farah’s prying, he continued. “I wanted to marry as soon as possible. But Susanna—she was convinced her father would never agree to it. He had high hopes for her, and I was—am—nothing but a solicitor.”

“You’re a very good solicitor,” Farah put in, all sweet sincerity.

Grey chuckled. “Perhaps. But, still, her father believed that someone of her charm and beauty was destined for great things. And he was right if Mr. Steele is anything to go by.”

Farah frowned but did not speak.

“She thought she could convince him, and I trusted her to do so at her own pace. As eager as I was, I didn’t want to rush her. She kept returning to Montgomery House in the meantime and—and it was all fine, really. My grandmother loved her, I loved her, but—”

“But then Francis came along and mucked it all up?”

Grey let out a long exhale. “Yes, as he tends to do. He got bored that winter and came to Montgomery House for a visit. I, like a fool, spoke of Susanna. About our attachment, about—about being in love. I wanted something to hold over his head for once, and—it was immature and stupid. I know that now.”

“It’s all right.” Farah pulled her knees up to her chest, her gaze drifting to the ground for a beat before meeting his again. “We all do silly things sometimes.”

“Do we?”

She shrugged. “I think so.”

“The next time Susanna came to visit, Francis was the picture of a perfect gentleman. He flattered her and she, of course, welcomed it. How could she not? When Francis is good, he’s very good. Perhaps it showed Susanna what she was missing out on—what a different man could offer her.”

“Maybe,” Farah said, voice soft. “But you don’t know that, Grey.”

“No,” he agreed, “I didn’t. I don’t. Francis stayed at Montgomery House for far longer than he ever had, and I felt Susanna drifting away from me. I knew in the back of my mind that it was because I’d grown reclusive and withdrawn in Francis’s presence, but I didn’t know what to do about it. So I did nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I’m not good at—I don’t have the skills required to deal with such things,” Grey admitted in a whisper. “It’s taken me five years to speak of this at all.”

“I’m so pleased to be able to listen,” she said. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“It feels terrible.”

Farah smiled, clearly not believing him. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” he insisted. “But yes, I did nothing. I think about that all the time, about how one word might have changed everything. But I was too much of a coward to do anything—to say anything.”

And I still am, he thought.

“Surely she didn’t run off with Francis,” Farah said, her hands dropping to the damp ground. “She loved you.”

Even through the fog of his insecurity, he knew that she had. If she’d fallen out of love with him, then she hadn’t said anything about it. The fault was his either way. Susanna couldn’t have predicted the events that followed, nor had she been responsible for Grey’s behavior. He alone was responsible, and he alone deserved to reckon with the outcome.

“One night,” Grey said, struggling with the words that remained stuck in his throat, “I had a little too much to drink, so I decided to put myself out of my misery. I decided to do something, and that something was to go to Francis’s room and challenge him to a duel.”