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“In a crowd, you carry yourself shoulders back and head held high. It’s like watching an Amazon walk among mere mortals. You’re fierce and unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”

She blushed, unable to deny the pleasure she took in him comparing her to one of the warrior queens. “Some would say standing out is exactly what a woman shouldn’t do.”

“It takes bravery to be different. I’ve always admired that your passion for sculpture has shaped your entire life. It’s in everything you do, and you don’t care what anyone thinks of it.”

But that wasn’t true. She cared what he thought. On one point, Ina, Lady Sophia, and Grace were in complete agreement—she’d never be the wife a baronet should have. She didn’t want the things she was supposed to want: the house, the London season, the endless array of dresses, the country house parties. He’d known that when they married, but during those days he’d been Mr. Barrett. Now that he was Sir Gavin, things were different.

“I envy your determination,” he was saying, not noticing her furtive glances. “I wish I had even a little portion of that.”

Her eyebrows jumped. “How can you say you don’t have determination? You wrote a book, Gavin. An actual, honest-to-goodness book. And now there’s your job at Moray’s newspaper.”

He cast his eyes down as though he was ashamed. “The job was given to me by a friend who pitied me for my need to keep occupied and not feel like a kept man.”

With both hands, Ina gently lifted his face so he couldn’t escape looking deep into her eyes.

“Moray’s a smart man—a businessman—and he doesn’t strike me as the sort to take pity on anyone if that person won’t further his business,” she said. “You can’t tell me you haven’t worked and studied and fought to master your own art. To build the life for yourself that you choose.”

He sighed. “That may be, but don’t mistake me for a man of great conviction.”

“Gavin—”

“I’m not. If I were, I would’ve told my father years ago that he could cut me off without a shilling. I wanted the literary life he didn’t approve of, but I still took his money. What does that make me?”

“Practical.”

He gave a half laugh.

“You had to live on something,” she reminded him gently.

“And now we’re at Oak Park, and I’m a baronet. It’s hardly the life I would have chosen for myself—neither would my father—but he still wins.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

He sighed again. “Because even with all of my grand speeches about following my passion for writing, I’m doing what he would’ve wished. Tradition and duty were important to him over all else. A Barrett must inherit Oak Park. A Barrett must become baronet. It’s the way things are, and there’s no breaking away from that, even if Richard was supposed to inherit.”

There was something in his voice Ina had never heard before: defeat.

“Why isn’t there a way to break away from it?” she asked.

He let out an exasperated huff. “The estate is not in the good condition I’d been led to believe it was. It seems as though my father was beginning to transfer more and more responsibility to Richard, and the decisions my brother was making weren’t prudent.”

She stilled. “What do you mean?”

“Richard was beginning to purchase horses,” he said. “I gather he had some scheme in mind to make Oak Park famous for breeding hunters—against Chase’s recommendations—and he’s already purchased the future foals of three different mares with racing pedigrees.”

An astronomical expense for a temperamental business. Worry began to gnaw at Ina’s stomach.

“This was only his most recent scheme,” he continued. “Two years ago he decided that the land around Oak Park was best suited to raising sheep for wool. He bought a flock but discarded the idea before he could see any profits. Before that, it was cotton.”

“Cotton?” she asked. “In the north of England?”

“You can imagine how spectacularly that failed. Before he died, Richard was also talking about stripping half the land for coal mining.” Gavin shook his head. “Combine all of that with years of extravagance to maintain the lifestyle of one of the county’s elites and seasons in London for four, and you can imagine the condition of the family’s finances.”

Her creeping worry was now full-on dread. She knew that as baronet Gavin would have to make decisions about Oak Park, but he wasn’t speaking like a man who was planning to hand over all but the most urgent matters to his estate agent. He was sounding rather like a gentleman farmer worried about his land. Land he intended to live on.

“What does this mean for us?” she asked.

He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. “It means I’m eager to take my mind off of all of this.”