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“So did I,” said Ernest, his voice weary. “I thought you were ready for marriage. But after today, I realized you rushed into one engagement and then, before you properly ended it, you flirted with another. It’s only your first Season. I-I should have known you weren’t thinking things through. I should have known you weren’t as mature as you seemed.”

“I was! I am.” Gwen reached for him and Ernest was forced to step back.

The moment she touched him, that would be it. It would be over. His ability to decline her advances, to do the right thing and step away from this woman who had so utterly bewitched him, would be undone. The temptation to crush her into his arms and kiss her would overcome him and then where would they be?

He would be lost in her eyes, and she would only be twisting the knife in farther.

“You should have broken it off with the Marquess of Ravenshurst properly. I would never have bedded you if—”

“Why on earth is this so difficult for everyone to understand?” Gwen asked hotly. “I have broken it off with him!”

“Then why is he standing in your drawing room, utterly convinced you are about to marry him?” shot back Ernest, anger finally incapacitating his control. “You should have spoken to him. Waited for his reply at the very least before you gave me such hope… Damn it, Gwen, you knew what my brother did to me—and now you’ve made me do it to another man!”

“That isn’t what happened!”

“If you were really mature enough for marriage, you would have told your parents about the broken engagement,” he pointed out, hating that he had to be this harsh, but knowing he had to make her see reason. “And you haven’t!”

“Pardon me? ‘Mature enough’? I just—It wasn’t the right time—”

“It’s my fault, too.” Ernest shook his head with a dark laugh. “I… I knew you were Michael’s youngest sister, I knew you were engaged before I even met you, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t help but hope that I was the one who had won your heart—”

“Lord Ravenshurst doesn’t want my heart,” Gwen interrupted fiercely, trying to take his hands in hers.

“It doesn’t matter. We should have waited. Years, really. But at least a few months. Weeks. To make sure he understood what you wanted. To makes sure you understood what you wanted.” Ernest tried to remind himself of that as he stepped away and picked up his trunk.

Gwen was crying again. “I know what I want—what I wanted until your cruelty in this moment, at least. Why won’t you believe me? Why are you dismissing me, like everyone else always does?”

Ernest had no answer to that. He’d never once stopped to think of her as too immature to make such a decision, but maybe she was. “I was a fool to stay this long, knowing how I felt about you,” Ernest muttered, turning from her. “It’s time to leave.”

She grasped his arm, her strength insufficient to prevent him from stepping forward. “Let me know where you stay in London. I have to see you, Ernest, please!”

“I’m not going to tell you,” Ernest said thickly, his emotions starting to overwhelm him. Couldn’t she see how young, how desperate, she seemed in this very moment? “Perhaps I won’t even stay. Perhaps I’ll go back to Frasemere.”

“No!”

“It’s over, Gwen,” he said quietly, opening the door and stepping outside of the Pernrith Chance townhouse for the last time. “Over. And the sooner both you and I accept that…the better.”

Chapter Seventeen

October 10, 1841

Gwen held her head up as high as she could manage.

Which was impressive, considering the painfully audible murmurs she could hear.

“Bold of her to be out in public, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t have allowed it if I were her mother…”

“Outrageous to think she can cast aside the Marquess of Ravenshurst!”

“Do not give them the satisfaction of knowing they are getting to you, my dear,” whispered Gwen’s mother as she squeezed her daughter’s hand.

Gwen tried to smile. “They’re not getting to me, Mama.”

Lady Pernrith nodded curtly. “That’s the spirit.”

It had been Gwen’s own idea to attend this evening. Her mother had thought it a rather bold idea and had worried that it smacked of callousness, and Teddy had declared that if anyone made her go, she would refuse and say she had a headache. Neither Jessy nor Reeny had returned from their house party, and Gwen’s father had given her a look.