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“Just because we accepted the invitation to the Dalton ball,” Lord Pernrith had said over afternoon tea, “that does not mean we have to go.”

And Gwen had sighed and known her father was right. “But I cannot just stay hidden away forever, Papa. I have to go out into Society one day. Why not today?”

She was starting to realize why.

“Shameful to come here after what she did to Lord Ravenshurst…”

“And to think, I would have accepted her wedding invitation!”

“Like I would have invited the Lymingtons,” Gwen muttered sardonically to her mother as they stepped into the Marquess and Marchioness of Dalton’s ballroom.

“You would have done, and you would have been glad to have them,” her mother chastised her quietly under the rustle of whispers that spread out as they stepped farther into the ballroom. “No one will ever attend your wedding now.”

Gwen swallowed. “I won’t be getting married now.”

She had known that the moment Ernest had left her home. Putting aside the fact that she was ruined, deflowered by a man, if Ernest were true to his word, no one need know. Though she would know. The fact that he had not stayed, had not even wished to hear her explanation, had attributed it all to the folly of her youth, had been painful. If he had only bothered to remain for an additional ten minutes, he would have found the whole matter cleared up in no time.

Well. Almost no time.

And really, that hadn’t been the issue, had it? Ernest had dismissed her, accused her of being too young to know what she wanted. But at least if he had stayed, he would have found out why Lord Ravenshurst had been so confused.

Would that have made any difference? Gwen would have liked to think so. If the marquess had stayed well enough away, Ernest would never have become so flustered, accusing her of making a mess of things.

As if he’d just lain back and taken it all without exerting any say in the matter. She seemed, quite clearly, to remember she was the one who had lain back that night.

Mrs. Kinley had approached her timidly as she had stood in the hallway, mere minutes after Ernest had walked out of her life forever, and fairly loudly burst into tears.

Gwen had turned to her in horror. “Mrs. Kinley!”

“It’s all my fault!” The woman had sobbed, thrusting a hand into her apron and pulling out—

It had taken a great deal of self-control for Gwen not to snatch the envelope from the woman’s hand. “Is that…?”

“Yes!” sobbed the housekeeper, dabbing her eyes with the only thing in her hand: the letter which Gwen had written to the Marquess of Ravenshurst. “And I completely forgot to post it, and I’ve ruined everything, and—”

It had taken a little over an hour to get the woman to speak anything like sensible English after that, and Gwen had been forced to ask for the assistance of both her parents and their rapidly blinking and utterly startled maid. As the marquess had still been in the drawing room, he had been present to hear the tearful explanation from their housekeeper.

It had not helped.

“I can see your entire household is in cahoots,” Lord Ravenshurst had said stiffly. “I have no wish to be aligned with—with such a household.”

And he had stormed out, and that was when Gwen had known she had lost everything.

Not just a home. Not just an opportunity to build something new for herself. Not just a life with a man who respected her and who would give her children and who understood she needed a place to call her own.

No, none of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

Only Ernest.

And he had cut her to the quick, attacking the core of her insecurities.

“Well, how delightful this all is!”

Gwen rolled her eyes in the Daltons’ ballroom, which was filling up fast, and turned to snap at her brother. “Why on earth are you so cheerful?”

“Because you aren’t,” Michael said stiffly, holding himself up as straight as he could manage. “And someone has to look out for this family’s reputation, and I’m blowed that it has to be me, but there it is.”

“Poor man,” said his wife, the woman known to most as ‘Captain Seaton,’ but to Gwen as ‘Phylis.’ “He’s only just got his sea legs, and now he’s back on land.”