“Mr. Robbins let slip that he had not beensleeping well. He’d given up his room at the lodging house to a lady traveling by herself,who’d come into Nowshera too tired to stand, when Nowshera was overrun and bedsimpossible to find. When the lady left, the landlord had given the room to someone else,leaving Mr. Robbins to sleep in rather atrocious places.”“Dear me,” said Lady Vera.“He didn’t know it, but that lady was Mrs. Marsden. And I, for one, will always be gratefulthat he helped her when there was absolutely nothing in it for him.”Lady Vera set down her tea. She reached forward and took Leo’s hands. “Thank you, Mr.Marsden. Sometimes I forget that beneath Michael’s ambition, there is not a void, but muchkindness. Thank you for reminding me.”

“It’s a long story,” he said, taking a sip of Mr. Braeburn’s whiskey, “so I will tell only avery condensed version of it.“Mrs. Marsden and I grew up on adjacent properties in the Cotswold. But the Cotswold, asfair as it is, plays almost no part in this tale. Because it was not in the green, unpollutedcountryside that we fell in love, but in gray, sooty London. Love at first sight, of course, ahunger of the soul that could not be denied.”Bryony trembled somewhere inside. This was not their story, but her story, the determinedspinster felled by the magnificence and charm of the gorgeous young thing.He glanced at her. “You were the moon of my existence; your moods dictated the tides ofmy heart.”The tides of her own heart surged at his words, even though his words were nothing butlies.“I don’t believe I had moods,” she said severely.“No, of course not. ‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate’—and the tides of my heartonly rose ever higher to crash against the levee of my self-possession. For I loved you mostintemperately, my dear Mrs. Marsden.”Beside her Mrs. Braeburn blushed, her eyes bright. Bryony was furious at Leo, for hisfacile words, and even more so at herself, for the painful pleasure that trickled into her dropby drop.“Our wedding was the happiest hour of my life, that we would belong to each other always.The church was filled with hyacinths and camellias, and the crowd overflowed to the steps,for the whole world wanted to see who had at last captured your lofty heart.“But alas, I had not truly captured your lofty heart, had I? I but held it for a moment. Andsoon there was trouble in Paradise. One day, you said to me, ‘My hair has turned white. It is asign I must wander far and away. Find me then, if you can. Then and only then will I be yoursagain.’”Her heart pounded again. How did he know that she had indeed taken her hair turning whiteas a sign that the time had come for her to leave? No, he did not know. He’d made it up out ofwhole cloth. But even Mr. Braeburn was spellbound by this ridiculous tale. She had forgottenhow hypnotic Leo could be, when he wished to beguile a crowd.“And so I have searched. From the poles to the tropics, from the shores of China to theshores of Nova Scotia. Our wedding photograph in hand, I have asked crowds pale, red,brown, and black, ‘I seek an English lady doctor, my lost beloved. Have you seen her?’”He looked into her eyes, and she could not look away, as mesmerized as the haplessBraeburns.“And now I have found you at last.” He raised his glass. “To the beginning of the rest ofour lives.”

“And when the governess had left, he would slip out of his own room and peer at her door until her light was extinguished at last, before he returned to bed to stew anew in lust and yearning.A habit that he’d kept to this day, whenever they happened to be under the same roof.Her light turned off. He sighed. How long would he keep at this? Soon he would be twenty-seven. Did he still plan to stand in a dark passage in the middle of the night and gaze upon her door when he was thirty-seven? Forty-seven? Ninetyseven?”

“What did you do to your hair? I don’t like it asmuch.”His brow knitted. “How do you like it?”“I prefer the curls.”He looked as if she’d told him she preferred him with three eyes. “You used to make fun of them. You told me that if Bo Peep had a child with one of her sheep it would have hair like mine.”She burst out laughing—and gasped at the pain that shot through her scalp. “You are not making it up, are you? Did I really say that?”“Sometimes you called me Goldilocks.”She had to remind herself not to laugh again. “And you married me? I sound like a very odious sort of girl.”“I was a very odious sort of boy, so you might say we were evenly matched.”She didn’t know enough to comment upon that, but when he was near, she was… happier.”

“He wanted to make cast models of her. He wanted to take a set of precision calipers and measure every distance between her features. He wanted her blood and glandular fluids analyzed by the finest chemists in the world—there must be something detectibly different in her inner workings for him to respond so dramatically, as if he’d been given a drug for which science had yet to find a name.But more than anything, he wanted to—”

“Hastings sat down and braced his arm along the back of the chaise, quite effectively letting it be known he did not want anyone else to join them. “You look frustrated, Miss Fitzhugh.” He lowered his voice. “Has your bed been empty of late?” He knew very well she’d been watched more closely than prices on the stock exchange. She couldn’t smuggle a hamster into her bed, let alone a man. “You look anemic, Hastings,” she said. “Have you been leaving the belles of England breathlessly unsatisfied again?” He grinned. “Ah, so you know what it is like to be breathlessly unsatisfied. I expected as little from Andrew Martin.” Her tone was pointed. “As little as you expect from yourself, no doubt.” He sighed exaggeratedly. “Miss Fitzhugh, you disparage me so, when I’ve only ever sung your praises.” “Well, we all do what we must,” she said with sweet venom. He didn’t reply—not in words, at least.”

“This time he could no longer hold back his tears. And with them came words that he’d never been able to say to her his entire life. “I love you, Helena. I have always loved you. Wake up and let me prove it to you.”