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“I thought you meant to marry me.”

“Yes, but what if something should happen to me before we could marry?”

He was right: She did have a hard heart. But her heart melted now. Henry had always insisted on precautions too, but it had been for the sake of his standing and reputation, not hers. But this man, oh,
this
wonderful man.

“Will, my sweet Will,” she murmured, her heart full of love.

She slid lower and took him into her mouth. She’d done the same for Henry and had not particularly cared for it. But with Will it was entirely different. She loved everything about it, the texture, the heat, the way he expelled ragged breaths at her greediness—and, ultimately, the hot, unchaste taste of him as she swallowed every last drop.

“My God, Lizzy,” he rasped weakly as she returned at last to enfold him in a tight embrace.

“Yes,” she said with a fully satisfied smile. “I will marry you.”

Lizzy was still abed when her maid delivered a note from Stuart: He’d arrived at Lyndhurst Hall and wished to speak to her. She dressed, ate a quick bite for breakfast, and sent a return note that she would wait for him on the interior balcony that overlooked Lyndhurst Park’s orangerie.

It was a fitting place, she supposed, to bid adieu to her conceited quest, because here was where it had started. Not that she hadn’t always been a bit vain and more than a bit ambitious, even as a child, but prestige and wealth hadn’t been her only goals then, or even her primary goals.

She’d had a fierce pride in her intellectual capacity and planned to read both classics and mathematics at Girton College. But then, she’d accompanied her parents to Lyndhurst Hall and was awed into speechlessness by the beauty and grandeur of the place. She especially fell in love with the lush orangerie, a spectacular two-story glass structure that ran the entire length of one wing of the house, full of rare species from the tropics that luxuriated a deep green even in the full of winter. After that, there was nothing to do but become the next mistress of this majestic place, and be accorded the same reverence that greeted the Duchess of Arlington wherever the latter went.

Today she paid no mind to the orangerie. She missed her Will already—he’d left Lyndhurst Hall at the break of dawn to arrange for a marriage license from the Bishop of London, so they could get married on the day she was originally to marry Stuart and enjoy the wedding that they’d planned together. She paced on the balcony, full of energy and excitement, though she’d had barely an hour of sleep—she and Will had stayed up much of the night whispering to each other and giggling like children.

A great deal of it was gossiping, the kind of juicy, no-holds-barred gossip that could only be enjoyed with someone one trusted completely. But they also submitted to a few serious minutes of planning for their married life.

As it turned out, Stuart had been about to sponsor Will to Inner Temple—Will had started as a secretary, but had quickly caught on to the intricacies of law.

“But we can’t in good conscience have him be your sponsor anymore,” she’d pointed out anxiously.

“Not to worry. I’m sure the dowager duchess will strong-arm someone else to sponsor me—she was the one who found employment for me when I returned to England.”

“Why would she take such interest in you?” she’d asked. “And come to think of it, what are you doing here and why did she allow someone of your womanizing ways to set foot in her house?”

“Visiting her, of course. She’s Matthew’s godmother and she has turned a blind eye to my womanizing ways ever since I allowed myself to fall into poverty and disgrace for Matthew’s sake.”

Lizzy had shaken her head. “Why is every man I know indebted to that woman?”

“That’s why you want to be her; so you too can lord it over all the men in England,” he’d said with a teasing affection.

“How true,” she’d admitted. “Now I will have to find a different way to harvest wonder and admiration from the general populace. I think I will attend Girton and become a fearsome scholar after all, one of the finest minds of my generation.”

“I think that is a splendid idea.” He smiled. “Besides, there’s nothing like shagging on Plato.”

“Or Pythagorus.”

“Or Pythagorus. How could I have forgotten good old Pythagorus?”

She inhaled the mossy scent of the orangerie and smiled hugely at the memories.

“Have I caught you in a good mood?”

It was Stuart, standing at the door.

She cleared her throat and pulled herself into a semblance of serenity. “Yes, you have.”

“Sorry I kept you waiting. I passed Her Grace on my way and she wanted to speak to me.” He came to where she stood and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve been worried about you—you haven’t left your house for a while. I hope I’m not to blame, for overwhelming you with wedding preparations.”

“I’m quite completely and perfectly fine now. I have never been better, in fact.” Except for her nagging concern about him. He deserved much better from her. And now he would go into another frantic session of the Parliament without a wife to look after him. If only she could be sure that he would be as happily settled as she, then—

“Good,” he said. “Because there is something I need to tell you.”

His tone caught her attention. There was something unsettling about it. And the way he looked—she’d seen that particular look on him only when he conferred with his colleagues in the House of Commons on intractably thorny issues. “Yes?”

He took a deep breath. “I have fallen in love with someone.”

She wasn’t sure she understood him. She stared at him. “With whom?”

“With Madame Durant,” he said, his tone clear, without hesitation or shame.

Her ears rang a little. “Madame Durant. You mean your cook?”

“Yes.”

“Are you absolutely certain?” It was an asinine question, but she did not see it at all of her very proper, very straitlaced Stuart.

“Quite.”

“This is…” She could not conceive that a man such as he would even take notice of his cook, let alone spend any time with her. Let alone fall in love.

In love.

“My God,” she murmured. “Some stupid woman at your dinner party told me I should sack your cook as soon as I became Mrs. Somerset. I never imagined that there’d be any truth to her insinuations.”

“I’m sorry. That is one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you, so that you need not be subject to such unpleasantness in the future.”

She resumed her pacing, her motion propelled more by sheer astonishment than anything else. She stopped at the railing of the balcony. “Do you mean to marry
her
?”

Now, that would be truly mind-boggling. He would destroy everything he’d built of himself if he did so—he wasn’t placed so high in the world that he could marry whomever he pleased, and there was always his illegitimate birth that people would pounce on, given half a chance.

“You know very well I cannot marry her.” It seemed to pain him to say that. “But I plan to spend as much of the rest of my life with her as possible.”

“So you are crying off our engagement.”

“If you will let me go, I will be humbly grateful.” He gazed at her and his eyes were wistful. “I’m sorry, Lizzy. My heart belongs to her.”

She shook her head. She really did not know him, did she? A clandestine love affair with the most unsuitable woman. And yet it did not diminish her opinion of him. To love as he did—with passionate commitment—was the only way to love.

“I wish you both the very best then,” she said.

And it was the answer she would have given had there been no Will Marsden in her life. She was not so set on her own prerogatives that she was willing to chain the lives of others to accomplish them.

“Thank you,” he said. He closed the distance between them, took her hands, and kissed both of them. “Thank you. I did not plan on this. I cannot stop loving her, and it is not fair to keep you in the dark. Otherwise I would never choose to hurt you.”

She kissed his hands in return. “You didn’t hurt anything other than my vanity—and that’s only because I want to believe that every man in the world is secretly in love with me. And your decision does make it much, much easier for me to tell you that I’ve come to doubt the wisdom of our union as well.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’m not surprised that you have, what with my distraction.”

“Yes, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve been distracted too.”

He was startled. “Is there someone else?”

She could not stop the smile that rose to her lips. “I’m going to marry your secretary, Stuart.”

His expression of disbelief was probably an exact facsimile of her own look of stupefaction earlier.

“I thought you couldn’t stand Marsden.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

They stared at each other a minute, then broke into laughter. “We have been a fine, mischievous pair, haven’t we?” he said, still chuckling.

Then, for the first time in their long acquaintance and without her prompting, he embraced her. “I cannot tell you how this puts my mind at ease. Marsden is a good man. I am already in the process of sponsoring him to Inner Temple. He will make a fine barrister and make you an excellent husband. And when he inherits, you will be very comfortably off—far better than if you’d married me without my brother’s estate.”

When he inherits?
What could Will possibly inherit? He’d been cut out of both of his parents’ wills. And since those parents were already dead, there was no possibility of his being restored to said wills.

“I didn’t choose him for his inheritance,” she said dumbly.

“Of course not. But it’s always reassuring, is it not, to know that there is ease and plenty in your future? I acted as Marsden’s counsel in the matter, so I speak on good authority.”

Lizzy was more flabbergasted than she’d been at Stuart’s declaration of love for his less-than-respectable cook. Will was not a poor man. And yet he’d allowed her to think that he was. Why? Did he really think her so shallow that he had to test her? But she’d agreed to marry him, believing that he was penniless. Was this all but a game, then? Did he have any true intention of marrying her? Had he really gone to arrange for a special license, or was he laughing all the way back to London at how he’d gulled her?

Stuart kissed her on the cheek in parting. “Don’t forget to invite me to your wedding.”

Wedding? What wedding?

Verity had half-fretted that Miss Bessler would not let go of Stuart so easily. But her worries turned out to be quite unfounded. He cabled her to tell her that he was a free man and asked her to join him in London—since he’d planned to be away at Lyndhurst Hall, he’d given his servants a week of holiday, and the town house was conveniently and discreetly empty.

Michael took Verity to the train station.

“I am not sure how I feel about this,” said her son. “Are you aware that you are not setting a good example for me? Can’t Mr. Somerset marry you instead?”

She shrugged. “Not when we both want him to retain his position in Society.”

“Then I hope he knows you are forsaking fame and fortune in Paris for him,” said Michael as she hugged him good-bye.

She chortled. “I’ll make sure that he never forgets my sacrifice.” She kissed Michael, then waved at him from her compartment.