But he wasn’t Peter.
No! She would not think of him. He had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t care for her. It didn’t matter who she married now. It wasn’t as if she would give her heart to another.
That didn’t stop the grief from welling up in her chest, however.
“Perhaps if I were to have a choice in the matter,” she mumbled, more to herself.
“Don’t you?” Margery pressed a cool glass of lemonade into her hands.
Lenora drank deeply, letting the cool sweet and sour of it work its way into her weary body before shaking her head. “I knew it was to happen, of course. And it could just as easily have been some aged reprobate.”
“And that Lord Redburn is the furthest thing from an aged reprobate as I’ve ever seen,” Lady Tesh said. Her eyes went distant, a small smile flitting over her face. “Why, if I were fifty years younger…Hell, if I were twenty years younger.”
“Gran!” Margery exclaimed.
The older woman waved a hand in the air. “Don’t tell me you didn’t find that man attractive.”
Margery’s face went scarlet. “That’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter if Lord Redburn has the beauty of the angels—”
“Who wants an angel?” Lady Tesh muttered.
Lenora nearly choked on her lemonade.
“The earl’s looks don’t matter in the least if Lenora doesn’t wish to marry him,” Margery stated loudly. She turned to Lenora. “Do you want to marry him?”
“It hardly matters. My father has decreed I marry him or—” She swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat, tried again. “Or I shall be disowned.”
Both women stared at her, aghast. “I know he threatened as much, but he can’t possibly have meant it, Lenora,” Margery breathed.
In answer, Lenora handed over the creased letter. The other women read it together, their faces leaching of color as their gazes traveled down the page.
Margery’s eyes found hers, wide and stunned. “He couldn’t be so cruel.”
“I have given him enough heartache in the past years with three failed engagements. He merely wishes to ensure this one is a success.”
“But they were not your fault,” Margery cried. “Not a one of them.”
The first had been.If she had only kept on pretending, Hillram might be alive even now.
Margery, however, was blessedly unaware of Lenora’s dark thoughts. “It must be a bluff.”
From the expression on Margery’s face, however, she didn’t believe her words any more than Lenora did. Margery had known Sir Alfred long enough to recognize that he didn’t say or do anything lightly. And his threats were never hollow.
Lenora’s heart, which she did not think would feel again, nevertheless lurched with a pitiful ache. To know that he would cut her from his life, as easily as if he were removing a splinter from his thumb, hurt her more than she could have thought possible.
Self-pity, however, would not do her a bit of good. She straightened. “He’s to come to the Isle. I’ll talk to him then. In the meantime, I have told Lord Redburn he may court me, so we may get to know one another better.”
Lady Tesh started. “But I thought…”
“Thought what, Gran?”
The older woman seemed to struggle for a moment before letting out a breath that made her appear to deflate. “I thought it would be much too soon for you to enter into another engagement. The last one ended less than a month ago, after all. There will be a terrible scandal.”
Lenora’s lips twisted. “No more a scandal than actually being left at the altar, I believe.”
“Yes, well.” She colored before falling silent.
Suddenly Lady Tesh straightened. Her piercing gaze settled on Lenora with almost frightening intensity. “If he’s courting you, I expect he’ll be around quite often?”
