She took a step away from him. Away, away. A direction she never thought she’d choose. The anguish settled into her skin, knifelike and vicious. “Then we have nothing more to say to one another. I won’t embarrass either of us by begging.”
“Don’t go like this,” he said, and it sounded remarkably as though he was the one to beg. “Please, Louisa. There must besomething.”
She fastened the ribbons of her bonnet more firmly around her chin. “Goodbye, Henry.”
Though it seemed as though he wished to stop her leaving, he did not, and she exited the house as silently as she had entered it. For a moment, she considered not returning home, but a destitute girl on the streets was not long for this world.
When she reached her mother’s small house, she only hesitated an instant before climbing back up to her bedroom window. The room beyond was cold and dark, and she shivered as she changed into her nightgown and slipped between the chilly sheets.
She did not cry.
Chapter One
PRESENT DAY
February 1815
Louisa rubbed at the smear of paint on her fingers as she absently made her way to the Blue Room. Her mind was on the painting she had left behind, and she was still thinking of colour and composition when she opened the door after her butler's announcement. Inside, Mr Vincent Knight stood in the middle of the floor, a smile on his face and his hands behind his back.
"Lady Bolton," he said with a bow, and presented her with a bouquet of perfect hothouse roses. "For you."
Irritation scorched her more pleasant thoughts of paint. It had taken her long enough to be able to bear the scent of oils again without feeling ill, and now she had been torn from it to receive a man carrying the most predictable flower known to mankind. Next, no doubt, he would ask for her hand in marriage. That was always how these calls went, and she began to wish she had toldAvery not to admit him. Widowhood had given her an agreeable amount of freedom, but it had also left her with a considerable fortune, and no one, not even her mother, could believe that she did not intend to hand it to another.
Independence was precious.
Men, in her experience, were not.
"Thank you," she said, accepting the roses. Up close, their perfection became uncanny—the closest one to get to unnatural while still being of nature. "Please, sit. Would you like anything to drink?"
"No, I thank you. Don't trouble yourself." He strolled to the sofa and sat down.
The irritation sharpened into anger, although she had been the one to offer him a seat. The fact was, he had been one of her late husband’s friends, a man Lord Bolton had sponsored into thetonthanks to Knight’s habit of brown-nosing. He might have been a good man—she had never troubled herself to find out—but his association with her husband was unforgiveable. And there was something about his russet hair that made her think of a fox, sly and watchful. Ever since Bolton's death, he had struggled to keep his hold on High Society, and had used his association with her and her late husband to procure invitations where he would otherwise have been denied.
That, too, was something she could not overlook.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked.
“Have I not made my intentions plain?” He viewed her with some amusement. “I would have thought you were aware of my hopes.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I believe I have also been plain.”
“Is that so?” His gaze strayed to the painting above the fireplace. The Blue Room was the only one used exclusively for entertaining, and the only space in which she still housed any of Lord Bolton’s paintings. If she could have had her way,she would have tossed the unobtrusive landscape into the fire. Unfortunately, the Prince of Wales had taken a liking to Bolton’s work and had the habit of dropping in unexpectedly to discuss her late husband’s love of art. “What a delightful painting, Lady Bolton. Your husband was very talented.”
Her jaw snapped together. Enough of this. “If you came here to offer for me, then I’m afraid you are labouring under a misapprehension.”
“Oh?”
“That I intend to marry again. I do not.”
An expression crossed his face, too fast for her to parse. Not a look of broken-hearted agony, but something closer to panic. Irritation. Frustration. No doubt, like her other suitors, he was more beguiled by Bolton’s fortune than her charms. But as her wealth was the only thing of worth Bolton had left her, she saw no purpose in handing it to another man.
“You are not yet thirty,” he said after a long moment. “You cannot think of spending the rest of your days alone.”
“Can I not?” She raised her brows. “I am perfectly fulfilled.”
“Your mother led me to believe you would welcome my suit.”
Her mother. Teeth firmly gritted to prevent an unwise response, she crossed to the window and looked out. The frost had melted under a merry winter sun, and the city was in full swing. Carriages rattled by, young ladies crossed the street arm in arm, and footmen followed their charges with their arms full of packages. Any other day, it was a sight that would make her smile. Now, all she could think of was the way every person she had the misfortune to meet thought that she would welcome the opportunity to shackle herself to another man.
