“I understand this will come as an unwelcome shock, but—”
“You are ending our arrangement,” she said calmly, her arms folded across her chest.
“Yes, but—” He controlled his response with difficulty. “How did you know?”
“You had that look about you. Everyone always does when there’s news they don’t want to deliver.” A flare of pity entered her cool grey eyes. “I take it matters with Lady Bolton have not changed?”
The last thing he wanted was to explain his situation with Louisa again, but he understood that she deserved this much, at least. “Not favourably. But there has been a development.”
Miss Winton took her time to reply, seating herself on one of the sofas by the darkened window. Her hands were folded neatly on her lap. “I suspected as much. There was no other logical reason for you to end our arrangement. We have not spent enough time in one another’s company for you to take me in dislike, I flatter myself.”
“No, no, of course not.” First his proposal, now this: he was making a damnable mess of things. “I would very much like to be friends with you, Miss Winton. I merely . . . I can’t marry you.”
“I see,” she said again.
“I’d thought I could put aside the urgings of my heart, but it’s impossible. When you asked, I said I wasn’t in love with Loui—Lady Bolton, but that was not strictly true.”
Miss Winton viewed him steadily. “You have my condolences.”
“Well I might need them,” he said bitterly. This was the first time in his life he could remember going against the needs of his family. His mother had asked him to marry well, and he was actively turning down the best option he had.
The estate would be ruined.
For a moment, every muscle in his body revolted. His stomach churned, his chest constricted, and he had the vague sensation that all the air had left the room. What folly he was committing.
Yet all this would not have been necessary if his father had showed even a modicum of restraint.
“I am wholeheartedly sorry,” he said to Miss Winton, recovering himself with difficulty. “I know the impression I must have given, and the assumptions you—everyone—must have made as a result, but—”
She gave a very unladylike shrug. “I don’t care for them.”
“You don’t care about the rumours?”
“Can’t be worse than the ones saying I smell like I’m in trade,” she said serenely. “And they bother my mother more than they bother me. No doubt another gentleman will be seduced by my fortune enough to marry me one of these days. All I need is another penniless lord.”
He stared, unsure if he was horrified or amused. “Quite.”
“You need not be worried I shall give way into hysterics,” she said, retrieving her candle and observing the flame with detached interest. “I find them rather dull, don’t you?”
Amusement won out, and a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “You are an interesting lady, Miss Winton, and I hope very much that we can be friends.”
“Well, there’s no reason we cannot. Is that everything you have to say to me? My mother will worry if I’m gone too long.”
“I’m going back to London tomorrow morning, first thing. Once there, I expect I will retire to the country for the foreseeable future.” After all, if he could not marry to save his family’s fortune, then the least he could do was find a way to make the estate worth his time and investment.
His father would be unlikely to retire from London, but perhaps he could hold out until the end of the summer.
Then . . . Well, he supposed by then he would find out precisely what his father’s excesses would cost them both.
“I’ll see you when you return to London, then,” she said.
“I hope you are happy, Miss Winton. You deserve to be.”
“Happy,” she mused, almost wistfully. “Yes, I should like to be, too. Very much. Goodbye, Lord Eynsham. I hope your journey goes well and you find everything you are looking for.”
When Louisa returned to her room after dinner, she discovered the letters missing, and Caroline’s self-satisfied smile was enough to explain precisely what had happened to them. She didn’t bother investigating further, but presumed Henry had played his final role in her affairs.
Fine. If that was how it was to be, then she would learn to accept it with good graces.
