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There were answers. He could feel them lined up in his head. Letting the engagement stand had been Leonora’s suggestion, the morning after the ball, in this very room. He had never planned any of it. He had only wanted to protect her name. He had not lied to Marian so much as failed to tell her a truth that would have hurt them both. Every one of those sentences was accurate, and every one of them sounded like an excuse.

He was too tired for it. He had slept perhaps four hours a night since the afternoon Leonora left Glenhaven. He had read the same line of the same shipping contract six times that morning and could not have repeated it. Whatever fight he might once have had for his own defense had gone somewhere out of reach, and what was left was only the plain fact of the thing.

“You are right,” he said.

Marian did not look triumphant. “Say it properly.”

“It is not real. It has never been real. Leonora and I agreed to say nothing after the ball, because you had announced it and the damage was done, and because it protected her from a great deal of talk. We said it would end in three months. I took the blame for it in advance.” He rubbed his eyes. “I should have told you. You would have been angry, and you had every right to be, but I could not face it. I am sorry, Grandmother.”

“I am angry now.”

“I know.”

“I am extremely angry.” She shook her head. “You lied to my face. You dragged a poor girl into the middle of it, and let her sit at my table every day while I made plans I should never have made. I was ready to have you thrown in the pond.”

“Yes.”

“I was ready.” Her mouth trembled very slightly, and she pressed it flat. “Except that I have also watched you these past weeks, Anthony. I have watched you since she came to us. I find that I cannot be as cross as I ought to be, because something rather wonderful has come out of this nonsense.”

He frowned. “What could possibly be wonderful?”

“That you have fallen in love with her.”

Anthony laughed. It was a short sound, and it did not convince even him. “That is absurd. You are reading far too much into it.”

“Do not insult me. I am your grandmother.” Marian set the cat gently on the floor, where it stalked off, and folded her hands in her lap. “I never thought I would see it, I will tell you that plainly. I stopped hoping some years ago, because I could not bear to go on disappointing myself.”

“Grandmother...”

“Let me finish, because I may not be able to say this again with all the words in order.” She drew a breath. “I know how you grew up. I know your mother and father loved one another more than they ever loved you. I watched it happen. I watched a small boy learn that if he asked for nothing, no one would have to refuse him. By the time you were nine you could sit in a room full of people and make yourself so quiet that they forgot you were in it.” Her voice thickened. “My son was my child, and I could not make him look at his own. I have never forgiven myself for that. When you grew up, you built that wall so high around yourself that I thought no one would ever find a door. I thought, he will go through his whole life believing love is a thing that happens to other people, and it will be my fault because I could not stop it.”

Anthony stared at the page. His throat was tight.

“That is not true,” he said eventually. His voice was rougher than he intended.

“A grandmother knows,” she continued. “You are different now, Anthony. You were always such a very handsome wall, my darling. These weeks I have seen a man. You wince when she is hurt. You forget to be clever. You look at a door when she has just gone through it. I do not know how to say what that has meant to me, except that I like him. I like this one a great deal.”

He shut his eyes, knowing that if he tried to say anything, his thoughts might betray him.

“You must stop fighting it,” Marian said quietly. “That is all I have come to say. You are fighting it every hour of the day, and I can see what it is costing you. If she is the one who has brought this man that I like out, then I should like her to stay a very long time.”

“Leonora does not want that.” The words came out raw. “She has very strong opinions on marriage, Grandmother. She has expressed them to me in terms a barrister would envy. She does not intend to marry anyone.”

“That is what she says. I am asking about you.” Marian leaned forward. “What do you want? Have you told her?”

“No.”

“Have you told yourself?”

He opened his eyes. “Grandmother, please –”

“What? It is very much like you to deny yourself these things. It is a valid question.”

Anthony knew what he felt. There was no point in pretending otherwise, not to her, and not any longer to himself. It was not a passing warmth or a fondness for good company. It was large, and steady, and it frightened him more than anything he had ever faced.

But he could not say it aloud in this room. It would be no use if he did.

“What I want is of no importance at present,” he said. “She has been told her mother is dead, and she does not know how or where or why. That is what she needs from me. I will give her that, and then, perhaps, I will have the right to want anything else. Until then I cannot think about it. I have no time to.”