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“Callie,” said Cressida quietly, “if you marry Tom, you will marry very well indeed.”

“I know.” Callie seemed unable to contain herself any longer, and she embraced Cressida before hurrying off to tell Granny.

Cressida turned back to Papa's journal and the sketch pad where she'd been making her notes. Back to Portsmouth. . . Her eyes flitted around the conservatory. Away from Penford. She got up and walked slowly through the house. Her mind reeled. Callie and Tom, to be married! It was wonderful that two people so dear to her could find happiness together; it was everything she had hoped for. . . but it was also a thunderous crack in her world. For so long they had all been together as a family, but now the two them really would be a family—and Cressida knew with a creeping discomfort that it would be strange. They would set up house together. They might have children. They would sit by the fire at nights together, and then they would go to bed together.

And Cressida, the spinster sister, would be left sitting by the fire with Granny.

She was not jealous. She was not. Cressida refused to be jealous when she really was truly happy for Callie, who deserved love and happiness, and for Tom, who had loved her so long and been so good to all of them. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she wrestled with her wildly irrational emotions, and before she knew it she was standing in front of Alec’s study door.

Screw up your courage and tell him.

John Hayes opened the door when she knocked. Cressida wet her lips. “I beg pardon. I don’t wish to interrupt⁠—”

“We’re finished, Miss Turner.” Mr. Hayes glanced over his shoulder at Alec, who stood behind his desk. “Are we not?”

“We are. Please, come in.” Alec beckoned for her to enter. Mr. Hayes bowed his head politely as he held the door for her, then let himself out.

Suddenly she felt like a fool, running to unburden herself to Alec when he clearly had worries of his own, and had shouldered some of hers as well in his search for Papa. What was she to say? That her sister was in love and getting married, and it made her heart writhe with longing to be the one someone loved beyond all reason? It was envy, small and petty, and Cressida hated herself for feeling it.

Alec came around the desk. “You look distressed. Has something happened?”

“Yes.” She sat on the sofa, where she’d sat the previous night. “But a very happy thing. Mr. Webb has asked my sister to marry him, and she has accepted.”

“Ah.” His gaze swept her face. “I suspected Webb harbored hopes in that direction. I wish them both very happy.”

She gave an embarrassed laugh. Of course Alec would have noticed what she’d not seen in years of living with Tom and Callie. “Yes, he has for some time. My father. . . I think Papa won’t approve. . . ” She stopped, concentrating on stilling her restless hands. “No, I must be honest with you,” she said in a low voice. “Papa knew Tom loved her, and he warned Tom away. He even. . . He even married Callie to that horrid Mr. Phillips to prevent Tom courting her.” Alec said nothing. Cressida swallowed. “None of that changed Tom’s feelings. He stayed with us all these years because he kept loving her, in spite of Papa. Both of them deserve to love, and be loved.”

“Indeed,” he murmured.

For a moment it was silent as Cressida sat picking at a loose thread at the edge of her sleeve and not looking at him. What had she expected him to say? “They plan to return to Portsmouth,” she said to fill the void. “Granny will go with them. She was born and raised in Portsmouth, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to go back.” The loose thread began to unravel in earnest. She forced herself to stop and clasped her hands.

“I’ll speak to Webb, then,” Alec said. “He'll want a wagon for the journey.”

Cressida nodded once. “That’s very kind.” But not what she longed to hear. Did he assume she was going with them as well? What had she hoped he would say? Cressida knew her thoughts must be written on her face, but she was helpless to hide them. Perhaps she shouldn’t even try. Perhaps he would make the decision for her. He was too honorable to trifle with her. Surely if he cared nothing for her, he would be merciful and wish her well with her family in Portsmouth.

“And do you go with them?” he asked, as if he could hear her tangled thoughts.

She looked up and met his gaze. Her heart thudded and her white-knuckled fingers trembled. She should say yes, because she had no reason not to go with her family. Instead she sat there staring into Alec’s fathomless blue eyes and said nothing.

An eternity seemed to pass. Because Cressida, who always had a smart answer and who never shied from speaking bluntly, was completely tongue-tied by the realization that she did want him to ask her to stay, for any reason at all.

Abruptly he surged to his feet. “Will you walk with me?”

Dumbly she nodded. She stood and went out the door when he opened it, walked with him through the house and out into the garden. Past the gardenias and the roses, past the wildflowers that carpeted the lawn just behind the garden, across the grass, and on and on they walked. Cressida didn’t know what he intended, but she realized that it didn’t matter; she trusted him.

“I never missed Penford while I was away,” he said suddenly. “I wanted adventure, and did my best to find it at every opportunity. I was the terror of Marston, along with Will Lucey, as anyone will tell you. When I was eighteen my father was only too happy to purchase a commission in the army and send me off to all the adventure one could have fighting Bonaparte, and I was only too happy to go. I packed my trunk and didn’t look back.”

He came to a stop on a slight rise overlooking sloping fields, with the river sparkling in the distance like a fine silver thread. The house was behind them, nestled in the verdant gardens. It was warm and bright and beautiful, and again Cressida thought that she would rather be here than anywhere. How could he leave without looking back, without growing sick for home at some point, when this was home?

But Alec’s eyes seemed to be focused somewhere else entirely as he narrowed his eyes against the sunshine.

“I never thought Penford would be mine, or that I would have such a duty to it. If I had suspected. . . ” He paused, and spoke more slowly, choosing each word with care. “If I had suspected, I might have acted differently. Or perhaps not.

“A battle is unimaginable. No one who hasn’t survived one can truly understand the confusion, the noise, the frantic efforts to control men and horses and guns and get them into anything resembling what the commanding officers ordered. Nor can anyone comprehend the blind panic that drives men to abandon their positions and run when the tide of battle changes. There are long stretches of waiting, forming up, trying to maneuver into position, and then all hell breaks loose and you have only a second to react or be killed. It’s terrifying and yet, at the same time, exhilarating. One’s blood runs hot and fast, one’s mind works at a feverish pace. At moments you feel capable of inhuman feats, and perhaps you are.”

He fell silent again. Cressida gazed at the gentle swells of peaceful green grass and tried to picture them swarming with men, bloody and wounded, charging forward with murder in their eyes. Papa had never said much about actual battles, and the dispatches printed in the newspapers always painted such a glorious picture of gallant officers leading their men into the fray, of steadfast British infantry standing firm under withering enemy fire. She knew men died in war, or came back mangled and scarred, but she had really only known Tom and Papa, who both returned home whole and healthy.

And Alec, whispered a little voice in her head, reminding her of the scars that lashed his back and chest. You know him. . .