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“What do you know of my family?”

“Do you think I wouldn’t have made inquiries about the family my son had married into?” The dowager laughed. “Do you want to know what they say about your wife behind your back, Gavin?”

“Mother,” Gavin warned, but there was a resignation in his voice that pierced Ina’s heart.

“They all think she was terrified of being a spinster and seduced you and you’re fool enough to have fallen for it.”

For a moment, Ina thought Gavin might rise to her defense once again, but instead he sighed, his shoulders sagging as though he was tired of carrying the burden of defending her.

All these years Ina had assumed he liked that she was a little different from the other ladies he’d met in Edinburgh, finding her at the very least diverting. But diverting wasn’t desirable. Men didn’t marry women who entertained them at parties because of their outrageous opinions or who made them belly laugh when they were out riding.

Wretchedness wrapped around her heart. Men like Gavin were friends with her but they wanted to marry Grace. If she hadn’t forced him to marry her, he would have been free to wed Grace. The woman he actually loved. The one who would give him the sort of love he deserved—sweet and unconditional, with none of the complications Ina dragged along behind her.

“Sir Kier goes on to write that one club has taken bets on how long it’ll be before Ina cuckolds you just like her mother did her father,” said Lady Sophia.

Rage came loose in Ina at hearing her mother—the merry, laughing woman she hardly remembered but still loved—disparaged so openly. Every bit of slander stung, but Ina had learned long ago to hold that all in. Showing her pain would only give the cruel ladies and their laughing gentlemen more fuel. Yet here she was, standing before the woman whose son she’d married, enduring the same insults. She would no longer tolerate it, and so she steeled herself for battle.

“You are free to malign me, but don’t you dare say another word about my mother. She loved me and she was kind,” Ina said, her voice shaking.

“She was also no better than a common whore,” said Lady Sophia, determined to turn her mother into a weapon to use against Ina. “Her affairs were the thing of legend, according to Sir Kier, because she was far from discreet. Closed curtains in boxes at the opera and theater. Champagne-fueled parties in a bachelor’s apartments. She ran with a fast crowd.”

“I won’t deny that my mother enjoyed her life, but her greatest flaw was that she wasn’t conventional.” Ina was practically yelling now. “Her friends will tell you she never once strayed from my father, even though they made each other miserable.”

“Where there is smoke, there is fire,” said Grace.

Ina whirled around and glared at her sister-in-law. “And where there is rumor there’s often cowardice. Society enjoys nothing more than whispering about women who dare to break the rules.”

“This conversation ends now, Mother,” said Gavin. “Ina and I are married. There’s no changing that.”

Her cheeks burned and her hope withered a little more. They were married and there was nothing he could do about it even if he wanted to. He was stuck with a thoroughly unsuitable wife. One he didn’t want, who’d bring speculation and gossip to Oak Park’s front door.

She wanted the floor to swallow her up and take her away from this place. Anything to stop the nightmare of having to relive this moment in front of the mother-in-law who already despised her and the sister-in-law she could never live up to.

“I’ll not live under this roof with her any longer,” said Lady Sophia.

“Then you can leave,” said Gavin.

“Gavin, please stop and consider what you’re asking,” Grace said, stepping forward to place a gentle hand on his forearm. It made Ina want to rip Grace’s hand right off her husband’s arm.

His eyes fell to Grace’s fingers that toyed with the fabric of his sleeve. “I am.”

“There will never be a moment’s peace between your mother and you again,” said Grace.

“What a great loss,” muttered Ina under her breath.

Grace stuck her nose up in the air. “You couldn’t begin to understand.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Grace, but there’s no point in trying to save what’s already broken,” Gavin said, removing his sister-in-law’s hand from his arm.

“Mother, tomorrow morning Harper will arrange for the remainder of your things to be brought to the dower house,” said Gavin. “I’m tired of the delays and excuses. Ina and I will move into our proper apartments tomorrow afternoon, and that is where we’ll live.”

“No,” Ina whispered, but he didn’t turn to her.

“My solicitor will see that you’re well provided for, Mother,” he continued. “You may direct all communications for me through him, but there should be no reason for us to speak again.”

His mother sat stiffly in her chair, her eyes trained on her son. Finally she gave a stiff nod. “If that’s what you wish.”

“It is,” he said.