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Ina took a delicate sip of wine before responding. “Women aren’t allowed to enter.”

Mrs. Sullivan threw back her head and laughed. “Somehow I doubt very much that a simple obstacle like that would stop you, Lady Barrett.”

“Ina, please,” she said. “It seems preposterous for you to address me so formally when you know all my secrets.”

The other woman smiled. “Then you must call me Moira. And I doubt very much I know all your secrets.”

Ina blushed. “Please make yourself comfortable. Norris said you had something urgent to tell me?”

Moira seated herself on the settee and took a sip of wine. “I may have fibbed to your butler that just to get in the door.”

“Is that so?” she asked cautiously.

“I have something important to speak to you about and, although it’s not urgent, I always believe it’s best not to tarry. I understand that Sir Gavin has remained at Oak Park.”

Ina’s heart squeezed and she felt sick to her stomach all over again. She should be used to it by now, given how often it happened.

“His responsibilities keep him there,” she said.

“And yet you’re here,” said Moira.

“My work requires me to be in Edinburgh, where my studio is.”

Sympathy softened Moira’s eyes. “Is everything all right, Ina?”

All at once, Ina began to shake. It wasn’t the delicate, quick chills that sneak up on one, but the hard, wracking ones that come from trying to hold back a sea of emotion.

The matchmaker silently stood, took her wineglass from her, and folded Ina into a hug.

Ina clung to her like a child, her hands wrapping around the pleats at the woman’s waist as though she could somehow be saved if only she hung on a little tighter. She’d tried to be strong the last weeks, but she was miserable. Utterly and undeniably miserable.

“There, there,” murmured Moira, softly stroking her hair. “Everything is going to be all right.”

“How can it?” Ina asked as her body quaked. “I can’t even cry properly anymore. It’s as though I’ve run dry of tears.”

“Tell me what happened,” said Moira.

“It was too hard,” Ina gasped out. “It was simply too hard.”

Moira lifted her face with a gentle finger hooked under her chin. “You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

Ina nodded. “It was such a change, and I thought that it would ruin everything. Now my chance to tell him is gone.”

“There are always more chances,” said Moira.

Ina shook her head emphatically. “No. He doesn’t want me. He told me he was done, that I’d wasted too much time. And now I’ve left him in that horrible house with her.”

“With whom?” asked the matchmaker in confusion.

It was a small comfort to know Moira Sullivan didn’t know everything.

“Grace.”

“Mrs. Barrett?” Moira asked.

“He loved her once a long time ago, and she’s just the sort of wife he needs.”

“What sort of wife would that be?”