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She’d undone the dark blue ribbon holding the paper shut and skimmed the page, looking up sharply when she saw that the deed was made out in her name, just as he’d promised.

“You bought a house?” she asked.

“I bought you a house. After all, I am a man of my word.”

She stared at the document in disbelief. She was at once delighted that she owned something in her own name, yet she was confused, too. Guy had told her that if they were to be married in time to travel to London for Margot’s wedding, they would need to focus their time on finding a marital home. Her dower house would have to wait.

“Oak Cottage,” she read out. “Where is that?”

“Altadena. It’s a good solid house on three acres of land, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. There are eight more acres to the south that might come up for sale one day. Are you not happy?”

“I am delighted. It’s just a shock.” After all, she hadn’t even seen the place. She’d hoped that she might have a say in choosing her house, but apparently her husband-to-be had other plans.

“I learned through a few friends that the owners intended to sell, and I had to move swiftly before anyone else swooped in,” he explained. “It will need some work, but I thought you might enjoy a project.”

Thinking of what her mother, who had been horrified when she found out Adele had begun negotiations on her marriage settlement before even accepting Guy’s proposal, would say, she folded up the deed, kissed his cheek, and thanked him.

It was months, however, before Adele saw Oak Cottage. First there was the wedding and then their honeymoon. After that, the Gables, their new home on South Orange Grove Boulevard, needed attention. It was not, in fact, until the following autumn that Guy drove Adele up to Altadena to look at Oak Cottage.

She remembered the drive so well. The sun had been shining—of course—and as they climbed higher into the foothills, the businesses and houses of the valley began to fall away. Soon they were passing only a house every quarter of a mile.

“This was once ranchland,” Guy explained when she asked about the isolation.

It felt as though they were almost touching the mountains when finally Guy led the horses off the dusty dirt road and through a break in the scrub oaks.

“Are you certain this is a drive?” she asked, the ruts under the gig’s wheels deep enough to make her bounce on the hard bench seat.

“It will need some improvements,” he admitted.

Just how many improvements became obvious when, around a bend, the house burst into view. A short set of steps led up to a porch topped by a gently pitched roof trimmed in peeling white paint and bounded by squared columns of the same color and a bright red front door inlaid with stained glass. To the right of the porch, she could just see three windows caked with dust and dirt and framed by shutters, one of which was hanging drunkenly from its hinges. A second sloping roof bounded the second story, where several shingles seemed to be missing.

“Shall we go inside?” asked Guy, drawing the buggy to a stop.

She nodded, albeit trepidatiously. He handed her down, a woodsy, camphor scent filling her nose.

“What is that I can smell?” she asked.

“Eucalyptus.” He gestured to a stand of trees a dozen feet away from the north edge of the property. “An Australian introduced them during the Gold Rush and people started to use them as windbreaks. Come on.”

She followed him up the creaking steps of the front porch. A wild rose dotted with single-cupped white blooms had twined itself around the gaps in the porch’s rail, and a thorn snagged on her dress.

“Oh!” she cried.

Guy, who had already unlocked the door with a key he produced from his pocket, must not have heard her because he was already inside, declaiming on the condition of the solid oak floors.

She untangled the fabric herself and then hurried inside.

“What do you think?” asked Guy, sweeping his arms out in front of him.

Dust danced a ballet in the weak light from the sitting room window as she looked about her. The room was entirely devoid of furniture, but as her eyes adjusted, she could see solid built-in cabinets on either side of a decorative tile-and-iron fireplace that reminded her of some of the homes where she had taken tea in London. An iron-and-orange-glass chandelier hung in the center of the room, the remnants of old candles still evident from the white drips of wax that clung to the holders.

“It’s an Arts and Crafts bungalow,” Guy explained, filling the silence as he was wont to do. “I know that it needs work, but it’s a good house. It’s stood nearly a decade unoccupied, and there’s hardly a leak about the place.”

When she did not say anything, he stepped in front of her to take up her hands. “Do you like it?”

“May I see the rest of it?” she asked.

Guy rushed ahead to open an oak door leading off the sitting room inlaid with the same stained-glass panels as the front door. She could see now that the motif was a rose set in black squares and bordered by an orangey-brown rectangle that picked up the color of the oak nicely.