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Will you allow me to persuade you if I can that merely settling for what is safe is not a good enough basis for a happy marriage?

Was settling what she had been prepared to do with Mr. Courtney? Accepting less than what she really wanted because she thought it was all she deserved, that was, or all she could realistically aspire to? It sounded horrible. It sounded like a dreadful insult to a man who definitely did not deserve to be any woman’s second-best choice.

Could it be true?

What did she really want, then? What did she really aspire to? Or should that be whom? She could not believe that it, or he, could possibly be Viscount Watley. It was not that she considered herself inferior to him. Rather, it was because she was uncomfortable with him. She did not consider herself less than anyone. Nor did she consider him more than.

Yet that was what she had told him. And…Had she really agreed to allow him to persuade her that she was wrong?

Oh, she must set aside these horribly disturbing thoughts until she was alone and could think clearly. In the meanwhile, there were the fireworks to look forward to. Coming here had been such a lovely idea.

Captain Paulson had indeed returned to the picturesque nook where Nicholas and Winifred were seated side by side on two of the comfortable chairs arranged about a rustic wooden table. The nook gave the effect of cozy seclusion without cutting them off from a view of the main alley and one of the fountains, which spouted water from the mouths of two plump stone cherubs. Nicholas had preferred to settle his wife here rather than venture into the more heavily crowded area closer to the rotunda. Winifred, glowing with happiness, had her hand on the arm of Nicholas’s chair, covered by his own.

Captain Paulson, who appeared to have been pacing before the table, looked both mortified and relieved when he saw Stephanie. “I do beg your pardon, Lady Stephanie,” he said, taking a step toward her. “I assumed you and Viscount Watley were following Miss Easton and me, but when I looked back, there was no sign of you. It was appallingly ill-mannered of me to suggest we change partners when I ought to have waited to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Easton tomorrow before talking about home. I have been beside myself with shame and worry.”

“Good evening, Bertrand,” Nicholas said while Winifred beamed at him. “Win and I have been assuring Captain Paulson that if Stephanie was with you, she was perfectly safe and you would deliver her back here before the fireworks.”

“Of course I was safe,” Stephanie said. “Your neighbors must have been very happy to see you, Captain Paulson.”

“I believe they were more perturbed by the absence of Viscount Watley,” he said ruefully. “I am so sorry.”

“I must return there,” Viscount Watley said. “Perhaps I will see you all at the fireworks display later. Oh, and happy birthday, Winnie.” His smile encompassed them all.

“Do come and call on us, Bertrand,” she said to him. “I am longing to show you the cottage. I do not have to send a formal invitation, do I?”

His eyes met Stephanie’s. “I will come with Owen one day soon. He is bound to wish to see his sister before she returns home,” he said before raising a hand in farewell and leaving them.

Chapter Eleven

Bertrand called upon his father and Viola a few days later. They had told him the evening before when he saw them at the theater that they intended to stay at home today.

“I had all but forgotten, Bert, that it is very easy to be—no, it is actually virtually impossible not to be—drawn into an endless round of essentially meaningless social activities when one is in town,” his father had said. “It gets to a point at which one can hardly tell if one is facing forward or backward, if it is night or day, or if one is enjoying oneself or is about to run screaming back home to the country in pursuit of one’s sanity.”

Viola had laughed. “He is enjoying himself, Bertrand,” she had said. “So am I. But a whole day at home sounds very enticing, I must confess. Do come and call on us if you do not have other plans. We will not have the door barred against all comers.”

“Just most,” his father had said. “Anyone who can claim one of us as a parent will be welcome.”

He was the only one presently in London who could make that claim, Bertrand had thought with some amusement.

They sat now side by side on a sofa in the drawing room, their hands not quite touching in the space between them, while Bertrand occupied one of the comfortable wing chairs beside the fireplace. They chatted easily to him, both beaming affection upon him. A newspaper, rather untidily folded, a couple of books, and a few half-open letters were strewn on the small tables on either side of the sofa, suggesting that it was their preferred place to sit.

Even after more than eleven years of marriage, there was still something of the newlyweds about them.

How very different his father was now from the way he used to be, before he met Viola and promptly ran away with her though he had been expected home at the time for the surprise fortieth birthday party a very young Estelle had planned for him with excited and meticulous care. That incident had provoked a major crisis and turning point in all their lives. It had been terribly hard to forgive his father for what to his children had been a lifetime of selfish neglect. Even after he had talked frankly with them, accepting blame, giving an explanation for his behavior but no excuses, it had been difficult to forgive the suffering he had inflicted upon them until after their childhood was gone forever. He had revealed himself as a broken, tormented man, but he had also been a man, an adult, who might have made different choices, especially when there had been children involved.

Estelle had been the first to forgive. It had taken Bertrand longer. Indeed, for a while he had thought it impossible. What his father had done was surely unforgivable. But finally he had understood two things. First, his refusal was hurting Estelle, the most precious person in his life. Second, it was hurting him too, more than he could bear. For all through their childhood they had longed for their father. They had loved him. And though love might be sorely tested, it never died. Besides, if forgiveness was impossible, why was the word even in the English language or at the heart of their religion?

“Have you received your invitation?” his father asked.

“Which one?” Bertrand asked. Invitations arrived with the post almost every day.

“Adrian Sawyer is about to turn thirty,” Viola said. “Matilda has arranged a party for him and is inviting a few select friends.”

Bertrand laughed. “Poor Adrian,” he said. “He was hoping no one would remember if he kept very quiet about it himself.”

Adrian Sawyer, Aunt Matilda’s stepson and Viscount Dirkson’s son, was one of Bertrand’s friends. They had been at Oxford together, though Adrian had been one year ahead of him and Owen. Peter Wayne had been there too, one year behind them.

“One would hope, then, that the invitees really are just a few select friends,” Bertrand’s father said. “However, I do believe that to Matilda a few means as many people of notable rank and lineage as can be crammed into the house. She will complain afterward about how crowded the house was and will be as happy as…as what, Viola?”