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“I interrupted you,” Stephanie said.

“After…” Maria frowned. “Ah, yes. After my father died, I went with my mother to live in the country. She was in poor health for the remaining years of her life and needed me to look after her. I was fortunate enough to have an excellent governess, who stayed as my companion after I was eighteen. But I was very lonely anyway. We had occasional calls from villagers, and more frequent ones from Estelle and Bertrand, who lived at Elm Court not far away. Estelle and I became close friends. I loved her—and love her—very dearly. But when Justin insisted that I move back home with him after my mother died and invited Estelle and Bertrand to go too for a short while, he also invited all the family, of whom I knew virtually nothing—my mother’s relatives, my father’s, and even Justin’s mother’s. I was terrified. I had almost no experience with people, and all I knew of all those people had come from my mother and was horribly negative. She believed everyone hated her.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Stephanie said.

“But the weeks following my return home were the most wonderful of my life,” Maria said. “I thought all those relatives hated me too, but the very opposite was true. Even the family of my father’s first wife were wonderful and loving. I believe Justin hoped to persuade one of the aunts to sponsor my debut into society the following spring, but I wanted nothing to do with that. Finally I had friends of all ages. I have spent the years since then visiting them, some in Yorkshire, some in the west country, some not far from us, and having the time of my life with aunts and uncles and cousins, forgetting how shy I am. My mother’s aunt, an eccentric old lady who had married above her station and lived for years in London as a widow, came to live with us for a while because Justin realized that all her crustiness hid a deep loneliness. But my uncle and aunt from Yorkshire bore her off after a year or so to live with them, and they all seem happy with the situation. It is lovely, lovely, is it not, to have family and to know oneself loved?”

Stephanie’s mind skimmed over all the troubles and turmoil her own family had suffered through in her lifetime. All the pain. And all the joy.

“It is,” she said.

“Are you going to marry Bertrand?” Maria asked. “No. I am so sorry. Please ignore that question. It is none of my business. I have not been much interested in marrying myself. I have been too busy and too happy getting to know all my relatives and enjoying the sense of belonging I must have had as a child but lost after all that followed Justin’s leaving home so abruptly and my father dying. I am not going to go into any details about all that. But I will be twenty-five on my next birthday. Pretty soon I will be sitting alone on a dusty shelf.”

She laughed and Stephanie smiled.

“Do you have anyone particular in mind?” she said.

“Not really,” Maria said. “I think Estelle and Justin were hoping that something might develop between me and one of the gentlemen here this summer, including your brother. I like them all exceedingly well, but I feel no spark of…attraction to any of them. I never have for Bertrand either even though he is glorious to look at and has the nature to go with his looks. I have been starting to think maybe there is something wrong with me. But…What is your impression of Mr. Cobb?”

The gentleman farmer? Maria had walked with him yesterday to the formal gardens.

“He is good-looking in a rugged sort of way,” she said.

“I do not find him handsome at all,” Maria said, frowning in thought. “His skin is too…swarthy, and his features are too harsh, and his nose is too big. He is too stocky. No, not that. Too large. He strikes me as the masterful sort, the sort of man who knows what he wants and will brook no opposition until he gets it. He speaks his mind without tact and listens to what someone else has to say with fierce concentration and dark eyes that seem to see right into one’s skull and out the back of one’s head. I find him…attractive and am horrified by my reaction. He is not at all the sort of man with whom I feel comfortable.”

Stephanie smiled.

“And Miss Cobb, his sister, positively terrifies me,” Maria said, and laughed. “But Mr. Cobb told me they have an elderly aunt whose health is failing. She announced recently that apart from a few bequests to faithful retainers, she is leaving everything she possesses, including a sizable home, to Miss Cobb. And he believes she is very wealthy. He will be alone when his sister leaves. Mr. Cobb is a widower, you know. He was married as a very young man to a young lady who died of consumption a scant two weeks after the wedding. He married her because they loved each other and her father was overprotecting her and keeping her isolated, and her mother was too upset to stay in the sickroom with her. It is a tragically romantic story. But all these years later—he is in his thirties—he is ready to marry again and give his heart and all his loyalties again. And he never does such things in half measures.”

“He told you all this?” Stephanie said.

“Oh yes,” Maria said. “Looking very directly at me the whole time. He is going to have his sister invite a group of us for tea one afternoon so he may show me his home and stables and farm. It would be inappropriate to invite me alone, though.”

“Maria!” Stephanie said.

“I know,” Maria said. “Terrifying, is it not?”

They stared at each other for a few moments.

“Are you likely to get swept off your feet and live to regret it?” Stephanie asked.

Maria thought about it. “No,” she said. “I am no raw girl. I have too much to lose. But possibly everything to gain. He gives me the shudders.”

“With revulsion?” Stephanie asked.

“No.” Maria frowned again. “With— What is the word I am searching for?”

“Attraction?” Stephanie said.

“Desire,” Maria said, and flushed scarlet and spread her hands over her face and laughed. “Definitely desire. How awful of me. Whatever will you think?”

“That you are honoring me with a strict, very personal confidence,” Stephanie said.

Maria lowered her hands. “Is that the way you feel about Bertrand?” she said. But she held up one hand, palm out. “No. Do not answer that. It is still none of my business.”

“But it is,” Stephanie said. “It is the way I feel about him, that is.”

And the truth struck her like a tidal wave. She loved him, she was in love with him, as she had admitted to Mama last night. But she also wanted him. No, that was too tame a word, and Maria had already offered the right one. She desired him.