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And she thought about Bertrand, who loved his father despite everything. And they were both still alive to build a better, closer relationship than the tentative one that had begun when Bertrand forgave his father, largely for Estelle’s sake.

She did not have that luxury with her own father. He was dead.

“You look tired, Stephanie.” The marchioness had come to sit beside her in the chair Owen had left. “I hope it is only tiredness I see on your face.” She set a hand over Stephanie’s on her lap.

Stephanie smiled. “Oh, it is,” she said. “But I do apologize for allowing it to show. That was a lovely service and a lovely tea this afternoon, was it not?”

“The Powells are much loved here,” the marchioness said. “If you wish to withdraw early, no one will be offended. I will make your excuses for you.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie said. “You are kind.”

“And you are my guest and I must look after you,” the marchioness said. “Off you go now.”

They stood up together and the marchioness came to the foot of the stairs with her and kissed her cheek as she said good night before turning to smile at Lady Molenor, who had just come from the library, a book clutched to her bosom.

“I am for my bed, Viola,” she said. “And perhaps a little read first. I hope you will excuse me.”

What a day it had been, Stephanie thought as she climbed the stairs beside Lady Molenor. She hardly knew how to drag herself upstairs to her bedchamber.

“I think this book is going to have to wait for another day, alas,” Lady Molenor said, stifling a yawn as they reached the top of the stairs. “Thomas and I usually live a far quieter life when we are at home. But this is turning into a lovely visit as well as a very busy one, is it not? Are you enjoying yourself, Stephanie?”

“Very much,” Stephanie said.

“I am delighted,” Lady Molenor said. “Maria is enjoying herself too, though she found her Mr. Cobb before either Matilda or Louise or I detected the gleam in his eye. We must be losing our touch. Good night, my dear.” She kissed Stephanie’s cheek and took herself off to her room.

Oh, how she liked those three ladies, Stephanie thought with a smile as she closed the door of her bedchamber behind her.

She fell asleep dreaming of a cabin on a wooded hillside, the door securely locked on the inside to keep the world away from the cozy interior and the two lovers immersed in each other there. This must be how her mother must feel about her cottage beside the river at Ravenswood.

—

“Shall we sit for a while?” the marquess suggested after Lady Molenor had left the library. “I am not quite in the mood for cards. Or billiards.”

“I think everyone is feeling a little tired this evening,” Bertrand said, sinking into a leather armchair on one side of the fireplace in the library while his father poured them a drink from one of the decanters on the sideboard. “Not from boredom, I must add. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“It seems to me that everyone is having a good time,” his father said, taking the companion chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “It will be rather sad to wave everyone on their way next week, though we will still have Abby and Gil for a while and Estelle and Justin and all the children. And possibly Maria. Viola believes Cobb is smitten with her and she is pleased about it. Women notice such things, and they are generally right. Are you still determined to return to Elm Court?”

That had been the plan when Bertrand agreed to come here. Back to the quietness of his preferred life and home.

“I may stay a little longer,” he said. “If I will not be imposing, of course.”

His father regarded him silently across the distance between them, his glass suspended in one hand.

“I have been missing Estelle a bit,” Bertrand said, though the tie of near inseparability between them had been weakened when he went to Oxford and again after she married. As it ought, of course. They had their own lives to live and would never again depend entirely upon each other as they had when they were growing up. “And you and Viola too.”

His father still said nothing, but he did raise his glass to his lips while Bertrand twirled the contents of his own. He had never been much of a drinker. He had not even started until after he went to Oxford.

“And Redcliffe,” Bertrand said. “I did not realize how much it came to feel like home during the few years we lived here. I have missed it.”

He had not understood how much until the past few weeks. He had always clung to his preference for Elm Court. His safe retreat. The environment he could control.

“I am afraid it was my presence here that drove you away,” his father said.

“No,” Bertrand said.

“I deserved your leaving,” the marquess said. “Unconscious revenge for all the years I deserted you.”

“No,” Bertrand said, frowning.