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The air burned in Stella’s lungs. She could get through it. She’d survived her parents’ funeral, after all. An abrupt move to a new house, with an aunt and uncle whose disappointment in their lack of offspring only deepened after she joined them.

She had been alone for a long time, and if she found herself alone in her marriage, it would just be more of the same. Hopefully Giles wouldn’t be so undignified as to stare longingly at Yasmin once they were both married to other people.

Stella was drifting around Lydia’s wedding breakfast, trying to avoid ladies curious about her supposed secret betrothal to their host, when her aunt rushed up and clutched her upper arm. “Come.”

Her heart sank, thinking that Giles was waiting in another room, a ring in hand.

Stella allowed herself to be borne away as unlucky sailors are borne away by a rogue wave: with profound helplessness and a roaring in her ears. Her aunt led her out of the drawing room and to the library.

Giles wasn’t there.

Mrs. Thyme pulled Stella across the room and pushed open a door that turned out to lead to a small alley running beside the townhouse.

“Are we leaving the wedding breakfast?” Stella asked. Her aunt would never sneak out a side entrance as if ashamed of her own shadow. And yet here she was, silently marching down the alley, pulling Stella toward their waiting carriage.

The jagged, broken feeling in her chest eased. This didn’t feel like the prelude to a proposal.

“Are you all right, Aunt?” Stella asked, once they were seated.

Mrs. Thyme let out a sob, hand on her heart. “Oh, ’tis the most evil, the most pernicious!” Her voice rose to a peak and broke off.

The carriage lurched into motion.

“I don’t understand,” Stella said. Relief was making her fingertips tingle.

“The earl is leaving for the country to find her,” Mrs. Thyme cried. “To marry Lady Yasmin! After courting you until all of London thinks you’re affianced!”

Stella’s eyes widened. “Did he tell you that himself?”

“How can you be so calm!” Her aunt dashed away a tear. “You poor naïve child, you have no idea how people will pity and sneer at you. If only Mr. Thyme had accompanied us, he would have slapped the earl with his glove. The insult is such that someone ought to fight a duel for your honor!”

Stella tried to imagine her mild-mannered uncle—who far preferred growing prizewinning gourds to any activity society might offer—advancing on the earl, bloodcurdling rage in his eyes.

Impossible.

Men may avenge insults to Yasmin’s honor, but not to hers.

“The earl sat beside you in the family box!” her aunt hissed. “How dare he invite you to the theater, only to make you the cynosure of all eyes?”

“Actually, Lydia invited me,” Stella murmured.

Joy was washing through her, though she knew better than to express it to her aunt. Marriage to Giles would have been dreadful. The stodgy earl would have only grown more so. She, who had never been good enough to please her mother, or her aunt, or her uncle, for that matter (she had almost no memories of her father), would have never been good enough for her husband either.

Her mother had treasured the idea of a daughter with clear skin. Her aunt still treasured the idea of a daughter who was lithe and graceful, with perfect vision. Although to be fair, her mother and aunt both desperately hoped to spare her the contempt of people like Lydia.

But Giles? Giles treasured the idea of Yasmin, just as Silvester did.

“Oh, Stella!” her aunt wailed. She opened her reticule and pulled out a handkerchief as tears began to roll off her chin. “Your mother would be so disappointed in me. Are you crushed?”

“No,” Stella said apologetically. “I’m afraid that I’m not very sentimental, Aunt. I’m not in love with the earl.”

“Love! Who cares about love? Do you think I was in love with your uncle when I married him? You had the chance to be a noblewoman, to regain the status that I lost when I married Mr. Thyme.” She dashed away more tears. “I failed you and my sister.”

Stella moved to sit beside her aunt. “You did not fail me. The earl is in love with Lady Yasmin. I have a feeling that he doesn’t respect the emotion any more than you do, but clearly he couldn’t suppress it.”

“Disrespectful sneaksby!”

“Actually, the earl was always very respectful,” Stella ventured. “He never indicated by word or deed that he intended to marry me.”