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She blinked. “And how would I have been received?”

“As you were today,” he said coldly. “I believe I’ve shown you the door already.”

“Because I was Bertie’s cook? I told you that I was a nobody.”

“No,
I
was a nobody. You were known far and wide. The only British domestic servant more infamous was the queen’s Scotsman.”

“Really?” she said, her eyes downcast. “I didn’t know my notoriety reached quite that extent.”

“Believe me, it did.” He downed what remained in his glass. “It did. Even people who didn’t know Bertie from the Duke of Wellington thought you must be the best fuck since the invention of the mattress.”

She blanched at his language.

“Ten years I squandered on you, ten years of faithful devotion. I spent money I swore I’d never touch on three sets of detectives, looking for you. I could have married. I could have had children. I needed not to have worshipped your sham idol. But I did, because you never had the decency to let me go. You let me cling to false memories and false hopes.”

She had been leaning toward him, but now she leaned away, as if trying to accommodate the size of his anger. “I thought you would regret your offer in the morning,” she said, her eyes sincere. “I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me once the sun rose.”

“You were right. I wouldn’t have—
if only I knew.
And that was why you hid it from me, wasn’t it? You wanted to preserve an illusion. You knew I wouldn’t touch Verity Durant with a ten-foot pole, so you didn’t give me a chance to repudiate her. Then you took that illusion home and left me to pick up the pieces.”

“That’s not true. I never meant to—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant or did not mean to do. I’m sure you concocted all sorts of lovely and noble excuses and I’m sure you wholeheartedly believe in each one of them. But this is
what you did
—you took that illusion home and left me to pick up the pieces.”

“I’m sorry!”

“
You
are sorry? Ten years I waited for you to come back. I revered your galoshes as if they were splinters of the One True Cross. I dropped good money into every church coffer I ever came across on the off chance that there is a God and that he could be bribed into protecting you. And when I finally moved on, you had the gall to come and make me fall in love with you again, knowing perfectly well that there was never any other possible outcome except more misery!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

He didn’t know what happened. But suddenly the whiskey glass was no longer in his hand. It hurtled across the room and shattered against the mantel. She flinched at the sound, her face as colorless as skimmed milk.

He dragged in a harsh breath. “If you didn’t mean to, you’d have left right after Bertie’s funeral. If you didn’t mean to, you’d have shown yourself. If you didn’t mean to, you wouldn’t have in the end. Now please leave. And go far away.”

“Stuart—”

“I don’t recall ever giving you permission to use my Christian name. Refrain from such liberties.”

She gazed at him a long time, with stubborn hope. And then that hope began to die little by little, until he could stand it no more. He turned away. “Go.”

She moved, then paused by the door, still waiting for him to change his mind. He did not look her way. She let herself out of the study. Her footfalls in the corridor were agonizingly slow, as if she were the Little Mermaid emerged from the sea, and every step was walking on knives.

At long last the front door opened and closed. He shut his eyes. He’d always associated her return with an extravagant happiness, the kind promised by fairy tales to keep children from despairing before life’s indiscriminate hardships. But he’d believed it, moon-dust and starlight and all.

It was not to be.

They did not live happily ever after.

The end.

31 Baker Street was an unprepossessing two-bay, brown-brick house, with dormant window boxes affixed to each of its six windows. The six windows were evenly divided in number between the three upper stories, in size they became progressively more squat as Lizzy tilted her head back farther.

She took a deep breath and knocked on the front door, the paint of which had faded from black to a darkish gray. Ever since the night of Stuart’s dinner she’d been desperate to see Mr. Marsden in person, but they had no more meetings scheduled, and this—Sunday afternoon, with her father napping and the servants away from the house—was the earliest opportunity she had to visit him.

Five weeks and scant days to her wedding—what an awful time to be thinking that she might have made a grave mistake.

The door opened with surprising speed, and out spilled a muted but still hearty burst of masculine laughter. Lizzy froze—or she might have turned around and fled.

“Good afternoon, miss,” said the small, neat woman who had opened the door, her voice calm and friendly. “Mr. Todd is not home this afternoon. But I will give your card to him if you leave one with me.”

Mr. Todd was the calligraphist who shared the house with Mr. Marsden. And it was from his card that she knew their address. “I’m not here to see Mr. Todd, but Mr. Marsden.”

The woman, presumably the landlady, looked faintly surprised. “Certainly, miss. Mr. Marsden is home. I will take your card to him.”

The landlady went up a set of narrow, squeaky stairs. Lizzy looked about her. She supposed the inside of the house could still be described as respectable, but genteel it wasn’t. The bits of plaster braids on the ceiling showed signs of a diligent and ongoing battle against London’s soot and grime, a battle that promised no eventual victory. The air smelled of linseed oil and boot black. Through a door that had been left ajar, Lizzy had a view into the landlady’s cramped sitting room, where a skinny tabby napped on a rocking chair upholstered in faded pink chintz.

On the next floor the hum of conversation subsided. She felt a bigger knot forming in her belly. She’d come at a bad time, but she must speak to him, and she’d already waited too long.

The landlady reappeared. “Follow me, please.”

She was led into a small but surprisingly bright and cheerful drawing room, cheerful because of the pale cornsilk wallpaper on which floated whimsical balloons and airships. There were three men in the room. Mr. Marsden, pleasure writ plain on his face, immediatley came forward to shake her hand, alleviating her fears of an awkward entry.

“Miss Bessler, what a delight to see you. Allow me to present Mr. Matthew Marsden, my brother, and Mr. Moore, a good friend of ours. Gentlemen, this is Miss Bessler, the most beautiful lady in all of London.”

Matthew Marsden was an inch or so taller than his brother, and would have been startlingly handsome had he been standing next to anyone but Will Marsden. Mr. Moore wasn’t anywhere near as striking as the Marsden brothers, but he had a good-natured face.

“Mr. Marsden, you are too kind,” she protested. “By most accounts, I’m only the third most beautiful woman in London.”

Mr. Marsden laughed. “Well then, ‘most accounts’ must be sensationally misguided. Please, Miss Bessler, have a seat.”

She did, with a surge of renewed anxiety that he would now politely inquire into what had brought her to his house. He did nothing of the sort.

“We have been gossiping, Miss Bessler,” he said. “Or at least trying to. My brother and Mr. Moore are in England after a two-year absence and hungry for all the latest and naughtiest stories. Alas, they have been quite disappointed with my store of knowledge—I no longer move in Society as I used to. Dare we turn to you for a better supply of anecdotes?”

“Well,” she said, relaxing. “I did run into Ladies Avery and Somersby week before last.”

Lady Avery and Lady Somersby were the leading chroniclers of Society’s passions and follies. They would not dream of sharing anything too juicy with an unmarried young woman, but Lizzy had received information on the courtship-in-progress of several gentlemen known to the Marsden brothers and Mr. Moore and for the next half hour they discussed the pursuits of lucre, power, and privilege that occurred along the path to the altar.

“Oh, and I almost forgot, the younger Mr. Fonteyn is courting Lady Barnaby,” added Lizzy.

“Lady Barnaby, as in Sir Evelyn Barnaby’s widow?” cried Mr. Moore. “But she must be twenty years Fonteyn’s senior.”

“And twenty thousand pounds richer too,” said Lizzy. “There is no such thing as a wealthy woman who is too old.”

“I think you would fare far better with Sir Evelyn’s widow than Fonteyn,” said Matthew Marsden to his brother.

“What, and give up poverty?” Mr. Marsden laughed. “Never!”

“Well, there is something to be said about being poor but independent and obliged to no one,” said Mr. Moore.

“Then again, after one’s elderly bride gives up the ghost, one can be rich
and
independent and obliged to no one,” Lizzy pointed out.

“An enviable state of being,” Mr. Marsden said. “But it is my firm belief that a man should whore himself out only for necessities, never luxuries.”

Matthew Marsden and Mr. Moore both whistled. Lizzy raised an arch brow. “And what do you consider necessities, Mr. Marsden?”

“Coal, Camembert, wine, books, and”—he tossed her a mischievous look—“occasional tickets to symphonic concerts.”

“Oh, yes,” said Matthew Marsden earnestly. “I agree wholeheartedly. Symphonic concerts are an absolute necessity in life. There were years when I pined daily for the chance of one.”

Lizzy spat out her tea, laughing. Three sets of handkerchiefs immediately appeared before her, along with puzzled glances from Matthew Marsden and Mr. Moore. Mr. Marsden laughed silently, his shoulders shaking. She took his handkerchief and wiped herself, her mirth too great to be embarrassed.

“What’s so funny?” demanded Matthew Marsden.

“I’ll tell you later,” said his elder brother. “Now the two of you had best hurry or you’ll be late for tea at Miss Moore’s.”

Mr. Moore jumped up. “My aunt does hate unpunctuality. Quickly, for the sake of my place in her will.”

Everyone laughed. Matthew Marsden and Mr. Moore shook hands warmly with Lizzy and then ran down the steps like a stampede of buffalos.

She remained on her feet after the leave-taking. Mr. Marsden, after casting a quiet glance at her, moved to the window. The afternoon’s sun was about to sink beneath the roof of the opposite houses. One last ray managed the angle, penetrated the panes, and embraced him in a blaze of light. His hair shone as if it had been painted by Vermeer, strand by strand.

“I like your brother. He seems a very good sort of man,” Lizzy said, her voice tentative now that she was alone with him. She had been alone with him on other occasions, but somehow, in his drawing room, alone felt more completely alone.

“Matthew is an angel,” he answered.

“And is Mr. Moore…?”

“No, Mr. Moore is a friend. The one Matthew loved passed away three months ago—he is still in mourning.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

“Matthew is a very private person. On a par with Mr. Somerset, I would say.”

The mention of her fiancé’s name brought back reality—and the purpose of her visit. She’d better get to it—on Sunday afternoons the servants had leave and absented themselves from the house, but her father would wake up from his nap soon enough and wonder where she’d gone unaccompanied.

“Should I ring for more tea?” asked Mr. Marsden.

She shook her head. Since nothing could serve as a proper preliminary to the sort of questions she intended to ask, she skipped the preamble altogether. “Was it you who sent me flowers when I was unwell?”

He walked to the table and poured cold tea into a cup, the clear, umber fluid arcing silver in the light that seemed to have followed him. “It took you this long to realize?”

“It did. Your demeanor did not lead me to suspect you.”

“It’s always easier to pretend not to care.”

Then it meant he did care. Her heart soared—and crashed at the same time. God, five weeks to her wedding. “I thought it was Mr. Somerset.”

“You are blind, Miss Bessler.”

“Yes, I was.” His wet handkerchief she’d wadded and discarded on the tea table. Now she opened it and pulled the corners straight. “So…you have formed an attachment to me.”