About Anthea Lawson

A USA Today bestselling author and two-time RITA nominee, Anthea Lawson was named “one of the new stars of historical romance” by Booklist. Her books have received starred reviews in Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. A Lord’s Chance is the newest novella in her Passport to Romance collection.

Anthea lives with her husband and daughter in sunny Southern California, where they enjoy fresh oranges all winter long. In addition to writing historical romance, Anthea plays the Irish fiddle and pens bestselling, award-winning YA urban fantasy as Anthea Sharp.

Find out about all her books at anthealawson.com, and join her mailing list, tinyletter.com/AntheaLawson, for a FREE STORY, plus all the news about upcoming releases and reader perks!

For more sweet Victorian romance by Anthea, try the following novellas:

A Countess for Christmas

A Duke for Midwinter

A Prince for Yuletide

To Wed the Earl

A Lady’s Choice

For more romantic adventure set abroad, the *spicy* full-length novel Fortune’s Flower reveals Isabelle’s past, as the Strathmore family adventures in Tunisia in search of a fabled bloom.

A Love to Claim

Rebecca Connolly

Chapter One

London, 1845

Was there ever anything more tedious than a ball? Crowds of people bustling here and there, jostling the unsuspecting guest and upsetting conversations and glasses of punch, and being forced into overpoliteness for fear of appearing uncouth by behaving in the reverse.

And that was only if the ball were hosted by the popular individuals.

God help the poor souls who hosted a ball that no one attended and at which the aforementioned occurrences could not occur due to lack of sufficient numbers to make the evening more hectic. There was no recovering from that sort of thing.

Not that Abigail Sterling cared one whit about popularity, balls, or recovering from a Society misstep. She did not.

Would not and could not.

She had enough to be getting on with in her own personal missteps and perceived follies.

Nearly three years, and she was still getting the occasional comment or remark from those who could not mind their own business or keep themselves informed on the current standings of various members of Society and the gossip that circulated among them. Well-meaning older women and impertinent younger women tended to let their interest in her resurface when there was nothing else to discuss, and it really was ridiculous.

Nothing had even happened! There had been no scandal, no broken engagements, and no jilting by either party! No one was ruined, and no one would be shunned by Society. Lives had certainly been changed, but only three of them, as far as she could count.

Nothing broken but her heart, and that had mended.

Mostly.

The cracks tended to reappear when the insensitive comments did.

She tried her utmost to keep herself aloof when such comments arose, and she could honestly say that she had no more emotional attachment to the situation beyond that of annoyance. No more broken heart, no more pining, and no more tears of any sort. The reminder of her past disappointment rankled but did not provide any sort of upset to her daily living, nor even to her sleep.

There was simply nothing else to talk about where she was concerned, so the gossips revisited it whenever they could.

She really ought to have spent more time away from London, but there was only so much good that avoidance could offer, and she had spent the lot.

“Don’t look so disgruntled, Abigail. It’s a ball, not a hanging.”

She glared up at her brother, a high-and-mighty sort where his sisters were concerned, no matter how they could trounce him in nearly all of his gentlemanly pursuits. “It’s all the same to me, Thomas, and you know it.”

He grinned down at her, dark eyes flashing with mischief. “Any social occasion is a hanging for you. You’ll never manage any sort of husband or friends if you don’t change your tune.”

Abigail scowled and looked away, wishing it would not cause comment to tread her brother’s foot loudly and repeatedly in this particular environment. “I have friends enough.”

“Mama’s Spinster Chronicle friends, their husbands, and their offspring do not count,” Thomas countered. “Particularly not Cousin Izzy’s.”

He had a point there. She was honest enough to say that much at least.

She made a small sound of complaint under her breath that made her brother chuckle. “How long must we stay?”

“It’s been three quarters of an hour, Abs,” Thomas pointed out without any semblance of sympathy. “And they’ve not even brought out the meal yet. Unless there is some great emergency preventing you from staying, you must wait that out, at least.”

Abigail groaned without restraint. “But no one is asking me to dance, and so I stand here next to you, of all people, looking as though there is something wrong with me.” She glanced down at her gown and put her hands on her sides, feeling the steady tension of her corset. “Is there something wrong with me? My skirts seem fine enough, and my bodice is in place. . . . My corset could go smaller, if my figure is an issue.”

“I refuse to comment on your figure in a public place, Abigail Sterling,” he retorted hotly, lowering his voice for the benefit of those in the nearest vicinity. “I am your brother, not your lady’s maid, for God’s sake.”

That earned him a dark look. “Then ignore the figure aspect. Is my gown amiss?”

Thomas sighed the longsuffering sigh all brothers know well. “No, Abs. It is a very fine gown and suits you well. I’ll even go so far as to say it makes your eyes stand out as greener than usual.”

She made a face of polite consideration, and appeared a little impressed. That was a suitable compliment, especially from one’s brother, who was more likely to tug her hair from its coiffure than praise anything about her.

Her hands flew to her hair, patting the aforementioned coiffure carefully. “And my hair? I was torn between ribbons or decorative pins, but the ribbons seemed more suited to the occasion.”

The answer she received was a bewildered and indignant look.

She frowned. “I’m guessing you aren’t going to comment on my hair either.”

“You haven’t got a single hair out of place,” her brother assured her, still looking almost ill, “but I am gravely concerned that you seem to think I am one of your sisters. Are you feeling well? Have you a fever?”

He made a show of placing a hand against her brow, and she batted it away, smiling reluctantly. “Wretch. Ned would have taken me seriously, I’ll have you know.”

“I highly doubt that. Ned doesn’t care about anything so tedious unless it comes dressed in a brilliantly scarlet officer’s coat with glimmering gold buttons.” Thomas widened his eyes meaningfully, his mouth forming a strained line that made Abigail laugh aloud.

“Aww,” Abigail eventually replied. “Poor Ned. I’m sure he will make captain soon enough.”

“Not soon enough for my taste,” Thomas muttered, taking a glass from a passing footman and downing it in one ungentlemanly swig. “Our brother is obsessed with furthering his career, and I don’t care.”

Abigail smiled at her brother’s statement, knowing he meant only part of what he said. Thomas and Ned were rather close, as it happened, and Ned and Abigail shared a close bond themselves, being just shy of a year apart in age. That had not stopped Ned from participating in whatever schemes Thomas concocted against the girls of the family, but when he was not a scamp, either at seven or seventeen, he was Abigail’s favorite sibling.

“The point is,” Thomas went on, his tone returning to normal, “that there is nothing in any sort of visible or obvious way as to detract from anyone’s opinion of you.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Some people are simply unintelligent, and there it is.”

Abigail coughed a surprised laugh, as did someone near them. She didn’t dare look to verify their eavesdropper’s identity and kept her attention strictly on the dance. “Who told you that?” she hissed between restrained giggles.

“Papa did. Last week.”

Now there was no way to control her laughter, and she turned her face into her brother’s sleeve to muffle the sounds. He reached over with his far arm and patted her shoulder as though she were sobbing against him rather than snickering. “There, there, sister dear,” he murmured with all the condescension of elder brothers. “Come, come, you mustn’t make such a scene.”

Abigail whacked at his shins with her slipper, and he grunted softly, much to her satisfaction.

“What’s this?” a familiar voice inquired mildly. “Sterling siblings causing a scene? Unheard of and preposterous!”

“Uncle Hensh,” Thomas greeted with a bow. “Do excuse Abigail. She’s quite done for.”

Another hand, heavier than Thomas’s, patted her with a bit more force. “Dear girl, kindly stop your incessant giggling and spare your old uncle a dance.”

Abigail gasped for air as she removed her face from the stiff sleeve of Thomas’s eveningwear and faced the well-adored face of their father’s closest friend. “How did you know I was not crying?” she asked, wiping any potential tears of mirth from her.

Uncle Hensh offered her a sardonic look and extended a hand. “Because I have known you since the day of your birth, Abigail Miranda, and I know very well you are far more likely to be laughing at something than crying at it.”

She lifted a shoulder, placed her hand in his, and curtsied belatedly in greeting. “Oh Lord.”

“Uncle Hensh will do just fine, thank you.”

She turned away from him in the dance, shaking her head. He was getting worse, as he usually did, and any sign of encouragement would only accelerate matters. She had spent a lifetime perfecting a blank face specifically to prevent Uncle Hensh from worsening in his attempts at humor, and now was a perfect opportunity to utilize it.

When she faced him again in the dance, the mask was in place, and this time, it made Hensh laugh. “Oh dear, I’ve upset you. Is there no way to repent of my offense?” he teased, squeezing her hand.

Her lips quirked, breaking the cardinal rule of this particular mask. “Perhaps.”

The pressure on her hand lessened at once. “Now I’m afraid. What would put me back in your good graces?”

“Taking me home the moment this dance is over?”

She felt Hensh laugh beside her, though he emitted no sounds of joviality. “Not at all likely, princess. I know better. Fond as I am of you, I am far more terrified of your mother, and I refuse to subject myself to her interrogation.”

“Coward,” she muttered with a scowl as she parted from him and joined the ladies in a line.

Uncle Hensh shook his head very firmly, still smiling. “Not at all. I simply have a healthy sense of self-preservation and the wisdom to know when to employ it.”

There was no helping her smile at that point. He could irk her as well as her brothers could, but there was no denying that Uncle Hensh was the most excellent of men and possessed a remarkably resilient good humor. But then, he was her father’s friend. He would have to be akin to a saint in order to endure that trial of a connection all these years.

Abigail didn’t have a single friendship that had withstood to her present age, let alone an additional twenty-some-odd years beyond, unless one counted the friendships Thomas considered exempt from such a category. And those were more family friendships than personal ones. She could talk and visit with any of those people for ages on end at any given time, no matter the length of time apart, and feel quite herself throughout the whole.

But as far as her own friends, and not those she had been born into, there was not a single solitary soul remaining by her side.

What did that illustrate for a young woman of twenty-three?

She frowned at the thought.

“What’s that for, Abby-girl?” Hensh asked, breaking into her cycle of self-deprecation with the name he alone had ever used for her.

She managed a smile that was fairly close to natural and hoped it would convince him. “Nothing at all. Thinking too much.”

His raised brow indicated he had not been convinced by the smile. But he tutted audibly, shaking his head. “Thinking in the middle of the dance? I must be an abysmal partner indeed. Come, let’s make this last pass the best one yet.”

They proceeded up the rows of lines with an increased vigor in their steps, and Abigail found herself laughing in real delight by the time they reached the end. She had never been spry, and she doubted Henshaw had ever been either, but somehow they both managed it beautifully.

The dance ended, and they bowed and curtsied to each other. Then Hensh surprised her by taking her hand and looping it through his arm, leading her in the opposite direction of where she had Thomas had been standing.

She did not resist or protest, as she had no objection to being in his company, but she did give him a curious look.

He rubbed her hand and smiled with all the tender warmth in the world. “I can’t stand you being a wallflower, Abigail. Even if you do not dance again this evening, now you will at least be more widely seen.” His expression turned more teasing. “And in my company, you may be sure of garnering an increase in the good opinions of others.”

“Ah,” Abigail replied with a sly smile. “So this is all for my benefit, is it?”

“Naturally, naturally,” he boasted, puffing his chest out as he nodded at some random person. “I am a slave to my own philanthropy, you know.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Abigail let her gaze run along the various faces around them, an easy smile on her lips, not particularly seeing anyone at all. A show of attention and consideration so as to appear warm and genteel, though she would never be able to tell anyone whom she had seen at this particular event, nor would she care to.

Then, suddenly, there was a face that did not belong, one that she somehow managed to see clearly, though she hadn’t with any of the rest.

Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

Her eyes disobeyed with a flourish as she not only looked back, but dropped her smile as well.

He was gone, thankfully, and her heart, which had leaped into her ears as she had turned, returned to its place within her chest.

“Someone you know?” Hensh asked softly.

Abigail shook her head with a swallow. “I thought so, but it appears I was mistaken.”

Hensh made a noncommittal sound of acknowledgement, covering her hand with his again.

It was a comforting gesture, and she wondered if he suspected the identity of the person she had thought she’d seen. She hoped not, but it was a simple enough deduction to make.

Not many people on this earth would warrant a second look from her.

Not many at all.

“Abigail . . .”

Her heart veered sharply to her right, turning her body with it even as her lungs seized in distress while the rest of her protested wildly, knowing before she saw anything at all what she would see.

And there he was.

She hadn’t imagined him, hadn’t been wrong, hadn’t . . .

He looked exactly as she remembered, though with neatly trimmed facial hair that made him look more a man than he had ever seemed in years past. The same eyes that were neither green nor brown, the barely contained dark hair kept at an almost fashionable length, and the same breadth of slender frame, though perhaps with an improvement.

And the exact same intensity in his gaze.

Matthew Weber-Grey.

Hensh said nothing beside her, but the tension radiating from him was palpable and his hold on her hand extremely tight, grounding her in an instant.

Abigail stared, swallowed, then blurted out, “What in the world are you doing here?”

Chapter Two

Say something, man. Say anything.

Matthew Weber-Grey only stared stupidly at Abigail, wondering where his carefully laid plan had gone and frantically grappling for sense. He’d been thrown off course when he had seen her after so long, and now he couldn’t remember a thing. She was exactly as he had recalled her ever being, yet somehow she was infinitely more. His heart swelled in a way he could not ever recall experiencing before, and he knew his course was right. Difficult, some might say impossible, but right. Belated, undoubtedly, but right.

What had she asked? What was he doing here? That, at least, he knew.

“I’ve returned to London,” he heard himself say in a surprisingly polite voice, given the turmoil raging throughout him. “And we are old friends, are we not?”

Oh, that was a perfect thing to say, wasn’t it? Abigail would love that after what he put her through.

As he suspected, her brow snapped down, and any of her hesitation and shock vanished in an instant. “Old friends,” she repeated in a tone that made him wary. “Is that what you would call it?”

“Abigail,” Henshaw murmured, completely devoid of emotion. He showed none of the warmth and joviality he was known for, and he eyed Matthew with all the severity he might his mortal enemy on the battlefield. Faintly, it occurred to Matthew to be grateful that no manner of weaponry was appropriate for social occasions.

At his word, Abigail fixed a smile on her face that raised his concern more than her tone had. “But of course we were, Mr. Weber-Grey. Those lovely summers as children at Hazelwood and Chisolm still live in memory. Very pleasant indeed, and I am glad to be reminded of them. Thank you for renewing such a fond acquaintance. I trust we shall see you about London often at the events of the Season.” She inclined her head as regally as any monarch ever had, then let Henshaw sweep her away from him.

Formal, cold, and dismissive.

Well, it was better than hostile, murderous, and insulting, at any rate, so he must consider himself fortunate, he supposed.

Reputation was intact for them both. Glancing around, he could detect no hint of gossip from the surrounding guests, so there should be no complaints on that score—should Abigail actually speak to him again and do so long enough to complain about anything.

He blanched as he considered that now he had given her time to retire to house and catalog every single complaint from the last three years, likely starting and ending with that awful spring day.

He’d likely be pummeled repeatedly by Abigail herself during that particular conversation and ought to have a physician standing by at his home.

No matter what happened, he would deserve every single blow.

He hoped he would have a chance to tell Abigail that he knew that before she rendered him unconscious.

He knew what he had done to her, in every extreme and in every facet. He knew the difficulty of managing each day for months on end after that day and the dull ache that never really went away.

You simply learned to ignore it and live with it.

He knew all of this.

Everything he had put her through, he himself had endured. He would never compare the extent of their suffering and would never presume to know if Abigail had found her way through. Where she undoubtedly would feel betrayed, he had felt guilt. Where she had likely felt humiliation, he had felt shame. Where she had potentially cried herself to sleep, he had paced for hours on end.

The experience and emotions were different. The pain was the same.

And he had been the cause of it.

Three years of torment was enough, and now he wanted to change things. Mend things. Renew things, if he was so fortunate.

Apologize if he was not.

But such things would take time and a significant amount of patience.

He had time, and he would learn patience.

Abigail was worth it. What they had had was worth it.

Redemption was worth it.

Belatedly, he recalled that he was at a ball, and if he were going to remain in Society for the length of time it would take for Abigail Sterling to forgive him, or at least accept him as something less than the greatest evil that walked the earth, he would need to actively participate in it.

Clearing his throat, he turned around and smiled pleasantly at the room around him. It had been years since he had been in London, spending his time in the countryside of Essex instead, though not at the family estate at Chisolm.

The barest hint of a chance that he could be near Abigail at all was enough to take him elsewhere, though his father refused to let him out of the county.

But now he was back in London, trying to recall the more rigid edicts of behavior in Society before he fouled up in a faux pas from which he could not recover. That would certainly put a marked hindrance into his plans, and he could not afford hindrance or delay. Not when he had so very far to go.

He smiled to himself as the rest of his plan unfolded in his mind, carefully constructed over months of plotting and strategizing. He obviously hadn’t been able to perfectly predict how Abigail would respond to his appearance, let alone what he actually needed to tell her, but it wasn’t much of a leap, either. The plan would work under a variety of reactions and scenarios, and he could adjust his course as needed to accommodate them.

Adjust his course. He sounded like a bloody navigator, and he’d been on a boat maybe twice in his entire life.

Still, the analogy was apt.

The smile on his face vanished in an instant as he caught sight of Thomas Sterling glaring with the power of seven thunderstorms in his direction. There were more threats in that look than he could count, and he swallowed the sudden rise of nerves with difficulty as Thomas led his sister out of the ballroom.

Right. He’d forgotten how close the Sterling siblings were, and that he would have to contend with the rest of the family as well as Abigail. It was entirely possible that the real challenge in all of this would not be Abigail, but the family behind and around her.

Her life had been changed by his actions.

Her family would be the ones to cry for vengeance.

That he should have thought about.

***

Hyde Park in the mornings seemed as close as Matthew would ever get to his daily walks in the countryside of his estate. There were still a great many more people than he had ever seen on his excursions in Essex, but he supposed he could not expect anything less in a place as bustling and popular as London, especially at this time of year.

Still, it was a respite from the frantic energy that seemed to emit from every corner of the rest of the city. Here, at least one could breathe freely and imagine themselves in a far more peaceful place. In the morning it was less crowded than in the afternoons or even the evenings, but it still had various members of Society flitting about its paths.

He rather liked this time of day wherever he was, and today was no exception. He had not seen nor heard from Abigail since the ball three nights ago, and part of him had clung to the sudden fear that she would leave London altogether. Still, he could not see her parents whisking her away just as the Season was beginning, particularly when Maren would only be in her first or second Season herself.

He would hinge everything upon her remaining, and once her saw her again and spoke more than three words of politeness, the plan could proceed.

“Matthew Weber-Grey.”

He paused a step, his mind whirling about quickly to identify the familiar voice. Warily, he shifted to his left, afraid of what he might see.

Oh, damn. Lord Sterling, Abigail’s powerful cousin.

Well, her father’s cousin, at any rate.

A very close, more-like-a-brother, incredibly protective sort of cousin.

If he ran for it, would Lord Sterling catch him?

Lord Sterling tilted his head very slightly in a direct answer to the many questions Matthew was silently asking.

There would be no escape, then. Lovely.

Matthew strode forward, only three steps or so, and offered him a slight bow. “My Lord Sterling, a pleasure to see you again.”

“Is it?” Lord Sterling asked without much of a question in the tone.

Not really, no, but he was not idiotic enough to admit that. He settled on a bland smile and a nod. “Yes, sir.”

Lord Sterling clearly did not believe him, but Matthew hadn’t exactly been convincing. “We haven’t seen you in London for, what, three years at least?”

“Roughly, yes, my lord.” There was no point in avoiding the awkwardness of the basic arithmetic of his being in London and the elapsed time since he had left Hazelwood for the final time.

“Why are you here now, then?” Lord Sterling was clearly following Matthew’s thinking without any trouble whatsoever, his expression as mild as before.

Matthew clasped his hands behind his back, forcing himself to at least appear calm, if not actually manage the feeling itself. “I thought it high time that I come to London and participate in the Season, as I have yet to do so.”

Lord Sterling raised a brow. “What, now that your wife is dead?”

Any and all air within Matthew’s lungs evaporated in a painful heave. He stared at the barely gray-haired man in disbelief, wondering with horror if everyone in the family knew his current situation.

His hesitation made Lord Sterling roll his eyes a little. “She doesn’t know, if that is your concern. None of them do, but I am not so disconnected from the world that it escaped my observation. So now that you are a free man, you’ve come to London to . . . what, find a new bride?”

The words were harsh, but the tone was anything but. Somehow Lord Sterling kept the whole thing purely conversational, as though they were discussing the morning air. Still, the effect was the same, and Matthew swallowed hard, driving back the burn of indignation before it could ignite his temper.

Remember the plan . . . Remember the plan . . .

“Not exactly, sir,” Matthew informed the older man, lifting his chin just enough to remove any hint of appearing demure.

He may have imagined it, but he would swear Lord Sterling’s mouth twitched into the slightest shadow of a smile for a moment. “Then what, pray tell, is your purpose, Matthew?”

There was a warmth underlying his words now, and it did not escape Matthew’s notice that Lord Sterling had turned to informality in his address, though he refuse to dwell on it for the present.

He met Lord Sterling’s gaze as squarely as he could. “I came for Abigail.”

Lord Sterling raised a brow. “To claim her?”

Matthew nodded. “If she’ll have me.”

Now he knew he did not imagine the smile that flashed across Lord Sterling’s face, and it stunned him into speechlessness.

“Good,” Lord Sterling replied, either ignoring Matthew’s shock or somehow unaware of it.

Good? How could anyone in the Sterling family, extended or immediate, find this to be a good thing?

Lord Sterling surprised him once more before he could react, nudging his head behind Matthew. “She’ll come from that direction and should arrive at any time. Good luck.” He turned and began to walk away, then turned back. “Feel free to call on me, Matthew, at any time. I’m willing to risk my neck for you on the chance you could make Abigail as happy as she deserves to be.” He nodded, then continued on his way.

There was no explaining what had just happened, and no time to even attempt any sort of processing or hypothesizing. If Abigail was coming, and Lord Sterling thought he could speak with her . . .

To claim her, the man had asked. Yes, Matthew did want to claim her.

And he dearly wanted to be claimed himself.

By her.

Suddenly, there she was, completely unaware of his presence, walking down the head of the path at a pace too swift for leisure and too slow for haste.

How soon would she see him? Would she turn and go the other way? Would she march to him in all anger and let herself lash out at him?

He sucked in a breath and began to walk toward her slowly, averting his eyes until he drew closer.

She saw him before he returned his gaze to her, and he could see her stiffen. Yet she continued forward, nary a halting step in her tread, eyes spearing Matthew with all the efficacy of any skewer in the world.

Abigail stopped, folding her hands. “Did you know I was going to be here this morning? Is this part of some plan you’ve concocted?”

Matthew shook his head, praying he looked as earnest as he truly was. “No. I did not know you would be here this morning. I simply came out for a stroll. It reminds me of Chisolm, in a way, and the peace of the country.”

She inhaled a breath, then released it in a rush, nodding. “True enough, I suppose. This is the closest I come to Hazelwood, and it almost makes the longing go away.”

He smiled with some hesitation. “You always did prefer Hazelwood to anywhere else.”

“And that hasn’t changed,” she quipped, smiling herself. Then she seemed to recall that she did not want to smile in his presence, and her expression returned to the frigidity of before. “What are you doing here, Matthew? And I don’t mean this park. I mean in London. You’ve never been here for the Season or any other social occasions, and I don’t see any reason for you to start now.”

Matthew nodded once, then cleared his throat. “I came to London to see you.”

Abigail blinked unsteadily, the look on her face only mildly shifting in her surprise. “Why?” she asked in a flat voice.

He took a moment, taking great care with his words. “I wanted to explain. To apologize. To see if anything could be salvaged between us for the sake of the friendship we once shared.”

Her lips mouthed the word friendship, twisting in derision, and she seemed to scoff without making a single sound. “What is there to explain, exactly? You chose Eliza over me. It was that simple.”

“I know,” he replied, ignoring the bitterness in her voice. “I betrayed you.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “There was no formal understanding. Nothing was broken beyond repair, and no betrayal was committed, officially. My personal feelings have no relevance.”

That he could not ignore. “They have all the relevance in the world! You have to know I never meant to hurt you.”

“And yet you still chose a woman you barely knew over one you shared an understanding with,” she spat, the first signs of true pain appearing.

“And it was the greatest mistake of my life, I can assure you!” he admitted freely.

Abigail raised a silent brow, fuming where she stood.

Matthew took one step forward. “I have felt incomplete for the entire time I spent as her husband, and have thought of little else but you.”

She laughed once. “And now you wish to be physically unfaithful as you have apparently been mentally and emotionally unfaithful? What a fine example of a husband you are.”

“Eliza died, Abigail.”

The lines of mockery on her beautiful face faded at once. “She what?”

“Died,” he repeated. “Two years ago. In childbirth.”

She had not been expecting that, he could tell, and she fumbled for words. “And the baby?”

He shook his head, a swell of pained emotion rising. “Lost with her. I have nothing, Abigail. Nothing to show for my life since betraying you. And while I rightly mourn the loss of my wife and my child, when I realized that I could make it all right, I felt hope as I have never hoped before.”

Abigail frowned at that and cocked her head. “Hope for what?”

Matthew looked at her with all the love in the world, that which had never fully left him. “Understanding, Abigail. Understanding.” He smiled, somehow finding encouragement here. “When you’re ready, I’ll tell you everything. Not to persuade you, not to plead my case, and not to make you pity me. Just because you deserve to know.”

He bowed, touching the brim of his hat, and walked away, exhaling and smiling to himself, praying it would be enough.

Chapter Three

Abigail rushed into the London house her family owned, removing her bonnet and shaking her hair to rid it of stray drops of water. It hadn’t been raining when she left the house, and nor had it rained overly much on her walk in Hyde Park.

But after she had seen Matthew today, yet again, the sky seemed determined to express what she could not and poured down upon her shamelessly.

How perfectly apt.

Not that she was especially wishing to cry excessively or rage at the heavens or anything that she might have been capable of three years ago, but every instance she saw Matthew dredged up all the despairingly gray memories of that time. Months upon months of dreary, rainy days, no matter what the weather was actually doing out of doors.

What was worse was that she found herself conflicted. Ever since that day she had seen him in Hyde Park over a week ago, she had seen him nearly every day. They had not spoken since, though he had clearly seen her walking as well. He would only smile with all politeness in her direction and tip his hat to her. No further attempts to gain her good opinion or to explain himself, or even to speak with her at all.

Simple, polite acquaintances. That was what they were at present, which was something they had never been to each other.

Despite her pain, despite everything he had put her through, this distance was awkward and strained. Every time she saw him, she was torn between heading in his direction, though not with any particular haste, and running headlong in the opposite direction with a great deal of haste.

And every time, she managed to keep her course exactly as it had been, and it never felt any less miraculous.

What was he playing at? He said he had wanted understanding, but understanding of what? What had happened? His situation? The way things stood now?

Curiosity ate at her, and thus far she had been able to prevent it from acting out. But for how much longer, she wondered.

When she was ready, he had said, he would tell her everything. But what could he possibly have to tell? This was not a particularly complicated issue, and surely any explanation was futile at this point.

And when would she possibly be ready to hear anything from him about what had happened?

Abigail had been friends with Matthew from childhood, and rather than spend his time with the Thayers, as the rest of his family did, he had elected to choose Abigail and the Sterlings. So it was only natural that they should have grown close, and somehow even more natural that a romance should have formed. Subtle and gradual it had been, but it had also been undeniable, particularly after one memorable night at the queen’s ball in Colchester. The Queen had not been in attendance, of course, but in honor of her birthday, a ball had been held nonetheless, and Abigail had taken it upon herself on that occasion to look her absolute best.

She had looked her best, and Matthew had never looked more striking to her than he had that night. They had caught eyes, and the air in the room had changed to something magical and wonderful. They had danced and talked and laughed, but everything had changed between them. Absolutely everything.

There had been an unspoken expectation nearly from that night on that the two would marry, and the Sterlings, at least, had speculated wildly about it among themselves. Which would surprise no one. Sterlings were notorious for their tendency toward speculation, for good or for ill.

Then he had shocked the lot of them by announcing his engagement to Eliza Thayer, and the marriage had followed nearly the moment the banns were completely read.

All very businesslike and straightforward, and rather than attend the nuptials to which she had almost callously been invited, Abigail had fled. Or rather, she had retreated to Dorset with her uncle Benedict, a well-respected physician who lived a rather quiet life with his wife and three children, the oldest just younger than Abigail herself. The peace and solitude of the life in Dorset had settled warmly upon her heart and deadened the pain of all she had endured.

And now she was expected to hear his side of the story? She wasn’t at all sure she could bear to do any such thing without lashing out and letting her raw bitterness show.

But that was just it, wasn’t it? She knew that was what he expected, but he hadn’t made any sort of motion to bring any of it about.

So, what was it that he did expect and have planned for all this?

Groaning, Abigail craned her neck and jerked as one of the maids reached for her cloak, pulling it from her shoulders. “Thank you, Bess. Mind it doesn’t soak your frock.”

“Yes, Miss Abigail,” she replied with a quick bob, scurrying away with it.

Abigail brushed back stray strands of hair with her hands and sighed heavily, gripping her neck. All of this pressure that she was placing on herself, and there wasn’t anything to do as yet. Apprehension was a terrible burden of its own, and she was accustomed to its weight.

“Pardon me, Miss Abigail,” a formal voice intoned nearby. “A letter arrived for you.”

She made a face and turned toward the butler. So, this was Matthew’s plot. To send her messages in private and maintain distance when in public.

Conniving wretch of a man.

“When did it arrive, Tate?” Abigail asked the older man, not bothering to pretend at a polite tone even for appearances.

If the butler noticed, he gave no indication. “Perhaps a quarter of an hour ago, Miss Abigail. While you were out walking.”

That made her frown, her fingers pausing just a breath above the note. A quarter of an hour ago she had still been in the park and had seen Matthew perhaps five minutes before that. This letter might actually not be from him after all.

But then what could it be?

She shook herself and plucked the letter up, nodding to herself and the butler. “Thank you, Tate.”

He bowed and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Abigail to stare after him absently.

She glanced down at the letter, then moved into the nearest parlor and broke the seal, unfolding the paper and scanning it. There was nothing at all familiar in the handwriting, which was another sign Matthew could not have written it. She’d know his writing with one brief glance with all the notes they had sent each other over the years. And this was far too lengthy to be anything of his creation.

He had always preferred brevity to discourse.

She had tended to agree.

She forced herself to focus on the words before her, and to do so with an open and unbiased mind.

But nothing could have prepared her for what followed.

I pray you will forgive the anonymity of this letter, my dear Miss Sterling, but I could think of no other way to communicate to you the feelings I currently possess. It has been some time now that I have noticed you and have been unable to do anything else from that moment on. I pray this will not distress you, nor would I have you think that I am incapable of turning my thoughts to any other subject, though, arguably, none other could be so pleasant. I am not a man of many words, much as this letter might suggest otherwise, but I find I can prattle on remarkably well on the topic of yourself. But not to your person directly, for my nerves and more reserved nature prevent me from even approaching you. I will not make any bold declarations, nor will I sully your eyes with words of flattery and excesses, particularly when it would be untrue for the present. I would only express my admiration for you, Miss Sterling, and my hope that soon we may grow more acquainted in the future.

It was not signed, and nor did it give any indication in any place about who might have sent it. No particular descriptions of anything, no ardency expressed, and not even a hint of praise for her appearance or nature or being.

What a strange sort of missive to receive. Nothing threatening or frightening, and nothing at all that even made her uncomfortable.

A simple declaration of admiration and nothing more.

And yet it made her smile a little as she ventured out of the parlor and down the corridor. A man in London who admired her enough to send her a note about it but was reserved enough to not confess his identity. What a delightful mystery to suddenly have at hand!

“What are you smiling about?”

Abigail grinned in the direction of her younger sister, proceeding down the stairs without grace or care. Maren was a rather pretty girl, almost spritely in appearance, and in possession of a carefree spirit and manner that Abigail had always been envious of.

“My smile, my secrets,” Abigail replied, her smile spreading. “What are you about today? Paying calls?”

Maren scoffed, her almost-blonde hair bouncing with her steps, one hand gripping the bannister and swinging around to Abigail. “Lord, no. It’s too early in the Season for anyone to want me to call, and I’m not exactly keen on doing so anyway. I thought I might pretend to shop in Bond Street, see what the other ladies are up to and observe London Society in its natural habitat.”

Abigail shook her head, amused by her sister, as always.

Maren suddenly tilted her head, her eyes taking on a wiser, knowing look. “Do you know what I think, Abs?”

“Not particularly.”

“I think you ought to give Matthew a chance.”

Abigail felt her body jerk in surprise and stared at her sister with wide eyes. “How did you know he was in London? I’ve said nothing.”

Maren smiled her familiar rueful smile. “I noticed. But I’m a particularly capable eavesdropper, and when we were with Francis and Janet the other evening, I overheard him and Uncle Hensh talking. Matthew’s appearance in London was discussed.”

Oh, the horror . . . Uncle Hensh was one thing, but their cousin Francis? He was the most paternal extended relation she had and was likely closer to them than their true uncle Benedict was. There was no telling what Francis and Uncle Hensh would do when working together for a common purpose.

She swallowed painfully. “Does Papa know?”

This time Maren shrugged in ignorance. “Difficult to say. He was not in the room during the discussion, but that is not to say that he was not informed of it later.”

“Lord above . . .” Abigail breathed. She wet her lips. “Surely Papa would have said something if he knew.”

“Most likely.” Maren tossed her hair over a shoulder and folded her arms, fixing her focus on Abigail. “I mean it. You should give Matthew a chance.”

Heart already racing, Abigail frowned at her. “A chance? After what he did?”

Her sister nodded twice, her jaw fixed. “Does marrying someone else three years ago mean he is now beyond forgiveness? Or friendship?”

Whatever pace her heart had been maintaining, it intensified at that, stealing breath as well as strength. “You cannot ask me . . .”

“I am not suggesting you love him again,” Maren assured her with a gentle interruption. “And I doubt very much that was what he asked for when he spoke with you. Was it?”

Abigail was shaking her head before she knew what she was doing, and then she seemed to find difficulty ceasing the motion.

Maren waited a moment, no doubt to see if any verbal reply would be made, then prodded, “And? What does he want?”

“He said . . . He said he wanted understanding,” Abigail told her simply, finally recovering some sense. “That’s all he said.”

“Understanding,” Maren repeated thoughtfully. She considered it, then smiled at Abigail. “Surely that is not so beyond you.”

Abigail wasn’t nearly so certain of that. Her hands were suddenly taken and tightly squeezed, causing her to look up at her sister, feeling suddenly unsteady.

Maren’s mouth formed a tight line, her eyes soft. “I know you have the capability to listen, if not understand. For the sake of what you once shared, even before there was love . . .”

“Another chance, you said?” Abigail exhaled slowly. “I cannot risk my heart again, Maren. Not with him.”

Maren’s mouth curved to one side. “I don’t remember him asking for that, nor did I suggest it. If you don’t want to give your heart, then don’t offer it. Don’t put it up for consideration.” She sobered and released Abigail’s hands, clasping her own before her. “There was friendship long before hearts were involved, wasn’t there? Surely that can be respected, at least.”

It was odd, but what Maren was saying made a great deal of sense and appealed to Abigail’s logical side, yet when she considered the application of it, the whole thing seemed entirely illogical and impossible.

There could be nothing perfectly comfortable about engaging with a man one had once loved, she supposed, no matter what capacity in which they would associate now.

But she had to try.

“All right,” she conceded with another series of absent nods, though she wasn’t sure if she was nodding to Maren or to the decision she had made. Or to Matthew in absentia.

Not that it mattered. Any of the three would have done just as well as the other.

Maren giggled and unlaced her hands, clasping them behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels. “How does he look? Matthew, I mean.”

She glared at Maren with darkness, though she did find the antics of her sister amusing in a twisted sort of way. “Well. He looked very well, indeed.”

Maren grinned, then let it vanish at once. “A well-looking man must always be appreciated.”

“Sage counsel,” Abigail retorted drily, shaking her head and moving down the corridor past her sister once more.

“Where are you going?” Maren called after her.

Abigail glanced over her shoulder but kept her course. “It seems I have a letter to write, if I am to begin this endeavor properly.”

She didn’t wait to see how her sister reacted and tuned out whatever she said in response. She couldn’t bear any more, not when she was stepping out into the darkness she really ought to have avoided. She needed clarity and focus, particularly when reaching out to Matthew.

He mustn’t think she was encouraging him, and she mustn’t make it sound as though all was forgiven.

She was only taking one step.

Just one.

Abigail sat at the small writing desk in the front drawing room, extending her fingers in a faint stretching motion, exhaling slowly.

She could do this. She could.

Suddenly the weight of the letter still in her pocket seemed to weigh itself down and press rather comfortingly against her. Grounding her, in a way.

Her lips curved into a smile then. Her heart need not get involved in this muddle with Matthew, she reminded herself. Someone else had an interest in her.

And if he wrote again, she just might consider letting it take root.

She turned to the paper at hand, still smiling, and started the note.

Chapter Four

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more anxious in his entire life, and that was saying a very great deal.

But he was also eager, encouraged, pleased, and rather relieved.

The note from Abigail had taken him by surprise, but Matthew would be lying if he said this was not all perfectly part of his plan. He needed her to listen before anything else could happen, and he needed her to tolerate his company for longer than a few minutes.

This was the first step, and he wished most fervently that he wouldn’t muck it up.

He’d arrived early, as was his way, and wandered the paths of the park without any real direction, breathing in the fresh morning air and taking its solace for his strength.

He was going to tell Abigail everything, and—if her note was to be believed—she would listen to him.

Whether she would let it truly reach her was another question entirely, and one he was not sure he knew the answer to.

He walked until he reached a stray stream from off the Serpentine, where, just as Abigail’s note had said, there was a large, flat rock at its edge. It was big enough for two to be seated on, and he wondered faintly if that was what she had in mind or if she intended to place him on it and then shove him into the water.

It would not be beneath her, and there was nothing to indicate any particular tone in her note, so it could actually be entirely plausible.

“I wasn’t sure if you would be here.”

Matthew turned with a smile toward the sound of Abigail’s voice, pleased to see her expression fairly open and easy. She was even smiling at him!

Well, sort of.

It wasn’t a glower, and it wasn’t a frown, so he would consider that a victory.

“You requested I be at this precise spot at this time, did you not?” he inquired mildly, sweeping his hands behind his back. “Why shouldn’t I have been here?”

Abigail’s lips quirked to one side. “I wasn’t sure you’d find it.”

He returned the almost-smile. “Your directions were very precise. It was no trouble to find it.” He looked her over with a quick, polite glance, though his eyes noted every detail from the shade of the sky captured in her dress to the way the wind caught the tendrils of her dark hair in the front where her bonnet could not protect them. “You look well.”

“Thank you.” She inhaled deeply, then exhaled in a rush. “I don’t know, Matthew, if I can promise understanding, but I can promise you that I will try.”

That was everything, and he didn’t bother hiding his relief, though he did take care to keep it checked. He swallowed quickly. “You are ready to hear it, then?”

Abigail laughed very softly and squinted toward the horizon. “I don’t know that I, or anyone else, is ever fully ready or prepared to hear something of this nature. But neither can I avoid it. We were friends once, and out of respect for that friendship, I will hear what you feel you need to say.”

He smiled with far more warmth than before. “That is more than enough. Please.” He gestured to the large rock, and she nodded, coming past him to sit upon it. He waited a moment, then moved to sit on the other side, turning his legs somewhat away from her, mirroring her position.

“Let me be clear on something,” Abigail murmured in a not-quite-steady voice. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to hear anything about how we were or what might have been felt or any proclamations of any sort of feelings. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” he agreed with a firm nod. “I hadn’t planned on doing anything of the sort, so you are quite safe there. If I venture into any tone or subject with which you are not comfortable, I give you full leave to stop me by whatever means you think necessary. Including shoving me into the stream.”

Her perfect lips curved into a true smile, causing something wild to flutter in his chest, and she tilted her head. “I may have to consider that. Now, if you please, you may begin. Wherever you like.”

Matthew sighed to himself and looked out across the stream to the green beyond. “I cannot say I know where to start, myself, but I suppose the beginning of it all will do well enough. In the weeks leading up to my engagement, my parents seemed to invite the Thayers over a great deal more often than usual. I felt as though I was on display the entire time. Our fathers would discuss the sort of partnership they could form if only they had the right circumstances to bring it about. If you remember, during all of that, I escaped from Chisolm quite often to see you. I’m sure you wondered why.”

“I might have done.”

He gnawed the inside of his lip for a moment, then released it on a rush of air. “I sensed what was happening, and I felt that you—that we—were slipping through my fingers.”

“Matthew . . .”

“Apologies,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but it is a statement of fact. Anyway, finally my father sat me down and told me what the expectations were, and what the advantages were, and left me with no doubt that any other option would have put the family in danger, as well as diminished any future opportunities for my siblings.”

Abigail shifted on the rock beside him. “How could that be? The Thayers were not especially wealthy, though well enough off. Nor were they of especially high standing.”

Matthew glanced at her almost ruefully. “You forget the partnership they were planning. Individually, neither of our families were particularly impressive, but together?” He shook his head, returning his focus across the stream. “In any case, I did as I was bid, and both of our families succeeded in their aims. Both families became wealthier and more influential than before, and everyone was happy.”

“Except you,” Abigail stated without much emotion, though her tone was oddly comforting.

He swallowed once. “I wasn’t miserable. The marriage wasn’t an unhappy one. We both dedicated ourselves to it, working day in and day out to create a successful relationship. After all, we had years of friendship between our two families, so how difficult could it be?” He snorted and wrenched his gaze away from the distance and looked away from Abigail. “As it turns out, incredibly so.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” He half-heartedly shrugged. “Nothing specific, anyway. But it turned out that Eliza and I had almost nothing in common and did not agree on much at all. We never fought, but neither did we see eye to eye. It was a struggle for the first several months, right when we should have been our happiest.”

Abigail didn’t say anything to this, and he was grateful for it. This would have been the time to crow over him or tell him he deserved it, or something of the sort. The lack of such comments came as a small comfort.

“It was her idea,” he went on, “to be friends rather than lovers, as we were forcing the whole thing, which only built resentment and strain. Only weeks later we discovered she was with child, and the direction of our lives shifted measurably.”

He turned back to look at Abigail, his chest tightening with the memories of those days upon him. “I had always wanted children, you know this, and I thought that perhaps this could be what brought us together and made us more functional as a couple and as a family. Despite our arrangement, I was pleased with the news, and so was Eliza. It should have been a wonderful solution to our problem.”

Abigail gave him a small nod of understanding but still said nothing.

“But it wasn’t,” he admitted, turning back to the stream once more. “Again, we disagreed on everything, including how we wanted to raise our child and how to order the house when the child was born. Eliza became more opinionated, more severe, more eager to turn disagreement into full argument. I knew the child must have been paining her, so I never took offense at what was said or how it was said. And it wasn’t like that all the time. Eliza was a good soul, you must remember that, at least.”

“I never had any complaint against her,” Abigail agreed, her voice low. “She seemed to be almost perfection.”

Matthew smiled to himself at her statement. “Almost.” His smile faded, and he cleared his throat, rising to his feet and moving to the edge of the stream, the memories and discomfort getting to be too much. “At any rate, the child and her behavior put a new strain on our relationship that hadn’t afflicted it before. She had a difficult labor, I was told, and Eliza insisted someone tell me how sorry she was, but she adamantly refused to let me up there with her.”

He shook his head and looked down at the water, listening to its faint rippling against the banks and the rocks. “I paced in the drawing room below, hearing everything in a muted, distant way, and then suddenly there was nothing. No sound, no cries, and no footsteps. Not a single noise.” His voice faded suddenly, and he cleared his throat, surprised by the emotion. “For some reason that nothing was louder and far clearer than any sound I have heard before or since. And I knew.”

“And the child?”

“A daughter,” he managed. “Dead before she was delivered. I had them buried together at Chisolm and gave the child the name Beatrix, which was what Eliza had wanted all along. She would be almost two years of age now.”

Abigail shifted again on the rock, and he looked back at her, seeing that now she was turned fully toward him, expression pained and sympathetic. “I’m so sorry, Matthew.”

He stared at her for a moment, then exhaled and returned to the rock, sitting beside her. “Do you know what the worst part of it was? More than my grief for Eliza, there was a strange sense of . . . not relief, exactly, but respite.” He shook his head almost frantically, still unable to fully comprehend or express what he had felt. “I did not mourn her the way I should have, though I did mourn. I felt the loss of our child more than the loss of my wife. I’ve often wondered if I am to be damned for such feelings, which led me to guilt for putting Eliza through a marriage and ordeal that perhaps never should have been.”

His words hung in the air between them for a long moment, the tension and emotion of them fading into the silence as if on a breeze.

“You think too much, Matthew,” Abigail eventually told him.

He chuckled to himself. “Can you blame me?”

She pretended to consider that. “No, I suppose not. You always were lost in thought about something or other.”

It was true, and he knew it well. But if Abigail knew just what topic had occupied his thoughts much of that time, she would have protested on the grounds of her one condition.

No matter.

A thought prodded at his mind, and he found himself speaking it before he could stop himself. “Abigail, how did you not know about Eliza’s and my child? It is fairly well known about the county, and Chisolm is less than three miles from Hazelwood.”

The first real sign of strain appeared in Abigail’s features, but it also vanished on a rush of breath. “I haven’t been at Hazelwood in three years.”

That was a bewildering thought, and he stared at her with the full brunt of his surprise. “You haven’t?”

She shook her head slowly, not meeting his eyes. “It was easier. I spent several months with my uncle Benedict at first.”

“The physician?” he recollected from some vague recess in his mind. “In . . . Devon?”

“Dorset,” she corrected. “He and my aunt were most accommodating, and I enjoyed time with my cousins and the lovely people in their village and the surrounding areas. Then I went to London for part of the Season, more for show than anything else, and when that ended, I spent the autumn and winter with Miranda.”

“I’d wager you loved being with Miranda for so long,” Matthew prodded, nudging Abigail’s shoulder with his own.

Abigail scrunched up her nose, then nodded, snickering. “I did! Papa couldn’t believe it, but I did enjoy it very much.” Then she seemed to recollect what they had originally been talking about, and her amusement faded. “So, no, I heard nothing of you, let alone that your wife had died. And no one in my family informed me of it either. I suppose they wanted to spare me any pain by the mentioning of it.”

“Would it have pained you?” he inquired without any tact. “Just as the engagement had?”

She bit her lip, her brow furrowing. “I really couldn’t say. I doubt it would have affected me the same way. I had resigned myself to it by then, so it may have simply been something to acknowledge. I’m sure I would have felt sad for you, as I do now, but pain me?” One shoulder lifted briefly. “Who knows?”

“Does it pain you to see me now?” The words escaped him before they had even formed coherent thought, and he immediately wished them back.

She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed across the stream. “I thought it would. But no, it doesn’t. Not now. Not anymore.”

Matthew winced, knowing now he had to proceed with penance, if nothing else. She deserved that much at the very least.

“Abigail,” he began with his voice turning rough, “I am so very sorry for all the pain that I caused you. There are not words enough in any language to convey the pain I’ve felt over wounding you, and to now understand that my actions drove you away from your home and your family . . . I’m so sorry.”

She had stiffened beside him, and he waited with bated breath for any sort of response, even a cold one. Then, miraculously, her shoulders relaxed on an exhale, and her hand slid over to cover his gently.

Lord, the touch of her, even like this . . .

“I know you are, Matthew,” she murmured, her voice distant. “I know you didn’t set out to hurt me, and I know this wasn’t any easier for you than for me. I’ll be very honest, though . . .”

A cold jolt raced down his spine to his toes, and it was all he could to do stay upright in his apprehension.

She turned her eyes to him with a measure of wariness. “I don’t think I’m able to fully forgive you yet. Not at this moment, anyway. I don’t hate you for it, and I’m almost certain that time and consideration will settle forgiveness for you in my heart. But I would be very much false if I told you that all was well and forgotten, and you deserve the truth from me.”

He didn’t deserve anything from her, much less her forgiveness or any particular level of consideration or honesty. The fact that she thought so seemed monumental in his eyes, and his gratitude overwhelmed him.

He nodded at her words, hoping his smile didn’t appear in any way forced. “I understand, and I accept it. More than that, I appreciate your generosity. I didn’t even expect this much.”

“Oh, come now,” she scolded, her fingers drumming against his hand. “We were friends first, remember? Surely you can’t forget the number of times you snuck into Hazelwood the way I’d taught you, showing up for our family dinners without any sort of invitation. I’d be grateful to recover some of that part of our past. I’ve little enough of friends in every other regard.”

“No . . .”

Abigail threw a sardonic look in his direction, which was no less the perfection it had been when he had known her last. “Time away from London and Society without excuse, and you think the fickle females would remember me? I never took you for an idiot before this.”

He barked a laugh, his thumb grazing the edge of her hand on the rock. “Of course you did. You called me an idiot on a very regular basis. I could almost tell the days of the week from it.”

“I did not!”

“You did.”

“You can’t contradict a lady!”

“It’s not contradiction; it’s correction.”

“Because that is so much better,” she scoffed. Then she paused, her eyes widening and looking down at their hands.

Damn.

She scurried from the rock quickly, pushing her loose tendrils of hair behind her ears. “Right. Well, that’s enough conversing for one morning, I think. We don’t want to give rise to comment. Thank you for meeting me and explaining. I shall keep your confidence. Good day.”

She turned to go, cheeks flushing, steps quick.

Matthew smiled at the sight. “Abigail?”

She turned back, wary and rubbing her fingers together. “What?”

His smile deepened. “Do you think your family would hang me if I were to call at the house?”

Abigail immediately relaxed and tucked a smile against her still-flushed cheeks. “Not if I insist they don’t.”

“And would you?” he queried suspiciously.

An impish light appeared in her eyes and her smile. “Not today. But possibly tomorrow.” She quirked her brows and dashed out of his sight.

His heart lurched with that smile, and he had to swallow hard.

Claimed.

He certainly was. And that would do well enough, wouldn’t it?

Chapter Five

Abigail rushed to the parlor with a wild, breathless grin, looking around before she entered to be sure that no parent or sibling was in the immediate vicinity. That would be the last thing she needed at this moment.

She dropped down on the divan and swung her legs up, grateful her laces were not especially tight this afternoon. Her fingers were nearly damp with an excited perspiration as they clenched the freshly delivered letter in their hold.

This was the third in a week, and the fifth total that she had received. Each one had intrigued her, and with each new writing, her attraction grew.

Yes, attraction, she freely admitted it. However simple and straightforward the first had been, the following ones had taken a more romantic turn until she had felt an intimacy in every line. Still no excesses in flattery and no overwhelming declarations, but a real, raw honesty and depth that had begun to steal her breath. This man, whoever he was, saw her for what she was, and his praise of her person and her mind and her behavior had become addicting.

For all his claims of reserve and not being a man of words, his prose was glorious. Thoughtful and pure, masterful regarding the English language, and poetic in its patterns, though without the sentimentality so prevalent in the actual poetry of the day. And he focused all of that talent and passion into words for her.

She’d never been a sighing and swooning sort of woman, but this man was pushing her very much in that direction.

The last letter still sat in the desk behind her, tucked behind an old journal that hadn’t been written in for two years. She had read it over and over again until the words had begun to live in her memory.

The sound of your voice has become the music of my heart, and there surely has been no such heavenly singing in any angelic appearance in any scripture. The sweetness, the softness, the tender edges of every word from your incandescent lips pulls at my hearing, draws me in, clings to every fiber of me, and it sings brilliantly into the very blood of my body, vibrant and sustaining as life itself. I smile at hearing it, regardless of the content or context, yearning to catch every witty and intelligent word, straining for any hint of your feelings. Can you know me? Can you see me? I know not whether to hope or fear, my dear one, for both are rife within me concerning you.

She caught herself sighing then and cleared her throat, focusing on the new letter. She broke the nondescript seal and began to unfold it.

“What is that you have there?” Maren’s voice suddenly asked from the door to the parlor. “A note from Matthew?”

Abigail leaped to her feet, clutching the letter tightly. “What? No, it’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Her sister lifted a dubious brow. “Convincing, Abs. I didn’t ask to see it, only what it was. So, is it from Matthew?”

The frantic pace of her heart began to slow, though her lungs still ached on every breath. “No. No, it’s not from Matthew. You know him, he would write one line, perhaps two, and that would be the end of it.”

“True. The man has no patience for the pen in his own hand.” Maren scoffed, looking far too interested. “So, who is it from, then?”

A thousand different excuses and responses flashed through her mind, defenses suddenly rising, but nothing seemed quite good enough to express aloud. But how to properly define what exactly this was without seeming like a fool? “It’s a surprise,” she settled on. “And one that requires privacy, so...?”

Maren gave her a curious look but for once did not press further and left the room with a shrug.

Why in the world would she think it from Matthew?

It was a miracle that her family had accepted Matthew back with only slight trepidation the first night and none at all the second. They had all fallen back into their former rhythm of comfortable joviality with him, and as she had retreated to her bedchamber, it had occurred to her that the unimaginable had occurred.

She forgave him. She forgave Matthew. She hadn’t forgotten it, not in the least, but she didn’t resent him any longer. She could smile and joke with him without thinking about how he had hurt her.

They truly could be friends once more.

But nothing more.

Her heart could not take that again.

It wasn’t even in danger of such things anyway. It had learned from experience, and it was hardened now.

And yet these letters . . .

This was madness. This was absolute madness to be letting herself get so tangled up in the contents of anonymous letters. It was also absolute madness for her siblings to stick their noses into her affairs, but they had always had trouble remembering the concept of the personal and private.

At least she knew that she could trust them not to tell their parents about all of this. They were far too intelligent to let Mama and Papa become involved, knowing the chaos that would bring about. Her mother would have some very strong opinions on the subject, and her father would immediately become suspicious of everyone and everything. She would not have a moment’s peace ever again once that bridge was crossed.

But for the moment, she did not have to worry about any of that. She had a letter that she could read to escape from all of this for a time. A letter that would brighten her spirits and make her heart smile, if hearts could do such an impractical thing. It felt like her heart was smiling when she read his letters.

Then again, that could just be her newly discovered fanciful side overreacting.

She inhaled deeply, then exhaled in a slow, steady breath. Then she went to work on unfolding the letter once more, suddenly anxious for its contents.

“Someone is excited to read their post.”

Abigail jerked up, refolding the letter once more, eyes wide. Then she relaxed and made a face of discontent. “Oh. It’s you.”

Matthew’s brows rose and he put a hand to his chest. “I have never heard more disappointment about my presence in my entire life. I’m feeling quite insulted at the moment.”

“I’m sure you will overcome the sensation.” She swung her legs to the floor and waved him in with a disappointed sigh. “You might as well come on in. Everyone else has gotten in the way of this letter, why not one more?”

“I’m not sure I want to be lumped in with others that have ruined something for you,” he commented even as he stepped in. “I’ve rather done that enough for one lifetime, no?”

She looked at him in surprise, stunned that he would reference it so carelessly. But then she found herself giving him a smile, the tension in her chest easing considerably. “Yes, as a matter of fact, you have. But at least you won’t be annoyingly prying like my siblings, so it is not as ruinous to my plans as all that.”

He bowed in acknowledgement, returning her smile, which, for some reason, made her take a second look at him. Despite what she had told Maren when she had first seen him again, he really was quite attractive. She had never truly preferred facial hair on any man, but it suited Matthew far more than she would have expected. He seemed less of a boy now, though he had hardly been one when they’d had their understanding, and in his place was a robust and striking man.

She might actually prefer him with facial hair, as far as looks were concerned.

Matthew indicated the seat next to her. “May I? Or would you prefer I take one of the chairs?”

Abigail shook herself out of the dangerous territory she’d unwittingly wandered into. “Oh, it makes no difference. Sit wherever you like.”

As she suspected, he took the seat beside her, though he was far enough away that Maren could have come back in and sat between them comfortably. “Then I will sit here. Your mother always had the most comfortable divans, but I swear she let your military father select the chairs.”

She snickered in response. “I wasn’t aware that the furniture in public rooms was supposed to be comfortable for the guests seated in them. What would we do if someone dropped into a sleep when we were entertaining them?”

“I know this one,” Matthew announced with an indicating finger as he leaned back against the rim of the divan. “Pluck a feather from whatever accommodating female is in the room and brush it against their skin and nose to see how they react, all while attempting not to wake them.”

Abigail reached over and smacked him in the arm with a laugh. “Wretch! That is a perfectly horrid idea, and I sincerely hope you never entertain.”

He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Never do. But I’ve always wanted to try that.”

“Ridiculous man. Are you a child?”

“Sometimes.” Matthew was silent for a minute, then his eyes flicked down to the letter she held. “So, are you going to tell me what you are so keen to read, or must I perish from curiosity?”

The question wasn’t exactly unexpected, given that he had come in just as she was relishing in the delight of having another letter to read, but of all people in the world, she was the least interested in letting Matthew Weber-Grey know about her private romantic dealings.

Still, the idea of informing him where things stood now might take away any ideas of rekindling a romance between them, which surely needed to be done.

So she fixed a friendly smile on her face and put the letter firmly in her lap. “You are not the only man in the world who has ever taken an interest in me. It just so happens that I have been receiving regular correspondence from a man with a particular interest in me.”

“Have you indeed?” he returned, looking truly pleased. “I am glad to hear it. You should have suitors out the door for you to test out! So, come on and tell me about him. What is his name?”

Abigail shook her head, still smiling, though she was utterly bewildered by his response. “No, no, you don’t get to know his identity. I must have some secrets, you know.”

He nodded in agreement. “I should hope so. I think I would hate to know everything about someone. Where would the surprise be?”

Where indeed.

“What does he say in his letters, Abigail?” Matthew teased, his tone blatantly suggestive.

She rolled her eyes with the dramatics he was employing. “He compliments my wit and intelligence and the sound of my voice and says he finds me to be the most fascinating woman he’s ever known. And he seems very taken by my eyes.”

Matthew’s head bobbed in approval with each item. “Excellent choices, all. The eyes especially. The man has excellent taste. And you clearly like him in return.”

“Why would you think so?” she asked, gaping a little.

He gave her a knowing look she remembered all too well. “You can’t stop smiling. He excites you and invigorates you. Rather like I used to.”

She stammered inaudibly, struggling for a response to such a statement.

“Abigail, I wasn’t trying to dampen the moment,” he told her gently. “I’m merely telling you something that only I could observe. I’m very happy for you, and it’s a pleasure to see you look like this again.”

He was what?

She blinked twice. “You’re happy for me? You mean it?”

That seemed to surprise him. “Of course, I mean it. I still care about you, Abigail, and what I want above all else is for you to be happy.” He shrugged helplessly and offered a hesitant smile. “That is what friends do, is it not?”

Abigail couldn’t respond for a moment, incredulous and surprisingly touched. He actually meant it. He truly was pleased she had a man expressing interest and something that made her happy. Something that wasn’t him.

“Yes,” she finally replied, smiling back at him. “Yes, it is.”

***

What man in his right mind would intentionally venture into the madness of shopping in London during the Season without a need to purchase anything? Particularly when he was going to be in the company of at least one female who will likely be mad for the whole venture and another who might be too distracted to be worth any sort of salt as far as conversation went?

But venture he would, and without a single complaint.

If this was how Abigail would allow him to associate with her, he would take it with all good graces and gratitude.

Audibly, at any rate.

He was filled with a very different sort of apprehension within himself, one that many a man had felt with such an excursion ahead of him. The only way that this would all diminish would be if Thomas Sterling were in attendance, and if he were as sensible as Matthew had always taken him to be, he would have fled from his sisters’ request posthaste.

Provided he had been requested at all.

The Sterling siblings could be a bit fickle when it came to tolerating one another.

In short order, the hack had arrived at its destination, and Matthew disembarked with a reluctant groan.

The things he would endure for love.

Matthew had not walked for long when a familiar pair of sisters strolled out of the milliner’s shop, one darker than the other, but sharing the same smile. The sight of it drew out his own smile, and he moved in their direction.

Unfortunately, he reached them just as they were entering a hosiery shop, and Matthew politely followed, hands behind his back, ready to engage in the act of perusing the shop. Men’s hosiery wasn’t nearly so exciting, but one must always be socked appropriately, so he could purchase a few things if need be.

At the moment, he couldn’t recall what he already had in the hosiery department of his wardrobe, but neither did he particularly care.

“You’re making a valiant effort.”

He turned to look behind him, smiling at Abigail, who had followed him. “Of what?” he asked.

Her sardonic look made him chuckle.

“What? You don’t think I have a genuine interest in hosiery?”

“No,” Abigail retorted bluntly. “I don’t believe you care at all.”

Now he grinned outright. “You’re right; I don’t. But appearances must be kept up, so . . .” He resumed his slow meander, indicating that she follow.

She did so, and somehow she looked convincing in her faux shopping.

“Tell me something,” Matthew murmured, pausing to examine a truly horrendous pair of socks. “Why did your mother agree to let me come on this errand?”

“She’s curious about you,” Abigail whispered back. “Mad with it, actually.”

He nodded in thought, pleased that it wasn’t just him, though he was fairly certain there had never been another man to truly consider where Abigail’s future was concerned. “And what of your mystery suitor? Is she curious there?”

She looked over her shoulder quickly and picked up a pair of socks, pretending to examine them more closely. “She doesn’t know. And she would not approve. I cannot pretend to be unmoved by the contents of his letters, nor that I am growing more so with each one.”

Matthew paused again, this time to let another woman pass by. “You like him,” he stated unnecessarily.

Abigail sighed, and the sound reminded him of days on the grass in the sun at Hazelwood. “Yes. Yes, I like him. I think I like him very much. Is that so very strange? I don’t even know him. I have no idea who he is.”

He looked at her with a smile, hopefully one that encouraged her. “I won’t deny that it is strange, but that doesn’t make it false. And let’s consider this properly: what do you know about the man?”

She frowned and moved in front of him, now leading the way as they continued through the shop once more. “What, besides that he has taken an interest in me for some reason?”

“Yes, besides his excellent taste,” Matthew quipped, winking though she would not see it. “You know that he is of your class, yes? Or else he could not possibly be seeing you at events.”

Abigail’s head tilted at that. “I suppose so. I also know that he is educated. He references Shakespeare and scholars on some occasions.”

“Even better,” Matthew praised. “Learned men must always be considered decent enough candidates, no?”

She stopped suddenly, then turned to finger a pair of wool stockings nearby. “He likes music as well.”

Matthew drew up beside her, not bothering to pretend he was shopping anymore and leaning against the shelf next to him. “He said that?”

“No, but he describes it often enough. Refers to it. Particularly with regards to . . .” She trailed off, glancing in his direction without meeting his eyes.

It wasn’t like Abigail to be shy, but he found it all the more endearing because of that. “To you,” he finished. “He finds you musical.”

“Which also shows his ignorance,” she muttered as her face colored. “You know very well that I am not at all musical.”

“Not in technical terms, no,” Matthew admitted, keeping his eyes on her, waiting for her to meet his eyes again. “Not in abilities, no. But I’ve always thought your laugh somewhat musical. Not necessarily an aria . . .”

She giggled very softly, a smile playing at her cheeks. “Who laughs like an aria?”

“No one, I hope,” he shot back with a shudder. Then he turned serious again. “I’d think anyone with a working set of ears could find you musical, Abigail. Not like an aria, but perhaps like a songbird on a spring morning.” He shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped, though in actuality he knew he had said too much and was trying to make light of it.

Abigail stared at him all the same, expression unreadable.

He made a quick face. “Too much?”

She shook her head slowly and without much certainty. “Not really, no. I just . . . I’ve never heard you say anything like that about it, and you’ve heard me laugh hundreds of times.”

“Would you believe that it took me all these years to figure out what it sounded like?” he tried with a hopeful smile.

That broke the tension, and Abigail smirked, returning her attention to the stockings. “I would, actually. You never did have much of a way with words.”

Silently breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to the safety of self-deprecation. “There’s just so many words!” he whined plaintively. “I had my education, but I never told anyone just how I did in language and composition.”

“Probably for the best,” Abigail set as she laid the stockings back down. “We’d all think quite poorly of you if you’d received poor marks there. Your reputation would be quite ruined.”

“I trust you to keep the secret safe.” He hesitated a moment, watching as she turned away, then made his mind up. “Abigail?”

She turned back, still smiling, warmth radiating from her. “Yes?”

Matthew let himself return her smile, though perhaps more gently. “Whatever it is this man is praising in his letters, whatever he finds admirable in you, you ought to believe him. Someone should be acknowledging such an endless collection of incomparable things as what you possess, even if it cannot be me.”

Her eyes widened, and her breath caught.  He could see the return of tension in full, and he would swear he could see the fierceness with which her heart pounded within her. She said nothing, made no sound, and barely breathed.

Neither did he, for that matter.

But he cleared his throat all the same. “I thought you should know that,” he murmured as he passed her again, his fingers accidentally brushing hers.

He wasn’t sure if he gasped or she did, but it took several long moments for the burning sensation of that part of his hand to subside.

Chapter Six

“No, I will not reacquaint you with Uncle Hensh tonight.”

“Why not? What possible excuse could you have for refusing me?”

“Would you like me to produce a list for you? Or do you think you can remember on your own?”

Matthew did not appreciate her sarcasm, and Abigail knew it, but it did not follow that she cared all that much about his appreciation. His odd desire to regain a favorable reputation with every member of her family, whether extended or immediate, was no doubt admirable, but there really was no point to it.

And if this was his manner of attempting to procure an invitation to Uncle Hensh’s card party this evening, he was seriously lacking in convincing arguments.

“You’ve already made yourself reacquainted with Francis,” Abigail pointed out leaning slightly on her croquet mallet. “Enough that he included you on this picnic with the entire family.”

Matthew raised a brow at her, pausing in his preparations to strike his green ball through a wicket. “Are you offended, jealous, or indignant?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, which made him snort and shake his head. “Hurry up, you perfectionist,” she whined, cementing her current juvenile manner decisively. “We’re going to miss the meal, and Janet has the best cook in London!”

“Patience is a virtue,” Matthew reminded her in a calm, patient tone. He swung his mallet once, twice, then thumped the ball soundly, sending it through the wicket and rolling in a nearly perfect line toward the next one. He grinned outright and swung his mallet onto his shoulder. “And you do not have it.”

That wasn’t much of a surprise, was it? Anyone who knew Abigail knew full well that she was impulsive and impatient even on her best days, despite her better qualities, and it had been a frequent sort of mockery from her siblings over the years.

Abigail pushed past Matthew roughly, barely avoiding the impulse to sniff as she did so. “Well, if we are about to list all the areas in which we are in some way lacking . . .” She eyed the wicket and lined up the mallet for her yellow ball carefully, then exhaled slowly before whacking the ball through the wicket and sending it sailing beyond Matthew’s until it rested just before the next wicket. She grinned tightly with exquisite satisfaction and looked over her shoulder at the openly gaping Matthew, “then we had best start with your failings in croquet.”

He closed his mouth with an audible click of his teeth smacking against each other, his eyes narrowing. “You do know how to provoke a man, don’t you?”

Abigail shrugged with a twirl of her mallet, feeling rather impish at the moment. “I don’t set out with the intent of provocation. Can I help it if things naturally trend in that direction?”

“You steer it in that direction,” Matthew corrected as he lowered his mallet to the ground and began to use it as a walking stick. “Navigate the ship toward the treacherous waters of provocation while keeping your crew blissfully unaware of the dangers ahead.”

“Ahoy,” Abigail replied in a dry tone.

He looked at her as he came to her side. “Fair winds and a following sea.”

She placed a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “Are you sending me on an actual voyage, or do you simply not know when to end a joke?”

Again, his eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Then, without warning, he poked her shoulder hard before racing off toward their balls. “First to the balls has full control!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“No!” Abigail screeched as she hiked up her unfortunately voluminous skirts and darted after him, her legs pumping hard, though her lungs were completely unable to match their efforts.

The fashions of the day were clearly doing nothing for feminine athleticism.

Matthew reached the balls first, as he had intended, and he took a moment to grin rather wickedly at Abigail, setting his mallet in place.

Abigail glared as she ran still. “Matthew Edward James Weber-Grey, if you so much as tap my ball . . .”

With a whoop, he swung at her ball hard, sending it careening off into the near patch of elms, its course interfering with birds, leaves, and, if her ears heard correctly, one or two trunks.

She stopped running, though her breath was as ragged as if she had run several miles, and she stared off into the trees with a sort of hopeless detachment. There was no recovering her score from all that, not when the next series of wickets were in the exact opposite direction, and she would have to backtrack to get through the one Matthew was currently tapping his own ball through with ease.

The sound of the mallet against the ball brought her attention back to him, and he watched her with a small grin, having completed what had to be the safest shot through a wicket ever made. “Well?” he prodded. “Are you going to retaliate, or have I won?”

The taunting only furthered her resolve, and she sneered at him as she went traipsing off after the ball in the woods. “If you prefer your victories by cheating, then by all means, call yourself the winner. I, however, will play by the rules.”

“Since when?” he laughed as he jogged after her. “You’ve turned bending the rules into a form of artistic sculpture.”

Abigail raised her chin, lifting her nose in the air superiorly. “I have matured, Matthew, unlike some other persons I know.”

He reached her side and hummed in thought. “I wasn’t aware maturity had a place in games and entertainment. What a fascinating discovery.”

She nudged him hard, pressing him off her path, and he went, still chuckling to himself. “You are a horrible human being and a poor excuse for a gentleman.”

Matthew straightened, his laughter only slightly fading. “Not so! I am escorting you into the woods so you might not be unaccompanied and intend to assist you in finding your ball, as it was my actions that sent it into such a place. And I will even let you have two strokes to make up for the misdeed.”

Two strokes? She smirked a little, her mind spinning. Two strokes could get her out of the woods easily, if she was in position enough to accommodate it, and she just might be able to overtake him if all went well.

If, and that was a very large if, indeed.

“Well,” she huffed, determined not to give anything away, “only time will tell if your actions truly amount to anything gentlemanly. It would be only too horrid if my ball would be stuck in a thorny bush, or . . .”

“In the middle of a rather large mud puddle?” Matthew suggested.

She opened her mouth to reply, only to see that her precious green ball was, in fact, swimming in a dark, muddy body of water right ahead of them.

A gentleman would fish it out for her. A gentleman would insist on getting dirty himself rather than her risk her skirts, let alone any other part of her. A gentleman would . . . Well, a gentleman would never have put her in this situation in the first place, but it was what it was.

And she refused to leave anything else to a gentleman simply because it ought to be done.

Abigail cleared her throat, then picked up her skirts just enough to be safe from the puddle, then marched herself to her ball.

“Abigail, you aren’t serious,” Matthew said with a faint note of alarm.

She ignored him, her mallet in one hand and her skirts in another, her boots sinking at once into the mud and water as she continued awkwardly on her way.

“How in the world are you going to hit the ball with your skirts occupying a hand?” he asked, amusement finding its way back into his voice.

Abigail eyed the ball, walking around it once to take in every aspect. Strategy would be crucial in this, and she would only get one opportunity. Her mother would likely scold her for soiling her boots, particularly when they were new, and there was no telling what she would have to say about whatever state her skirts ended up in. But her pride would be salvaged and her honor defended.

“Abigail . . .”

She looked up at him at last, quelling him with a cool glare of determination. She hefted her skirts over one arm, though she knew there was nothing to be done about her petticoat in the back, and did her best to handle the mallet with two hands without losing her hold on the skirts. She focused on the ball once more, held her breath, and swung her mallet with a firm thwack.

Mud splattered up at her, and she could feel the cool sludge hit her stockings above the level of her boots. She hissed, then looked down.

Her ball was gone.

Delighted and bewildered, she looked up and saw it rolling toward the head of the woods, apparently none the worse for wear. She laughed and looked at Matthew for his response.

He wasn’t looking at the ball at all, but at her. His eyes were warm, and his smile was both impressed and proud. He wasn’t laughing at whatever mud splatter she had created on herself or teasing her about the skirts lifted above propriety and slung over her arm.

This wasn’t a look of friendship. It was so much more.

But rather than be upset about it, Abigail felt her skin warm and tingle, while her lungs seemed to constrict in the oddest fashion. She couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t find the strength and sense she had been so carefully maintaining. This was the Matthew she had known and loved. This look was more familiar than anything in recent memory, and she wanted to race across the mud and the green to fling herself into his arms, no matter the current state of her attire. She wanted his lips on hers, his arms around her, his hands cupping her face . . .

She wanted everything she had sworn never to give him. Never to feel for him. Never to experience with him.

Absolutely everything.

She ought to be horrified and embarrassed, ought to avert her eyes and ignore her blushes, change the subject, and return to Francis’s house without a word.

But she could not move. She was still breathing painfully, deep and almost frantic, and Matthew was echoing it.

Something needed to happen.

Something . . .

“Abigail! Matthew! Come and eat!”

Janet’s voice broke through the impossible tension of their moment, and Abigail blinked with a ragged inhale that seemed to stretch her corset to new and agonizing extremes. But it did allow cool air and something almost resembling sense to flood back in, and she wrenched her eyes from Matthew, starting toward the edge of the pond. “We mustn’t keep Janet waiting,” she muttered aloud, hoping he would hear, as her voice had absolutely no strength. “She’s been too kind to have us all here, and Maren will only leave us scraps.”

“Your sister does have a voracious appetite,” Matthew replied, his voice maddeningly calm.

Then his hand was on Abigail’s, taking the mallet from her and looping her arm through his.

Abigail dropped her skirts to the ground and nodded, unable to meet his eyes. But his arm was delightfully warm against the sudden chill that seemed to be coursing through her, tingling her skin in an entirely different manner from what she had just been experiencing. She could only stare at her fingers on his arm, unnerved by how natural and comfortable it felt. How easy it was to do.

Three years. Three years since she had felt anything like this with him, and the fact that she did feel it seemed a peculiar puzzle. Was it too soon? Was it wrong? Was she an idiot for swaying in his direction though she knew she ought not?

“This isn’t over,” Matthew murmured to her.

Abigail jerked in his hold and looked up at him. What wasn’t? That moment? Her feelings? The sensation of dying for the touch of his lips? Or just the idea of them? All of that had to be over. It could not continue, not for an instant!

“Oh?” she managed weakly.

Matthew nodded once. “You think after a shot like that I would concede the match? You’ve just made things far more interesting, and I refuse to leave it unfinished.”

The rush of her exhale was unexpected, and her lips parted into a relieved grin. “Naturally,” she replied in a much stronger voice. “I am determined to win, despite the obstacles.”

He laughed at that and pressed against her side with his elbow. “Don’t tell my more competitive self, but I may be rooting for you.”

Abigail echoed his laugh, an act that spilled over into giggles about the whole muddled mess of things. It was absolutely ridiculous, and the confusion and shock of it all suddenly struck her as being the height of hilarity and madness. She had no restraint and no resistance left. Matthew stared at her as though she had lost her mind, smiling the sort of patronizing smile one gives to those swimming in the sea of insanity.

No matter. Eventually, she would calm, and her walls would rebuild, and all would be well.

Or well enough, at least.

***

An evening without Matthew was a blessed relief, and mindless card playing with cousins and mere acquaintances had been the perfect respite for her frazzled mind.

What had she been thinking? Playing croquet with her friend was one thing, but hungering for him and finding his beard and his eyes and his form more appealing than anything else on this earth? It was horrifying, and she ought to have been far too hardened for such idiotic sentiments.

And there was her admirer to consider, after all. He had never betrayed her and wrote with a gentle honesty that pulled at her heart. He was a man she could trust, could turn to, and one she could wrap about her for protection, comfort, and adoration. Soon she would have to meet him in person and put an end to the mystery. They could not spend eternity in this one-sided correspondence, not if he felt for her as sincerely as he proposed, and not when she was beginning to feel something of the same.

And she was beginning to feel it.

His last two letters had been so tender, so captivating, and so perfect a gesture of courtship that she had begun to read them all before going to bed, desperate to bring some of the magic he spun into her dreams.

Dearest Miss Sterling,

I went for a stroll in the beauty of the park at St. James today and felt it would only be more perfect were you to have joined me . . .

Abigail snapped out of her pleasant reverie as she entered the house, stripping off the gloves and letting the maids take her cloak.

“Pardon me, miss,” one of the girls said as she draped the cloak over an arm, “but this came for you just a short time ago.” She produced a neatly folded missive from her apron pocket and handed it to her.

Abigail bit back a squeal and plucked it from her. “Thank you, Jeanie!” She looked ahead to ensure her family were not in view and rushed to the parlor, where the fire was still lit, to read her message.

The seal broke easily and she leaned closer to the fire to read the now-familiar tidy scrawl.

Dearest Miss Sterling,

Tonight, I saw you by the grace of chance, and it was all the more delightful for being unexpected. I don’t know where you were going or by what mercy it was so close to my own residence, but I shall not complain of my ignorance under the circumstances. I am exceedingly grateful for any opportunity to be graced by your presence, even if you are unaware of mine. I could not follow you, though I longed to do so, and would not dare to infringe upon your evening or your person. The pleasure of seeing you in the evening light, so close to my home, brought me such joy and hope, though I had nothing to feel particularly hopeful for.

I could not tell the color of the dress or the shade of the ribbons in your lovely, dark hair—the distance was too great. But the image, such as it was, of you smiling and laughing with your family as day passed into night will be enough to sustain me for some time. You are magnificent, Miss Sterling, and are so many things. You are strong and passionate, warm and caring, intelligent, witty, and bright, and quick to smile or to laugh without being frivolous or flippant.

I have to wonder, Miss Sterling . . . could you, perhaps, be everything?

The time is drawing near, I believe, for you to know me for myself. I feel determined that we should meet, to see if what I feel could exist in truth, and to see if all that I feel might possibly be returned. I will find the opportunity and let you know when it shall be, if you are agreeable. Wait for me, if I may hope.

Yours most sincerely.

Abigail exhaled roughly, pressing a hand to her furiously pounding heart. This lovely, caring, perceptive man was growing dearer to her by the letter, and he, too, felt it would soon be time to meet. What a breathless, exhilarating thought!

Wait for him? If he were half as perfect as his letters made him seem, she would wait an eternity for him. No matter who else invaded her thoughts or her life.

Chapter Seven

How Matthew had managed an invitation to an informal ball at the home of some Sterling relative whose connection he couldn’t recall, he would never know, but the Lambert family seemed pleasant enough. Even more incomprehensible than his invitation was how perfectly friendly they all were to him.

Still, he was grateful for the opportunity to attend any events in London, particularly when he knew that Abigail would be in attendance. He hadn’t seen her yet, but he had only been here a quarter of an hour, and the collar of his dress shirt was beginning to chafe against his skin. Matthew barely restrained the irritable sigh known well to all reclusive individuals forced to integrate themselves with the social members of their society and did all in his power to avoid leaning back against the wall.

A sudden glimpse of brilliant white drew his attention across the room, and his throat seemed to plummet squarely into the center of his chest, pounding in synchrony with his heart and twice as painfully.

There was the woman he adored, smiling and glowing for all the world, entirely unaware of him.

Her gown was white, giving her more of an angelic look than she ordinarily bore, and the bodice was dotted with bits of blue embroidery that he couldn’t make out from here. A ribbon of a similar shade wrapped around her waist, accentuating the remarkable figure she possessed, and the skirts flowed with a gauzy overlay dotted with blue over voluminous layers of white. Her shoulders were bare, the color of her skin a rosy ivory compared to the crisp white of her dress. At her throat, she wore pearls set off by a large blue jewel, which hung in the center, just below what had to be the most tempting dip of a throat he had ever seen on any living soul.

He had never seen her look thus, had never seen her hair so luxuriously curled and pinned, framing her face in a delicate halo. She had always been lovely to him, and certainly in their younger years she had been similarly dressed and coiffed, but this was entirely different. This was no slip of a girl he fancied and drew unto an understanding; this was a woman, all grace and poise and loveliness, that he adored with an undying fervor and could not imagine his life without.

This was how he always should have seen her, no matter how she was adorned.

He found his breath at last rushing out of him in a painful exhale that nearly had him swaying where he stood. How could someone he had known and loved for most of his life continue to affect him in ways he was entirely unprepared for?

Gathering what courage he had, he exhaled and moved toward them all, smiling with warm politeness. Something, and he wasn’t entirely sure what, told him to go to Maren instead. She was dressed in a lovely shade of green that enhanced her natural looks to perfection, and the younger men would certainly be eying her for potential courtships soon, if not this very evening.

“My, my,” Matthew praised gently as he approached her. “Here I was thinking little Maren was too young for such dances, but here I find a grown woman, all loveliness and elegance. I must atone for my error and misjudgment. If you would not object, Miss Maren, I should very much like my first dance of the evening to be with you.”

Abigail heard him and turned to watch the exchange in a secret delight that only elder siblings can know.

Maren grinned without any sort of reserve, as was her natural way, and she nodded, sending the emerald earrings she wore dancing against her hair. “I would be most pleased, Mr. Weber-Grey.”

“And for that,” Mrs. Sterling chimed in from behind her children, smiling at him in a way he wasn’t sure she had before, “you will get to dance with all the Sterling ladies, sir.”

“For what crime?” Thomas protested with a crooked grin. “The man only asked for Maren, why should he . . . ?” He was cut off by someone, likely his father or his cousin Francis, pressing the back of one knee, making him buckle slightly.

Matthew moved Maren out to the dance before any other hijinks could occur.

“Thank you,” Maren said quietly. “I was so worried no one would dance with me. Especially with how well Abigail looks this evening.”

Matthew kept his expression perfectly blank. “Who?”

She beamed and nudged him in the ribs, her cheeks coloring. “Oh, you . . . You know perfectly well you are trying to dance with Abigail tonight in the only way that you know she won’t refuse.”

“I am not!” he coughed in mock surprise, knowing she could tell if he lied. “I find myself entirely devoted to this dance with you for your own merits and charms. Any other dances I may or may not engage in tonight will be entirely up to the same on those ladies in question.”

Maren rolled her eyes, rapped his knuckles with her fan, and moved into the dance position. “Dance with Mama next. Then you can spend as long as you like with Abigail.”

She winked at him, and he returned it with a smug smile. “You are a very fine ally, Maren Sterling. Now, no more talk of any other persons you may be related to. I am dancing with you, not the feminine Sterling collective.”

Once he had danced with Abigail’s mother as well, he had to wait for Abigail to finish her dance with Francis before he could have her. He instead spent the time chatting with Thomas Sterling, who, for the first time, did not seem in any way inclined to murder him, either on the spot or in the very near future. Matthew took that as a very great sign of some success, though he could not decide what to attribute the change to.

Their conversation, such as it was, stopped midsentence as Francis led Abigail over to them. Abigail was flushed and smiled brightly on her cousin’s arm, and her brilliant eyes, still alight with laughter, rested on Matthew.

And did not change.

“Well?” Abigail asked as Francis released her arm with a knowing chuckle. “Is it finally my turn to dance with the man who is intent on gracing the dance floor with every female Sterling in attendance?”

Matthew bowed to her, still a bit breathless from what he saw in her expression, and scrambled for wit. “If Miss Sterling will allow me, I should dearly love to complete the set with her as the final partner.”

There was no response, and he glanced up to find Abigail fighting a smile and pretending to consider the proposition. Then she sighed and tossed her head, sending her dark ringlets swaying against her fair skin. “Oh, why not?”

She held out her hand for him to take.

He snatched it as quickly as he could, squeezing tightly, relief shaking his knees in a way destined to make him a pathetic dance partner. He couldn’t say another word and only smiled, dipping his head in what he prayed was smooth acknowledgement and not scattered desperation.

He must have been convincing, for Abigail laughed again and let him lead her into the dance. He cleared his throat just as they bowed to each other, and he smiled at his partner. “What has you in such a fine mood, Miss Sterling?”

Abigail still bore the coloring and smile of laughter as she passed about him. “It is a perfect evening, and my cousin is excessively diverting. And, if you will look to the end of the line, you will see my sister partnered with a most handsome young man who seems to be rather amiable.”

Matthew did look, and just as Abigail had said, Maren was blushing and giggling while dancing with an almost gangly youth who could not look away from her. “That is rather promising, isn’t it? Shall we send your Uncle Hensh or Cousin Francis to interrogate the lad?”

“No!” Abigail insisted with a bright laugh, gripping his arm tighter than she ought to have in the dance. “No, let her have whatever romance this may or may not be without interference for as long as she can! You and I both know that intervention is the enemy to progress in matters of the heart.”

“It can be, sure enough,” he allowed with a nod of consideration, his heart skittering momentarily on the slippery slope of their romantic past. “But this is Maren we are talking about. She defies expectation and restriction with flair.”

Abigail raised a brow as Matthew now passed her. “And I did not?”

He exhaled quickly while momentarily out of her eyesight, then took a chance and let his expression change into one of raw emotion, something he had wanted to share with her ever since he had come to London. “You did everything with flair. You defied every expectation. And you haven’t stopped.”

He caught a flash of surprise in her eyes, her smile vanishing, and then they were forced to promenade down the lines with the others. He could feel her stiffening more and more beside him, and he couldn’t bear that.

“You have to know that, Abigail,” he murmured, his eyes fixed ahead. “You have to know that hasn’t changed.”

She inhaled shakily, and he heard it, felt himself echo the same. “You promised not to say things like this.”

He slowly shook his head at her as they faced each other, dancing hand in hand around one side of the line. “I never said that. I said that I understood you and that you could stop me. By any means necessary. I’m willing to risk it tonight to tell you that I love you. More than ever. More than before.”

“Matthew,” she hissed, her tone heavy and her eyes filled with a light he couldn’t interpret.

“Stop me then,” he insisted without rancor. “Stop me from telling you that I’ve missed you more fiercely than I thought it possible for a man. That there could never be another woman in the world for me. That I would wait for your feelings for me to return until my last breath.”

Abigail’s eyes filled with tears, and her mouth pressed into a straight line. He passed her once more, as the dance required.

“Stop me,” he whispered, her dark tresses grazing his lips as he did so.

Without warning, Abigail seized his hand and whirled out of the dance, barreling toward the nearest door, which happened to be close enough that their exit would barely be remarked upon. Abigail pulled him along, her grip tight, and neither of them said a word. Matthew, for his part, couldn’t do so.

What was Abigail feeling? Was this move of hers in anger or in passion? Would she rage at him, or would his plan finally have its glorious resolution?

They moved down a corridor that no other guests inhabited, and then, to his surprise, she wrenched open a door and entered, hauling him in behind her, leaving the door ajar. It was a small room, a deep closet of sorts, though it was entirely empty for the present. Abigail released his hand as soon as they entered and began to pace as much as the small space would allow, her skirts slamming against Matthew’s shins with every turn.

“Abigail . . .”

She held up a gloved hand that trembled slightly and shook her head. Then she bit the top of her middle finger and yanked the glove off, then did the same with the other, crinkling both her hands. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him, the tears in her eyes glinting in the faint light from the corridor. Her eyes rested below his, somewhere around the level of his chin, and it chilled him.

“You think,” she began, her voice thick and rasping, “that you can drop yourself back into my life and I will fall into your arms without a second thought? You think that the suffering I endured day after day after what you chose to do has all been forgotten? You think that because I can now tolerate your company and smile at times and listen to your stories that it doesn’t still pain me to see you smile?”

Matthew stared at her, mouth gaping, horrified. He had never imagined . . . well, he had, but he thought . . . He thought . . .

Abigail’s hands became fists at her sides. “Did you think that I was sitting around just waiting for you to decide you wanted me after all? That you are the only measure by which I could possibly live my life? That all would be forgiven and forgotten because I understood the pressures you faced and pitied you for how it all turned out?”

He had, actually. He had thought that. Foolishly, stupidly, naively he had thought that.

“I gave you understanding,” she raged as her voice rose and her cheeks flushed. “I listened, and I actually felt pain on your behalf! I began to forgive you, I won’t deny that, and I thought there was a chance that my best friend could be back in my life. But never, not even once, did I think that you would put me through all of this just to confess things that I explicitly asked you not confess. Do you know why I asked that of you, Matthew?”

His mouth worked, but no sound came out. His legs shook, and his stomach clenched, his face slowly going numb with every word she spoke.

A pair of tears leaked from her eyes, one from each, and they began a slow, maddening path down her cheeks. “Because I couldn’t bear it. Because day in and day out, I still live with the hurt that you caused me. I was the one who loved you, the one who wanted you for you, and you chose her. You chose her! You had a wife to divert you, though she failed to do so, and a life to live with her. You could forget all that we shared, though you failed to do so, and moved on with her. Do you know what I did?”

More tears fell, and with it his heart. “I ached. I burned. I woke up every morning knowing that the man I loved did not, and could not, love me the same way.”

“No . . .” Matthew managed to force out, though it came without volume or force. “No, Abigail . . .”

She either did not hear him or chose to ignore him. “I had to live with the understanding that to the person I valued above all others, I was second best. I was found lacking. Wanting. For days on end, I was torn between wanting you and hating you, and then hating myself for somehow failing you.”

Lord, he couldn’t bear this. “Abigail . . .”

Finally, she looked at him again, another tear falling, though her face seemed close to crumpling. “I have loved having you back in my life, Matthew. But every moment you are near reminds me of those days, and those feelings, and when you say all of the things you should have said then, I ache even worse than I did then. Because I want to believe you, and I don’t know if I can.”

He was to her in less than two steps and hauled her into his arms, pressing her trembling frame against his own as his arms clasped her tightly. One hand settled at her back, the other in her hair, and he kissed her hair with all the emotion he felt washing over him. “Oh, Abigail. Oh, my love.”

To his surprise, she clung to him, and he felt his shirt dampening with waves of tears. “I tried to be enough for you,” she whimpered, her hands gripping at his back. “Why, Matthew? Why?”

“I am so sorry, love,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her hair again and again. “I am so very sorry.”

She shuddered against him, her cries muffled, and, impossibly, she pulled herself closer. He let her do so, held her as tightly as she seemed to crave, yearning to give her the comfort she so desperately sought. Comfort he should have given her then.

Comfort he had to give her now.

“You are enough,” he whispered. He shifted his mouth closer to her ear. “You always were enough. More than enough. More than I deserved. There is nothing lacking or wanting in you, and I never forgot you. Not for a day, not for a moment, and nothing in this world could ever make me forget you. Never.”

Her nose brushed against his coat, and she sniffled once, then raised her head. Faint tracks left by her tears marred her cheeks, and her lips were swollen and full, parted now as she breathed through them. Her eyes were greener in this dim light, green and luminous and fixed on his with the same intensity with which she had just raged.

Remnants of her tears leaked from her eyes, and he brushed them away, gently stroking her skin with his fingers. “I never forgot you, Abby.”

Abigail inhaled as his fingers passed over her lips, and a faint tremor rocked her frame, sending echoing waves into his own. “I never forgot you either,” she breathed.

The words hung between them and rendered each breathless, their lips somehow hovering just out of reach of one another. Someone moved, though it was impossible to say who, and then their lips were melding, caressing and pressing, raising heat and sensation between them. Her lips pulled at his, insistent and demanding, reaching for something within him, drawing forth his very soul, which he was only too willing to give. Aching and need mingled together in the mad frenzy they were caught in the middle of, lips and teeth clashing together, scraping against skin, nothing gentle or tender in any of this.

Passion in its most honest and rare form surged between them. Matthew’s fingers clenched in Abigail’s hair, his other hand gripping the side of her face, keeping her right where he wanted her. Abigail’s hands had moved to his neck, and she pulled him in with a constant strength that humbled him. She kissed him deeply, fiercely, holding nothing in reserve, just as she did with everything else in her life.

One hand moved and rubbed against his bearded jaw, her nails faintly scratching at the skin, drawing a ragged moan from his lips that echoed in the recesses of her perfect mouth. He broke from her lips and danced his lips across her cheeks and along her jaw, venturing down the slender column of her throat. She returned the favor as her mouth dusted against his brow, his ear, anywhere she could reach as she nuzzled against him.

Matthew kissed the base of her throat, and she released a raw, guttural sound that lit him on fire, and he moved back to her lips, seizing them with a renewed fervor, seeking answers and promises to questions he could not voice. Abigail matched him, her arm wrapping around his head like a vice, bringing her body flush with his, the contact searing every inch of them.

“I love you,” he breathed as he caught her lower lip. “Abby . . .”

She gasped, arched her neck, then suddenly shoved him away.

Unprepared and unsettled, he stumbled, slamming into the wall of the closet. He stared at her, wide-eyed and panting, limbs and lips and skin still burning with the feeling of her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Abigail had pressed herself against the opposite wall, staring through him rather than at him, her chest heaving every bit as much as his, hair and gown disheveled. She brought a shaky hand to her lips, then gasped very faintly as they touched.

“Abigail?”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Matthew. We can’t do this.”

He braced his elbows on his knees, peering up at her through the haze of his receding desire. “Why not?”

He watched as her throat moved with a swallow that didn’t seem to complete. “There’s . . . there’s someone else. Someone I am falling in love with. And I can’t do to him what you did to me. Not if it’s real.” Her eyes focused once more on him, and he saw the steely determination he loved about her settle there and in her jaw. “No matter how much I may be tempted,” she added as a soft afterthought.

He kept his gaze steady, heart ricocheting within him. She couldn’t do this to him . . . Couldn’t drive him to this and then leave him for another.

The thought seemed to lodge itself in his throat, and he straightened very slowly.

Of course she could. It was precisely what he had done to her, only this time it happened in a condensed and accelerated manner.

Stunned and humbled, he dipped his chin just once. “I understand.”

Abigail moved to the door, paused, and glanced at him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he told her, struggling to swallow himself.

Then she was gone, and he was alone. He took a moment to collect himself, then straightened fully and pushed off of the wall, straightening his cravat and smoothing his hair. After tugging at his jacket once, he moved out of the closet with firm strides.

Only to see Francis, Lord Sterling, standing there leaning against a wall, smiling smugly, raising one suggestive brow.

Matthew scowled, his cheeks and neck heating at once. “How long have you been there?”

He gave nonchalant shrug. “Long enough to see my cousin come out of there disheveled and crying. And as to that, I have absolutely zero questions. Well done, lad.”

Matthew’s scowl grew into an all-out glower. “I failed, Francis. Everything failed.”

Francis stepped closer, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Has it? Or is it the final push you need to win this war?” He gave him a look of reprimand, then strode back toward the ball.

Somehow, without explanation, a weak smile found its way onto Matthew’s face. The final push . . . Yes, indeed, this was the final push.

And he fully intended to win this war after all.

Chapter Eight

This was all an absolute disaster. There was no other word for it. A massive disaster that she could not have foreseen.

She was in love with Matthew Weber-Grey again.

She was also in love with the mysterious writer of the letters.

Abigail Sterling loved two men and had told the one she was choosing the other. She had done to him exactly what he had done to her three years ago.

Yet Matthew had told her he understood. That she shouldn’t be sorry. He had kissed her full near senseless, and she had returned the favor, and he hadn’t said a word in anger, betrayal, or agony.

Impossibly, that had made her love him more.

How could she do this? How could she leave him, now that she’d found love, passion, friendship, and joy with him once more?

She didn’t trust him enough. After what he had done, she couldn’t. But why couldn’t she? She had come to know him again and felt the same pull, the same attraction, the same need to be with him whenever she could. That had not changed, despite everything. And he was different now. Instead of the reckless, headstrong boy she had known, she had found in him a strong, steadfast, caring man.

So why had she backed away from the passionate haven he presented?

Abigail put her head into her hands. The plush fabric of the chair in the parlor seeming to scrape against her where it touched. Her head pounded furiously, just as it had been doing since that night at the Lamberts’ two days ago. She had made a decision, but she wasn’t clear on it. The poor thing waved to and fro like a willow in the breeze and made just as much noise.

The constant swaying in her mind was beginning to make her nauseated.

She rubbed her hands hard against her face, then stared into the fire in the grate.

She knew why she had done what she had. The man who was writing her letters had touched her soul in a way she had never felt before, not even in the days she and Matthew had been together. He seemed to understand her somehow and see everything in her that she wanted a man to see. Not ignorant of her flaws, but finding them to be just as much a part of her as any other feature.

She needed to know him. She needed to explore this love she felt for him and experience what he had to offer her. The depth of feeling he had stirred within her could not be ignored, not even for the temptation of a life with Matthew.

Matthew.

She closed her eyes on tears she hadn’t known were welling. His image swam before her in her mind’s eye, clear as he had been in that random closet she had tugged him into. His eyes held the same light of mischief she had always loved, and the deep dark of his facial hair gave him a new edge of mystery, even danger, that drew her to him. His mouth curved crookedly, the most attractive smile she had seen in her life, before or since.

Her best friend. Still, it would seem.

And she loved another enough to walk away from him.

Madness. Complete and utter madness.

She hadn’t told Maren or Thomas and especially had not told her mother. She couldn’t bring herself to do so for fear of what any of them might say. The irony and foolishness of her current situation, and even her choices, were not lost on her in the slightest. Hearing a confirmation of all that might be enough to dissuade her from her course, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have proof of her errors, not now. She was too weak at the present, too keen for someone else to make the decision for her.

It would be so much easier if they would.

But this, unfortunately, was something she had to do on her own. And absolutely on her own, at that. Her own head and her own heart.

Neither of them were being particularly decisive or communicative.

“Miss Abigail?”

Sniffing quickly, Abigail turned to the open door, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “Yes, Bess? What is it?”

The round-faced maid bobbed, smiling warmly. “You have another letter, miss.”

For the first time since she had known what these letters contained, she wasn’t sure she wanted to read it. Of course she wanted to know what he would tell her today, what insights he had gained, and to fall a little bit more in love with him, but in her current state, she feared it would only confuse matters more.

Still. It would not do at all to let Bess know that.

The maid handed Abigail the letter, then bobbed another quick curtsy before disappearing down the corridor.

Alone once more, Abigail stared down at the letter as though it were something entirely foreign, the ambiguous seal on the back staring at her like some great, accusatory, critical eye.

She swallowed and snapped it, unfolding it hastily before her mind could change itself on the topic. Her heart swelled at the sight of the scrawl she had come to know and love so well, and her cheeks heated with guilt and shame. There was no possible way he could know what she had done with Matthew only days ago, she reminded herself, but the flaming in her cheeks wasn’t aware of that fact.

Pushing all that aside, she focused on the letter.

Dearest Miss Sterling,

The time is upon us. I cannot wait longer for you to be made aware of who I am, and for your heart to, perhaps, open for me, as mine has been open for you. Open, aching, and waiting for any chance at all that you might step into its void. There can be no one there but you, and I would spend my entire life awaiting your arrival to that desolate location if there was a glimmer of hope.

I have loved you for so long that I could not know myself without you. Your smile, your impulsiveness, your towering strength, your ability to find wit and humor in any circumstance whatsoever, and even the maddening stubborn streak you cannot completely hide, all combine into a rare beauty equal to your physical loveliness, if not far above it, and I thank God Almighty that I have the eyes to see it, that I am graced with the eyes to behold you, to know you, to hope for you. Even now, in writing this, I am the most fortunate of men.

My love, I will never be worthy of you, and well I know it, but I cling to the hope that you might find the discrepancy not insurmountable. From the day I first learned which window of Hazelwood was yours and found the ability to perfectly aim pebbles at it, I wanted to spend every waking hour with you, and nearly did so, if your memory will serve. That night at the ball in Colchester to celebrate the queen, I knew I was yours in every way conceivable. The friendship I so treasured deepened with every heartbeat until I could no longer fathom or describe it, and to this day my heart has never heard sweeter words than these: “Well, Matthew, I think I may have to lay claim to you the entire evening.”

Beloved Abigail, lay claim to me this evening at the queen’s ball. Lay claim to me any day or night or hour that you wish. Lay claim to me for all the days of our lives. For I am and ever have been yours to claim.

Tears coursed freely and unchecked down her cheeks, falling onto the paper in a barrage of emotions, blurring the precious lines in places. It made no difference, as she would never be able to forget a single word of it. The entire letter would be emblazoned in her mind and in her heart, and the echoing burn radiated from limb to limb, roaring into more intensity in the center.

The very core of her screamed out in joyous relief and vigor.

Matthew.

Matthew all along, Matthew the entire time, Matthew both here and there . . . The answer to every question and every need was Matthew.

Part of her considered that she ought to have been peeved at the deception, at the onslaught he had set about in her life, but in this moment, all she could feel was unfettered joy.

This man knew her heart and soul and loved her as thoroughly as any man or woman has ever loved. Their past was behind them, barely in her recollection, and the forgiveness that had eluded her thus far filled her now. She felt light as a wisp of cloud, laughter bubbling up amid the symphony of every other emotion and sensation cascading through her being.

The queen’s ball. Tonight. Oh, but she had to see him, to tell him, to hold him, to run at him, if there were not too many easily scandalized ladies about. She wanted very much to apologize and make amends for refusing him . . . for him. He would undoubtedly find the whole thing rather amusing and tease her about it endlessly.

Horror suddenly washed over her in a frigid wave, gooseflesh rising on every inch of her skin.

Did he know that the man she had been talking about was the man in the letters? Had he puzzled it out that she had unwittingly fallen in love with him in writing? Or had her words the other night given him further reason to fear and doubt?

Lord, she had made a mess of everything!

Well, technically he had done so, but she was more than willing to accept part of the blame this time.

They would share it. Share everything. As they always should have done.

Abigail inhaled slowly and exhaled the same, calm and sense returning, only for a wild grin to dance across her face and send her heart ricocheting through her chest once more.

Matthew loved her, just had he had said, but with a completeness that stole her breath. And she loved him just as much.

And tonight, they would both know it.

***

The ball was an absolute crush. As it turned out, having a ball for the queen when the Queen is actually in attendance tends to increase the number of guests who attend. And apparently all of them wished to stand in the middle of the room and block her view of absolutely everything.

It was a pity that she had not inherited the height that made her father so imposing.

Still, she was here, and Matthew would be here somewhere. She only had to find him.

“Steady, Abs,” Thomas murmured, yet again escorting her about. “You’ve already been presented to the Queen ages ago. Surely being in her presence tonight isn’t so bad.”

Abigail shook her head, her tight ringlets twirling with it, one long, dark lock bouncing against her bare shoulder. “It isn’t the Queen I’m worried about.”

Thomas placed a hand over Abigail’s, momentarily ceasing her attempt to mangle her fingers together. “He’ll be here, Abs. He’s not going anywhere.”

She jerked her head around to look up at him. “What? How did you know?”

Her brother smiled ruefully. “You didn’t think I knew? And even if I didn’t, you’re wearing the same gown from the last time you were anxious to see Thomas at a queen’s ball. The significance isn’t lost on me.”

“How did you know what I wore then?” she demanded after gaping for a long moment.

Thomas shrugged a shoulder. “Every now and then, I do pay attention to details.”

Abigail returned her focus to the room in general, reeling from this revelation. Yes, she was wearing the same gown, which miraculously still fit without her having to sacrifice herself to the corset gods, but she had only expected Matthew to notice.

She was counting on Matthew to notice.

She knew she looked well; in this gown, how could she not? It was a silk of the palest green with streaks of gold weaving in and out in lines that drew the eye to her bodice and waist. The neckline swept about her shoulders gracefully, gathering and dipping slightly at the center, where an intricate bow was tied. The skirts were of exactly the same pattern as the bodice, the lines dipping with each fold, and the gold details becoming more pronounced as they neared the hem. Her dark hair had been curled, pinned, and folded about, a sheer gold ribbon weaving in and out while small white flowers and pearls were scattered among the tresses. Pearl drop earrings and the same gold ribbon tied about her neck were the only other embellishments.

No less than three members of her family had told her how lovely she looked, but she could never trust familiar appraisals. Ages of time had been spent poring over her ensemble, desperate to be as close to perfection as she could get, and while she knew she did not look at all perfect, she hoped it was enough to strike Matthew speechless. For a moment or two, at least.

Abigail heard Thomas ask her permission to leave her so he could dance, and mutely she nodded, not caring in the slightest where he went or what he did. Her heart was pounding in her throat, and she had no energy to focus on anything other than finding Matthew.

“Oh, my sweet girl, what a vision you are!”

Abigail whirled, the voice as familiar and unexpected as anything else. Her grandmother stood there in resplendent blue, grinning without shame. “Miranda? What are you—?”

Miranda came to her and kissed her on both cheeks. “Beloved Abigail. You didn’t think I’d miss the queen’s ball, did you? Especially when it will be so monumental for you.”

Abigail blinked unsteadily. How in the world could Miranda possibly . . .  know?

“I do hope you find Matthew soon,” Miranda said with a wink. “He looks positively glorious. Come and find me later, won’t you, dear? I want to hear everything.”

Again, Abigail’s cheeks were kissed, and Miranda swept away in a rustle of skirts, moving on to greet the other members of the Sterling family.

There wasn’t time to properly consider what in God’s name Miranda was doing here or how she knew or anything at all surrounding her, and Abigail forced herself to return her attention to the ballroom. To the people.

To Matthew.

Where was he?

The group in front of her moved then, and despite all her efforts, she found that she was the one without speech or breath.

Matthew stood in the new opening, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in the most perfect evening wear she had ever seen on anyone. And he was staring at her. Clearly had been doing so. He smiled at her, and in that smile she felt every ounce of love and affection she had ever craved in her life. Gentle and warm, reassuring, adoring, and perfectly Matthew.

His eyes stayed on her, waiting for her to take the first step. More than that, they stayed on her face, never once travelling down the length of her. Steady and direct, and filled with a power that sent her slippered feet moving.

Slowly, but moving all the same.

Every step came with a heartbeat, the pulse of which echoed loudly in her ears and at her wrists. Her throat constricted and her eyes burned, but she refused to swallow or to blink, for fear that something would change, that this magic would vanish.

Matthew exhaled when she reached him, his shoulders nearly heaving with the motion. Then, and only then, did his eyes move across her, achingly slow and taking in every single aspect as though to commit all to memory. As they returned up the length of her, the skin they brushed over burned with pleasure, sending a shiver down her spine.

“I . . .” Matthew cleared his throat, then shook his head. “Abby . . .”

Speechless after all. Her heart swelled, and she reached a shaking hand out, which he immediately seized, the power in his grip stealing her breath. “Well, Matthew, I think I may have to lay claim to you the entire evening.”

His smile returned in a flash, and with it a marked degree of heat. “Do you really?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I must.”

“Why?” he replied as his fingers moved over the hand he held. “Why must you?”

Now the burning in her eyes intensified, and she tried to clear them with a shake of her head. Tears began to fall with a single blink, and he brought his free hand up to brush them away, cupping her cheek when he had done so. “Why, Abby?”

Abigail’s jaw trembled, and her lips parted. “Because I love you, Matthew. I love you. And I want to claim you for the rest of my days.”

His smile turned somehow tenderer, and his thumb stroked her cheek. “Oh my love, you already have. I’m yours for always, don’t you know that?”

She turned her head and kissed his thumb, then the palm of his hand, holding it to her and closing her eyes on more tears. “Then claim me, Matthew. I want to be yours as well.”

“Darling . . .” He pulled her to him, gathering her close and kissing her brow, then one cheek. “If you’ll have me, I’ll claim you until the end of time.” Another soft kiss fell on her ear. “I meant every word I said and every word I wrote. I’m sorry for the deception, but I was so desperate to have you that I used whatever means necessary.”

“I’m glad you did,” she told him as she pulled back, hands at his chest. “Those letters meant more to me than anything I could think of. Then when I spent more time with you, I began to forget, and I wanted you. I’ve been tormented over choosing between you. I didn’t even want to open the last letter for fear that I had made a mistake refusing you.”

Matthew shook his head and stroked her cheek again. “Never. Never, Abby.”

She smiled at his delusions. “And then it was you, and I cannot tell you the joy that it brought me. I love you. I’ve loved you all along.”

And she was done with waiting. She slid her hands around his neck and pulled him to her for a long, slow, soul-searing kiss that sealed her fate with his. Claimed them both. Made them one.

He held her just as tightly, his hands clenching almost rhythmically against her, his lips molding to hers in a perfection that extended far beyond bliss. This even transcended exhilaration, of all things, and a gentle weight began to press against her heart.

This was right.

She sighed against his mouth with relief and satisfaction, and drew him closer for more.

“Have you no shame? The Queen is here, and you are in full sight of her!”

They broke apart, perhaps a bit reluctantly, and gave each other rather dazed smiles before turning toward the scandalized majordomo. He eyed them both with the same disgust one might a mangy dog in the gutters.

Matthew linked his fingers through Abigail’s, and even through the gloves, she felt the heat of it. “Apologies, sir.”

The majordomo sputtered. “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the Queen!” He waved a dramatic hand in the direction of the far wall, where, sure enough, the small but mighty Queen Victoria and her tall, stately husband Prince Albert stood.

Abigail swallowed a laugh and proceeded forward with Matthew by her side. He bowed and she curtsied deeply when they neared the royal couple.

The majordomo moved in front of them. “I am told, Your Majesty, that these persons are Mr. Matthew Weber-Grey and Miss Abigail Sterling.”

The Queen’s lips quirked in a bemused smirk. “Charmed indeed.”

Abigail opened her mouth to apologize but found a sharply raised hand before she could do so.

“No, my dear, I don’t wish to hear a single word of apology.” The Queen’s smile spread just a little, tucking against her cheeks on a laugh. “Not from a couple so clearly in love. I’ll not hear of it. What do you think, Albert?”

Prince Albert didn’t look nearly as amused as his wife, but he wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and nodded once, which seemed something monumental.

The Queen covered her husband’s hand with her own and winked at Abigail. “I am quite fond of all things love and romance, aren’t you, Miss Sterling?”

Abigail bit her cheek as Matthew squeezed her hand. “I wasn’t always, Your Majesty,” she confessed, her face heating, “but I found I have recently come round to the notion.”

Now the Prince seemed to be stifling a laugh, and the Queen beamed outright. “As you should. Well done, Mr. Weber-Grey. Well done, indeed.”

Matthew bowed again. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

“Have you proposed matrimony yet?” the Queen asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Victoria . . .” Prince Albert murmured, still smiling.

“I was just getting to that, Ma’am,” Matthew assured her, “but I have reason to be hopeful.”

A soft giggle came from the Queen. “I should think so, and I dearly hope you will invite us to the wedding. Otherwise, I may not give the marriage my royal blessing.”

“We would be delighted, Ma’am,” Abigail told her eagerly.

“There now, Mr. Weber-Grey,” the queen said slyly. “I do believe you have your answer.”

Matthew looked at Abigail with such adoration, she nearly wept again. “I can see that I have, Ma’am. And if you will forgive a moment’s less-than-proper impulse under these circumstances . . .”

Without waiting for royal sanction, Matthew tugged Abigail back into his arms, and kissed her quite soundly.

And Abigail, not to be outdone, wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him back.

Epilogue

As it happened, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were invited to the wedding, actually came to the wedding, and requested, with all politeness, to come to the christening of their first child.

They were, of course, invited there as well.

And Victoria Georgiana Miranda Weber-Grey was the most delightfully spoiled girl ever born to parents so madly in love.

When she was old enough, her parents had walked her out to the boundary between Chisolm and Hazelwood very early on and instructed her as to the finer points of sneaking into her grandparents’ estates undetected.

Which she eventually employed with great success.

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About the Rebecca Connolly

Rebecca Connolly writes romances, both period and contemporary, because she absolutely loves a good love story. She has been creating stories since childhood, and there are home videos to prove it! She started writing them down in elementary school and has never looked back. She currently lives in Minnesota, spends every spare moment away from her day job absorbed in her writing, and is a hot cocoa addict.

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