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thoughts, out of existence.
    He caught his breath and looked down at his rigid hands... then at her. As he searched her hurt, angry eyes, his own rage washed away, leaving him chilled.
    “Dear God, is that what you thought?” he asked. “That I only wanted to seduce you?”
    He took his hands away. She didn’t move.
    “I wanted to marry you, Christina,” he said. “I told you so, again and again.”
    “You told me a great many things,” she said tightly. “All lies.”
    He felt a surge of anger, instantly swamped by a flood of grief. Old grief. He drew a shaky breath. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “I think we need to talk, but not here.” He held out his hand.
    He wouldn’t have blamed her if she hadn’t taken it, but she did—and that was a start, he thought, a proper beginning. He wasn’t sure he could make a proper finish, but something, obviously, must be done. They must lay the ghosts to rest, regardless how painful the process might be. Otherwise, the past would taint everything he and she felt for and wanted from each other.
    He led her down the back stairs, down another hall, and into a small, quiet parlor at the rear of the house.
    He closed the door, firmly shutting out the rest of the world. She slid her hand from his and moved to the window.
    “It’s started to snow,” she said.
    He joined her, and looked out into the darkness at the fat snowflakes lazily drifting down. “I did love you,” he said. “I did want to marry you. Did you believe nothing I told you?”
    “I believed everything you told me,” she said. “Every word you said to make me fall in love with you, then, every word you wrote later, showing me what a fool I’d been. You wrote that I needn’t worry that you’d trouble me again. You thanked me for making an otherwise dull fortnight tolerably amusing.” Bitterness edged her voice. “You said I mustn’t mind my lack of sophistication, because I was pretty, and the world requires no more in a female. According to you, my future husband would be content merely to look at me. My heart untouched by any base human emotion, I should provide him the same tranquil pleasure a lovely painting or statue offers. There was more, all put very cleverly. You described everything that was wrong with me in words I might take for flattery— if I were the empty-headed miss you thought I was.”
    His face burned with shame. “It was a childish letter. I was... very angry.”
    “You had spent two whole weeks weakening my mind and morals. But in the end, I wouldn’t run away with you and be ruined. Certainly you were angry. You had gone to so much trouble for nothing.”
    “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “That may be what everyone else would believe, but not you. You understood me, trusted me, I thought.”
    “I loved you,” she said. She spoke quietly, not trying to convince, merely stating a simple fact. He believed her.
    “In other words,” he said, “I had your love—then killed it with my letter.”
    She nodded.
    He had been a fool. A proud, hotheaded fool.
    “The letter was all lies,” he said. “It was—” He searched his heart for the truth. “I was unacceptable,” he said. “I knew that. All the world knew it. You saw how the chaperons watched me. You, like the rest of the young misses, must have been warned to keep away from me.”
    “Yes, I was warned,” she said.
    “I was warned as well. Before you came, Julius told me about your strict parents and about Arthur Travers and his spotless reputation and his forty thousand a year. Julius asked me not to flirt with you, because if your parents heard of it, they’d have you sent home, and Penny would be heartbroken. I promised both Julius and myself that I’d have nothing to do with you. Then I spent two weeks pretending, sneaking about, snatching stolen moments—and hating myself and all the world because I couldn’t court you openly.”
    “My conscience wasn’t easy, either,” she said