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Montmirail’. He was the talk of London, and Portia was desperate to go visit him. She had this vain hope that he might be Yardley—she’d just received notice of his death in France, you see, and wanted to believe there’d been some mistake. And I . . .” Slowing, she looked up at Luke. “I wanted to be sure he wasn’t you.”
    A lump formed in his throat.
    “But of course he wasn’t you,” she went on, “nor Yardley. While we were waiting to see him, I found myself talking with another man. A naval officer, wounded in a Danish gunboat attack. He called me in from the corridor, then apologized when he saw my face. He’d mistaken me for his sister.”
    Cecily sniffed and continued, “Well, I felt terrible for disappointing him, so I stayed with him for an hour or so, just talking. Mostly listening. And then the next day, I came back, and sat with him again. He introduced me to a fellow patient, this one a lieutenant in the cavalry. I don’t recall deciding to make it a habit. Day after day, I just kept returning to the hospital. For the first month or so, I did no more than I had the first day—I would simply sit at a patient’s bedside and listen. Perhaps read aloud, if he liked. But then, sometimes it was impossible not to notice that their wounds needed tending, bandages needed replacing, and so forth. So I did those small things too.”
    Luke could only stare at her. Yes, it was true. Cecily had changed. Her youthful sweetness and generosity had not disappeared, but added to them now were a woman’s serenity and confidence. One could see it in the tilt of her chin, the efficient grace of her movements. And the way the light glowed through the curling wisps of hair at her brow . . . She’d always been a pretty girl, but he’d never thought her so beautiful as he did this very moment.
    “Remarkable,” he murmured. Clearing his throat, he added, “You didn’t find it tedious, listening to all those ragged soldiers rattle on? It didn’t repulse you, tending the wounds of complete strangers?”
    “Not at all,” she answered lightly, squeezing his hand. “I just pretended they were you.”
    God . She was killing him.
    “Well then,” he said in a tone of false nonchalance, “I’m certain every last one of them fell hopelessly in love with you. How many proposals have you rejected in the past four years? A hundred or more, I’m sure.”
    “Twenty-six.”
    Luke slowed as the cottage came into view—a tidy, thatched-roof dwelling hunched between two tall pine trees.
    “Twenty-six,” he repeated, coming to a stop.
    She turned to him, clutching his hand tight. “Yes. Twenty-six. Not counting the invalid soldiers.” The color of her eyes deepened to an intense cobalt blue. “You cannot know how I have fought for you, Luke. Not in the same way you have suffered, to be sure. But I have waged my own small battles here. I have fought the pressure to marry, fought the envy for my friends who did. I have struggled against my own desire for companionship and affection.” Her voice broke. “I am not a woman formed for solitude.”
    “I know it,” he whispered, raising his free hand to her cheek. “I know it. That’s why you need a husband who can—”
    “I have fought despair,” she interrupted, “when months, years passed with no word of you.”
    Guilt twisted in his gut. “I could not have written. We weren’t engaged.”
    “Yes, but you might have written Denny. Or any one of our mutual friends. You might have casually asked for word of me.”
    “I didn’t want word of you.”
    She recoiled, and he whipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close.
    “How can I explain? You know my parents died several years ago. I’ve no siblings, very few relations. And it didn’t take but one dusty skirmish in Portugal for me to realize—if I died on that battlefield, there would be no one to mourn me, but a handful of old school friends.” He touched her cheek. “No one but you. I did