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the parsonage, where she had languished in despair for weeks. When she began to pull herself together, and wrote to Timothy Rossiter for help, she discovered she had the name of the Weeping Widow. She hadn't cried for well over a year, but the name had stuck. She knew a part of it was the fact that she continued to wear unrelieved black, but what else was she supposed to do?
    Virtually penniless, she hadn't dared buy anything for mourning and had simply thrown all her clothes into a vat of black dye. It had served well enough. Now there was certainly no money to buy new clothes until these were worn out. There'd be little money to buy new clothes even then.
    Then there was the monument. She had almost had the vapors when a stonemason had arrived with it, saying that Sebastian had ordered it years before, had designed it himself, leaving only the date of death to be filled in. What kind of person did such a thing?
    At least he had paid for it in advance. Judith had ordered it set in place, relieved that Sebastian had been provident in one respect, even if a macabre one. She winced, however, whenever she visited the churchyard and saw how out of place it looked there.
    She sometimes dwelt on the fact that ten years ago Sebastian had received a legacy from an uncle and spent it all on installing a rose garden at Mayfield House. He had even commissioned a rose from a breeder, a rose called Judith Rossiter. It was a pale cream bloom of delicate form that had nothing in common with her. She sometimes wondered whether Sebastian ever saw her at all.
    When she'd left behind that rose garden at Mayfield House, and thought of the money it had cost, she had felt a spurt of pure hate. But she had fought it, and buried it. Hate served no purpose.
    Lord Charrington was proposing marriage to an inconsolable widow, and she wasn't that. But she was certainly turned off romantic nonsense for life. She assured herself that to accept would be honest enough.
    She stacked the last of the ironing, and rubbed a hand over her tired eyes. She should go to bed. Apart from anything else she couldn't afford to be burning candles like this.
    If she married Lord Charrington, there'd be candles to spare forever. Wax candles instead of tallow. And servants, and new clothes, and schools, and entertainments, and horses. And no fear of the workhouse.
    How could she possibly say no?
    She went up to bed prepared to accept Lord Charrington's proposal, then spent a fretful, sleepless night changing her mind a dozen, a score, of times.
    * * *
    The next day, Judith was hard-pressed not to snap at the children for no reason at all. In fact, with impeccable instinct, they faded into the background and neither so much as raised the subject of Lord Charrington, or Hartwell, or riding.
    This strengthened her determination to accept the earl's offer. Both her children clearly wanted it so. Weren't children supposed to have an instinct about people?
    In fact, she was a little doubtful about that. Children were creatures of the moment, and these children had been bribed with lemonade, cakes, and horses.
    In the end she lost patience with their quiet expectation and sent them off to glean any remaining rose hips in the hedgerows. If they didn't become part of the aristocracy they would need the healthy tonic in the winter. That told her she still had doubts, and she couldn't afford doubts. For once in her life she had to be hard and firm and, as he had said, grasp opportunity.
    It wouldn't be melodramatic to say it was a matter of life and death.
    She settled to wait, working on a pair of slippers for Rosie's Christmas gift.
    When the knock came at the door it felt like a welcome end to a period of torture. She should have given him his answer yesterday. Any notion of choice had been illusory.
    It was a chilly day, and he was dressed in a beautifully tailored greatcoat, a glossy beaver, and supple leather gloves. He looked more handsome, more substantial, more polished even