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She had defended herself exactly as she meant to, yet the victory did not feel clean. His refusal should have simplified the situation. She could still see the nearly-smile he had suppressed, still hear the pause before he wished her a pleasant stay. Attraction, she discovered, was capable of surviving information that ought to have killed it. That was an especially poor design.

She laid the sketchbook on the table and sat beside the window. A knock came several minutes later. Lydia turned from the window. “Who is it?”

“Edmund.”

She went to open the door. Her brother stood outside with a small paper packet. “Mother thought these were yours. They were in her traveling case.”

“My pencils.”

Edmund handed them over and looked at her face. “Have you been crying?”

“No.”

“Are you furious?”

“Less every time someone asks me to account for my face.”

Edmund glanced past her at the empty room. “May I come in?”

She stepped aside and left the door open. Edmund went no farther than the chair near the hearth. He waited for her to sit before taking it. “What happened?”

Lydia turned the packet over in her lap. Her mother had tied it with a piece of blue ribbon. “Did you know he had no intention of marrying?”

Edmund’s expression altered. “Ashcombe?”

“Yes.”

“I knew he had shown very little interest in it.”

“That is a generous description.”

“What did he say to you?”

She told him, beginning with the study door opening. The room had begun to take on the golden hues of late afternoon, sunlight stretching across the carpet and climbing the leg of the drawing table. From below came the faint clatter of servants preparing for dinner. As Lydia repeated Tristan’s words, she found that speaking them aloud only sharpened the hurst she had been trying to conceal. Edmund listened without interrupting. When she finished, he leaned forward. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I stood there arguing with him.”

“After he spoke about you within your hearing.”

“He did not know I was there.”

“That does not oblige you to enjoy what he said.”

She loosened the ribbon. “I feel foolish for having wanted him to like me.”

“Why?”

“Because I had already begun to like the idea of him.”

“You had reason to consider him. Mother likes the Dowager Duchess. Father respects him. Curiosity is not a promise, Lydia.”

“You suspected he was reluctant.”

“Yes,” Edmund admitted. “I did not know he would be so determined.”

“Would you have told me?”

“I should have.”