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He stopped and turned toward her.

“You are right.”

The simple admission surprised her more than any argument might have done.

“I was wrong to decide your future without you,” he continued. “I shall not ask you to forget that. Only to hear what these people have to say.”

Marina looked at the drawing-room doors.

After everything that had happened, she could scarcely imagine what further surprise awaited her.

Ambrose opened the doors.

There must have been thirty people gathered inside. For a moment, Marina could only stare.

She recognized faces from Griffin and Ludlow, and others from Crestdale. There were children who had once thrown snowballs at her cottage, women who had whispered when she passed, and gentlemen who had looked the other way rather than acknowledge her.

The vicar stood near the hearth. And beside him was Lady Beatrice Wakeford.

Marina’s stomach tightened.

Of all the people she might have expected to find in Ambrose’s drawing room, Lady Beatrice was the last.

Had they come to mock her? Her fingers tightened around Ambrose’s hand.

“The townspeople have gathered to thank you,” he said quietly.

Marina looked up at him.

“Thank me?”

Lady Beatrice stepped forward.

Her expression was so unlike the one Marina remembered that, for an instant, she scarcely recognized her. The usual disapproval had vanished. In its place was something almost hesitant.

“Your Grace,” she began.

Then she curtsied. The others followed. Marina stared at them.

“What is happening?”

Lady Beatrice straightened.

“We have heard from the vicar of the good you and His Grace have done for the villages. The help given to the families who lost their breadwinners, the children who have gone without, and all that you arranged for them yesterday.”

Marina glanced toward the vicar.

He smiled gently. “We had hoped the Christmas ball would bring our neighbors together, Your Grace. I believe it has done rather more than that.”

“We were wrong about you,” Lady Beatrice said.

Marina could think of nothing to say.

A gentleman standing beside the hearth came forward.

“I am Mr. Harris, Your Grace. My brother Ezekiel was one of the men killed in the mining accident.”

Marina remembered Ambrose telling her about the five miners who had died, and the twelve children left behind between Griffin and Ludlow, in addition to the orphans.