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have opened it herself. She led the way across the hallway, nodding to a servant as she did so to open the door into her father’s study.
    “Well, children,” her father said, opening his eyes. He was reclined back in his chair. “Together, are you? All is settled, then?”
    “Miss Transome has consented to be my wife, sir,” the earl’s voice said stiffly from behind her.
    Papa had had his medicine only an hour before. But he was still in pain, she could see. The knowledge chilled and frightened her. What would they do if the medicine became ineffective? He smiled and held out his arms to her.
    “My darling girl,” he said. “Come and be hugged.”
    But they were words from the old days. He had forgotten that she could no longer hug him or climb onto his lap as she had used to do all through her childhood at the end of a long day to tell him about her own day’s activities. She could no longer touch him with more than the lightest of touches. She crossed the room and set her hand on one arm of the chair before leaning over and kissing him gently on the forehead. He dropped his arms.
    “You should be in bed, Papa,” she said, and her words sounded cold and abrupt, she thought. And she knew why. The Earl of Falloden was standing quietly a few feet away and she felt self-conscious.
    Her father chuckled. “But this calls for a celebration,” he said. “Ring the bell, Ellie, and we will have the tea tray and a decanter brought in. It is not every day that my only daughter becomes betrothed to a peer of the realm.”
    “Papa,” she said, and she could still hear coldness in her voice, “you need rest.”
    “I must be taking my leave, if you will excuse me, sir,” the Earl of Falloden said in a voice that quite matched her own—what a strange betrothal day! she thought—“I have a pressing appointment.”
    With his tailor, doubtless, she thought, or his jeweler. Or with his barber.
    “Ah,” her father said, holding out his hand to the earl. “We must let you go then, my lord. Must we not, Ellie?”
    She watched him flinch in a manner perhaps observable only to her own eyes as the earl took his hand in a firm clasp. And she allowed relief to flood through her when her father instructed her to summon a servant to show their visitor out. She was not, then, to be given that task herself.
    They were not to meet again, it seemed, until they came together at church the following week for their wedding. They were to be man and wife, she thought in some bewilderment as she watched him bow and take his leave. They were to live together in the intimacy of marriage for the rest of their lives—this stranger from a class she hated and she from a class he despised. She resolutely held her thoughts away from Wilfred.
    “Ellie.” Her father extended a hand to her, and she took it carefully in both her own and lifted it against her cheek. “Now I can die a happy man. Not quite yet, though. I’ll live until your wedding day and perhaps a day or two longer. But you must not mourn for me very long. I have done all that I wanted in this life and more. And I will know that you have a life of security and respect and happiness ahead. I am well blessed.”
    “Papa,” she said, turning her face so that she could kiss his hand and setting it down carefully in his lap again. And she blinked her eyes determinedly. There would be time enough to weep. But not now. “Let me help you to your room. You will be more comfortable when you are lying down.”
    “I think you are right,” he said. “I’ll go now, then. Is he handsome enough for you, eh, Ellie? They don’t come much handsomer with a title and a large country estate to boot.” He chuckled. “My Ellie a countess. And he is a young man—not even ten years older than you. Better than Lord Henley that I had my eye on for a while. He is almost my age. Are you happy, girl?”
    “I will be happier when you are in bed,” she said severely.
    He chuckled.

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