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if she had been robbed of her voice.
    “That is a careless and selfish attitude to take, Miss Gifford.” The slow, deep drawl was the Duke of Langford. “If soldiers had taken such an attitude, our respective countries would be in smoldering ruins.”
    “We are speaking of my wedding,” Zoe said brightly. “Not of war.”
    He stared at her with open dislike, and the dowager said sharply, as a footman jerked into motion and retrieved her cane, “You seem determined to launch a war, yet I thought Americans liked to keep out of skirmishes until all the dangerous work was done.”
    Zoe’s chin went up. “If you are speaking of the War, we arrived just in time to help win it.” She thought of her brother, Billy, and a cold anger settled around her heart. She knew about pain, loss and sacrifice, but it was as if the British thought they were the only ones who had experienced suffering, and everyone else should be condemned for having it easy.
    She was not a criminal here. She had promised Sebastian a substantial amount of money as a settlement, and his family could use it. Brideswell obviously needed repair—and electricity, not to mention indoor plumbing.
    As for scandal—really, divorce was not so horrifying anymore.
    But the duke had pegged her as a scarlet woman, the dowager was determined to find fault with her, and Sebastian’s mother appeared to want to ignore her.
    Defiantly, she went on, “The War was in the last decade. Time has marched on. You should install electric lights, Your Grace. Perhaps, twenty-two years in, it is time to embrace the twentieth century.”
    The dowager sniffed. “The rooms are best suited to display by candlelight.”
    “The rooms are best suited to being gloomy?” Zoe asked. Langford glared at her with brooding intensity, so she sweetly asked, “What about plumbing or central heating, Your Grace? Surely you would wish some modern convenience.”
    Sebastian laughed. “Langford has no desire to be modern, my dear.”
    “Then I will make him more comfortable and speak of the past.” She resented him calling her selfish. She was not doing this for herself, but for her mother. And the duke was going to benefit a great deal. “In what regiment did you serve in the War, Your Grace?”
    Lady Julia’s fork clattered to the table. The dowager gasped and pursed her lips, looking distinctly like a fish. Isobel stared at her brother, a bite of food balanced on her lip.
    Everyone stared at the duke, waiting for something to happen.
    “We don’t— We can’t—” Lady Julia began, but she stopped abruptly. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.
    The duke cleared his throat. Cold anger radiated from his gaze. “We will not discuss war at my dining table. It is not done. My family have all suffered a great deal because of the War.”
    “It’s something we all have in common, isn’t it?” she argued. “I’m quite happy to field all the awkward questions you can throw at me. I’m not marrying Sebastian for his title, and I don’t give a fig for social strictures. We’ve all suffered loss, life is short and I’m in it for the fun and the happiness now. I don’t see there’s any sense at all in pretending there’s no world beyond those rain-streaked windows of yours. You cannot pretend the world is not changing around you. My goodness, even Britain now has the vote.”
    “Two years before America,” Langford shot at her.
    “But with so many strings attached, even an intelligent woman like your sister cannot exercise what should be her right.”
    “Zoe!” Mother gasped. She looked as if she might faint into her fried filleted sole in anchovy sauce.
    “I can see you paid a horrible price for war, Your Grace. I lost a brother. I can’t just not talk about it. I can’t act as if he never existed. We Americans did fight in the Great War, after all.”
    “Zoe, no,” Mother breathed.
    “Are you quite finished, Miss Gifford?” inquired Langford stonily. “If I visit your home,