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or was inconsolably miserable, thinking she would never see him again.
    The logical part of her brain realized that perhaps she had begun to idealize him. She was probably romanticizing their conversations and overestimating the level of desire he felt for her.
    Yet she could not stop herself from believing that she loved him, like no woman had ever loved before.
    She chuckled rather bitterly, finding some humor in the fact that she was finally grasping what the poets had been going on about for centuries.
    An older couple wandered into the room, and Annabelle made an effort to look as if she were just another gallery patron, admiring the paintings at her leisure. She stood before the Dupre, staring at it: Willows, with a Man Fishing.
    It was not a large painting. It was not even twelve inches wide, but it was a good choice for today—rather brilliant in its romanticism, she had to admit. It was a painting she wanted very much to show Mr. Edwards. She wanted to explain that the Barbizon style was very different from the way she painted, and if she were ever to paint him in his boat the way they had discussed on the train, she would approach the trees and the water very differently.
    Though that took nothing away from how she felt about this painting. She had always admired it for its quietness and intimacy.
    She turned away from the Dupre, glancing discreetly around the room, hearing only the echoed sounds of a woman’s heels as she walked quickly through another room, and the whispers of the other patrons quietly discussing the works of art.
    It was ten minutes past two.
    Annabelle tapped her gloved hand upon her thigh. She was beginning to lose hope. He wasn’t going to come.
    No, she mustn’t jump to conclusions. He was only ten minutes late. He could be dashing up the front steps of the gallery at this very instant, as eager to finally see her as she was to see him.
    She took a deep, steadying breath. Oh, how she yearned to see him. She was growing tired of picturing him in her mind. She wanted the real man—tall and strong and smiling at her. She wanted so badly to be alone with him right now…
    And so it was that two more hours passed, every minute painstakingly slow, and when a man finally entered the room where the Dupre was located and spoke Annabelle’s name with affection, she was barely able to keep the tears from her eyes. Tears of disappointment, heartbreak, anger. For the man coming to fetch her and take her home was her brother, Whitby.
    OVER THE NEXT FORTNIGHT , Annabelle grew to despise the Dupre painting, each day hating it more than the last. She didn’t want to think about it; she was irritated on the days Cook served fish for dinner, and most of all, she was angry with herself for becoming so deeply infatuated with a man who had evidently toyed with her feelings and taken some perverse pleasure in leading her to believe there was something special between them, when there was no such thing.
    She had fallen victim to the charms of a thoughtless man, who no doubt flirted with every woman he stumbled across and had probably ruined more than his fair share of young innocents. He probably had a whole host of illegitimate children, too. Maybe he wasn’t even a bank clerk. Maybe he was one of those confidence men. Or worse—good heavens—a stage actor.
    She held firmly to the certain belief that he was a rake of the worst kind, until on the fifteenth day there was a surprise waiting for her in the formal gardens at her country house in Bedfordshire—that surprise being Mr. Edwards himself.
    Annabelle had taken a walk to be alone, and lo and behold, there he was, waiting for her beyond the tall lilac hedge, leaning at his ease against one of the columns of the open rotunda.
    Heart throbbing suddenly in her chest, she stopped dead in her tracks, not quite ready to believe she was seeing properly. But then he pushed away from the column, removed his hat and held it at his side, and she knew it was