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Molly blew into the handkerchief but could not stem the tide of tears falling in lush droplets down her pale cheeks. “He will never forgive me, I know.”
    “Forgive you for what?”
    “For not marrying him. But I can’t. I just…can’t…” Molly descended into more sobs, louder ones this time that shook every inch of her slender form and disturbed the neat arrangement of her chestnut hair. Petals of orange blossoms fell like snowdrops to the stone floor of the vestry.
    Mercy steered her friend back to the light of the window and tried straightening the bridal headdress. “Molly, do cease these dramatics, which are so unlike you. How many times have I heard you say how much you look forward to being married?”
    “I have not said that for a long time. I suppose you have not noticed. I hardly realized it myself, until this morning as I was being dressed.” Molly looked down at her wedding gown—one of her own creations—and shook her head. “Quite suddenly I realized I hadn’t felt that way for months, perhaps even years. It just became something I was accustomed to saying out loud. Without thinking.”
    “This is merely a case of matrimonial nerves, Molly Robbins. Now, where does the parson keep his wine?” Mercy began searching the cupboards and shelves. “Gracious! What happened to cleanliness is next to godliness?” she muttered, swiping at the dusty shelves with a folded altar cloth and setting a stack of tumbled prayer books back upright.
    Behind her, Molly blew her nose again, the disturbed dust quickly worsening her red-eyed state. “When someone claims they love a person, the other has no choice but to return the sentiment, do they? Otherwise it seems so dreadfully rude and unappreciative of the compliment.”
    After a brief, bemused glance over her shoulder, Mercy continued her search for wine. Always in control of her own wits, and never having her opinion swayed by another, she couldn’t quite comprehend the notion of agreeing for the sake of courtesy. Honesty might be brutal in some cases, but it was often kinder in the long run. As they now had evidence.
    “I do care for him, but I don’t… I’m not in love with him.”
    “Aha!” Mercy found a crystal decanter. She lifted the stopper and sniffed. “Not bad.” A further search for drinking vessels turned up empty-handed. “Here,” she said, passing the decanter to her friend. “You’ll have to swig it.”
    Molly wrinkled her nose and shook her head at the offered decanter. She folded her arms. “I don’t want to be a wife. Not yet, in any case. I want to start my dressmaking business. I have some capital now to start, and I…I have a lease on a small room in a building near—”
    “Molly Robbins!” Mercy was astonished that so much could have been done without her knowledge, and especially without her advice. “I always told you I would lend you the money, if you wanted it, but I thought this was what you wanted.”
    “I thought so too. I thought marriage and children were what I should want. But this other need has crept up on me. It is so strong now that I cannot deny it. Not any longer.”
    There was something about the gentle way the other girl spoke, even through half-contained sobs, that suggested her mind was made up. As if she knew that when she turned at this crossroads, the path she’d walked before was lost for good. She did not want to search for it. She had her eye on a new horizon now, her mind set on it.
    “I intend to be a businesswoman, Lady Mercy. I have the talent to design dresses, and I am a skilled seamstress—”
    “Where did you get the capital?” she demanded.
    The other girl looked away, evasive suddenly. “I saved all the money I’ve ever earned. You’ve been very generous to me.”
    “Did my brother give it to you?” Her anger mounted quickly as she thought of Carver’s laughter when she last saw him in London—his scornful comments about this wedding and his teasing suggestion of a