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stopped her breath. Bits of mild blue sky showed through the green leaves that brushed the glass. Still daylight! How was that possible ? It felt as though the day should have been over years ago.
    She glanced disbelievingly to the clock on the mantel. Only a quarter after five! Why, people were strolling through the park still! They hadn’t taken their afternoon tea yet, while already she’d woken, breakfasted, nearly been married, cried herself to sleep, and been rousted five times by an aunt who wished her to go downstairs and contemplate, amongst company, her public humiliation.
    Quite a lot to fit into a day, really.
    Tears pricked her eyes. Not again! She dashed them away. Stop crying , she thought. You did not love him . She had liked him very much, and she had hoped and vowed to grow to love him, but these endless tears were not for the life they would have shared. They were for humiliation, she thought. And betrayal, and shock. And they had already given her an awful headache and she didn’t want it to worsen.
    Her hand fell from the drapes. With a sigh, she turned away from the window. A piece of paper lay discarded on the carpet. After a startled moment, she recognized it: her anonymous admirer had sent another note today; it had been waiting on her return from the church. Had she read it earlier? It looked as if she had, but she couldn’t remember doing so.
    She took it up and sat down in an easy chair. Yes, there was a tearstain near the top. She swallowed and decided to ignore that. The script was very elegant, wasn’t it? Oh, she would not fool herself. With her luck, the author probably had gout, six children, and no hair.
    For fear of offending you I have hesitated to write another letter, but my ardent admiration overwhelms the bounds of propriety. Herein I intend to contemplate a question that has haunted me for some time: How could I not have fallen in love with you, Miss Maudsley?
    Her admirer needed to have a chat with Thomas. Thomas could advise him on this question. For that matter, Lord Trent could as well.
    What was wrong with her? Jilted twice !
    She laid down the letter and stared blankly at the window. Some awful flaw lurked inside her. That was the obvious conclusion.
    But the obvious conclusion made no sense! It was not immodest to acknowledge herself passably pretty, reasonably charming, and very well liked. Moreover, she had done everything right. Everything! Obeyed every rule. Smiled at insults. Charmed all the snobbish gorgons who’d caviled at her lowly background. Refused every second glass of wine! Forgone cycling because it required split skirts, refrained from singing in company, declined all wicked parlor games. Cheered up sourpusses and swallowed retorts, forgiven ill tempers, and never—not once!—taken the Lord’s name in vain. Embroidered thirty handkerchiefs in three weeks! Why, she’d been stitching in her sleep by the end of that!
    And for what?
    Not for this.
    The lump was forming in her throat again. Very well, if she wanted to cry, she would cry for her parents. They had given up so much to ensure her prospects! They had given her up. After she’d gone to school, all she’d had of them were letters and the holidays—so brief, never enough. They’d claimed to want a different fate for her than their own. Having come into wealth as adults, her parents had lost their old friends—some of whom had no longer felt comfortable with them, others of whom had sought to take advantage. But new friends of equal fortune had not lasted, either. Their manners, customs, attitudes and interests had been too different to support true friendship.
    In these tribulations, her parents had seen a lesson for her. A girl dowered so richly would have to associate with her peers—the best and wealthiest members of society. But in such circles, a girl raised in Leeds, with a northern accent and rustic ways, would never flourish. Thus they had sent her to school, and after their deaths,