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Standing, Sarah thanked her uncle and left the stuffy room.

Once she stepped onto the gray marble tiles of the entry hall, she ran to the stairs and took them by twos to the bedchamber where she was staying.

It had once belonged to her elder cousin Amanda, who had been married for ten years now.

This chamber would never be Sarah’s. Even if she stayed in the family rooms, she was still only a guest. The furniture was not hers; it was too new, too shiny.

And there was no window seat for her to sit on and ponder.

She pushed a chair to the window and sat on it with her knees tucked against her chest. The view was not the same as the one from home. She could not see the forest and the lovely peaks of the mountains. Only her uncle’s imported Italian evergreens and the top of his fake castle ruins.

Sarah sighed. She and Ralph had not been in such a row since the summer she’d accidently broken his cricket wicket when she was twelve.

How long ago that seemed now. Her mother had been there to hold her then, to tell her that everything would be all right, while she cried.

Sarah did not cry anymore. She had not wept since that night.

The last night she’d seen her mother alive.

***

That evening, Sarah looked a little pale in her mirror, so she carefully applied a little extra rouge to her cheeks.

Her dinner dress was made out of organdy with white ribbons that she had added herself.

She smoothed out a wrinkle with her hand.

She missed her maid, Nelly, but without any steady income, she could not afford to hire a new one.

Nor did she wish to further financially impose on her aunt and uncle.

She heard a knock on her door. She got to her feet and opened the door a crack to see Ralph, his expression still stern. She hoped he had not come to renew their argument. Weariness clung to her like a set of too-tight stays.

Her cousin did not meet her eyes, but said in a low voice, “May I come in?”

Sarah felt the tightness in her stomach loosen a little, and she opened the door wider. “I suppose so. Have you come to apologize?”

“No. I’ve come to propose,” Ralph said, kneeling before her. “Sarah, will you marry me?”

Feeling dizzy, Sarah took two steps back from him. “Are you foxed?”

Ralph shook his head, looking more serious than she ever had seen him. “No, I am not inebriated. I have come to you with a clear mind. You are my best friend, and I love you better than anyone else. Will you marry me, Sarah?”

The anger that had consumed Sarah all afternoon dissipated instantly, like dew in the morning sun.

She walked forward and knelt beside him, taking his hands.

“Oh, Flames, that’s the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me.

But you know we would not suit at all. One of us would murder the other before the first year was out. ”

Ralph smiled a little at this sally. “I’m serious, Sarah. You would have a home. You would not be an old maid. You would have security. You could be close to Manderfield Hall. Everything you want.”

Squeezing his hands, Sarah gave him a lopsided smile as an expansive feeling of warmth grew inside her chest. “But not anything that you’d want, my dearest cousin.

I love you too, but not in the way a wife should love her husband.

And you do not love me the way a man should love a wife.

Let us stand up. I’m wrinkling my gown, and it is one of my favorites. ”

Huffing, Ralph helped her to her feet, and Sarah pulled her hands away.

She took a deep breath. She often used her love for fashion to cover her emotions.

That her cousin was willing to make such a great sacrifice for her meant everything.

The only other person who had ever put Sarah’s needs before their own had been her mother.

She loved Ralph better in this moment than she ever had before.

“Just consider it, Sarah,” Ralph insisted, raking his hands through his messy red curls. “My parents would be delighted. They’ve hinted for over a year that it was time for me to settle down and get married. And our mothers always wanted us to make a match of it.”

Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “Not anymore. Your parents want you, quite rightly, to marry a young lady of fortune and position, which I no longer am.”

“You’re not penniless. Grandfather settled some money on you.”

“But I am the daughter of a disgraced earl who has lost his inheritance, and you wouldn’t be making this declaration if I weren’t already planning to marry Mr. Moulton.”

“That cit,” Ralph spat out.

“Ralph, I do love you better than anyone. But I am not the least bit in love with you, nor you with me. Only conceive how terrible it would be if we get married and you finally fall in love—but with someone else. All of us would be made miserable.”

“You’re not in love with Moulton either. What if you were to fall in love?”

Sarah shrugged. “I thought I was in love with my French dancing master when I was sixteen. He had the most dashing mustache.”

Ralph guffawed. “You couldn’t understand half of what he said.”

“That made it all the better,” Sarah said with a grin. “But seriously, Flames. I will not ruin your life to secure my own comfort.”

“You’ll ruin your own, Freckles.”

“No, only Mr. Moulton’s comfort, and you don’t like him anyway,” Sarah said with sly humor.

“But I mean to make it such a lovely ruin that he never notices. Now, go to the village and carouse with your friends until the wee hours of the morning. And when you wake up tomorrow, you will be ever so grateful that I said no.”

“Are you sure?” Ralph asked, almost smiling. His whole countenance lightened, as if he’d been relieved of a great weight.

“Entirely. Go and celebrate your freedom. I’ll make your excuses at dinner.”

“All right then,” he said and left the room.

The warmth in her heart faded, and her chest felt empty without the anger.

When she had been frustrated with Ralph for trying to spoil her plans, she didn’t have to focus on her own apprehensions.

Was she making a grave mistake marrying this stranger?

Her hands began to shake, and she held them together, trying to stop them from trembling.

Despite her bravado with her aunt and uncle, she knew very little about her bridegroom.

Only his name. What if she was making a terrible choice?

Shaking her head, she knew she could not afford to lose her nerve now. She was going to marry Mr. Christopher Moulton. She was going to live out the rest of her life at Manderfield Hall, and when her mother came home, Sarah would be there waiting for her.