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" I wish you'd been there, Cressida," Victoria told her sister. "Perhaps you could have interpreted his behavior, because I don't know what to think about it."

"I'm stunned that you asked him whether he was jealous," Cressida admitted.

"Do you think it was a mistake to ask him that?"

"No, I think you were probably right to wonder," Cressida said. "I just wouldn't have expected you to ask the question."

"Do you think I'm frightened of him?"

"Not a bit," Cressida told her. "I know you've been wary around men for a while, and I perfectly understand your reason, of course.

" Cressida had been there when Jonathan had tried to take advantage of Victoria, so she knew all about what had happened.

"I don't blame you at all for feeling the way you do about men," she went on.

"But it's been clear to me for a while that you don't feel that way about the duke.

I'm not sure what it is about him, but you've quickly become very comfortable with his presence in your life. "

"I don't know either," Victoria admitted. "It might be the way we met one another. Something to do with the fact that the first time I saw him, he was a stranger who had entered my home without warning. Nothing he's done since that day has been anywhere near as alarming to me, nor could it be."

"That makes sense," Cressida agreed.

"But if you know I'm not frightened of him, why didn't you think I would ask him whether he was jealous?" Victoria asked.

"Well, I assumed you would avoid the question because you didn't want to know the answer," Cressida said.

"I mean, you've been very clear about how little you like him.

I just assumed that if he had feelings for you, you would prefer not to know about it, because knowing would mean that you would have to deal with it, and you wouldn't want that. Was I wrong?"

"It wasn't relevant," Victoria said. "He made it very clear to me that jealousy had nothing to do with his reaction. He told me he's not interested in marriage—he's said that before—so there's nothing for him to feel jealous about."

"And you believed him?"

"Of course I believed him. Why should he lie?"

Cressida gave her a sympathetic smile. "You haven't thought very hard about it, have you? Or perhaps you have, but your mind doesn't want to admit the truth."

"I don't know what you mean, Cressida."

"If he is feeling jealous—if he truly does care for you—he's hardly likely to just admit it.

I'd think that would be the situation in which he would be most likely to adamantly insist that he felt nothing at all," Cressida told her.

"I'm sure he doesn't want you to know that he cares for you, and that's why he's pretending you're being foolish to think it. "

"Or perhaps he really doesn't," Victoria said. "That's also very possible."

"I suppose anything is possible. But it doesn't seem likely to me," Cressida said. "I think he cares for you, Victoria. I truly do."

"But what would make you think that?" Victoria asked. "He's done nothing to give me that impression."

"Nothing? What about the night he stayed up talking to you?"

"He didn't do that on purpose. I told you what happened—he found me in the library and we got to talking, that's all."

"But he didn't have to do that. He could have gone to his study to be alone.

You have to admit, at no point in your time together has he been required to befriend you, and yet he seems to have chosen to do exactly that.

What about the fact that he's told you that you can choose your future husband for yourself? "

"He was being kind, that's all."

"And why would he go out of his way to be kind if he didn't care for you?

I'm not saying that the duke is a particularly cruel man, but he's not a particularly gentle-spirited one either.

I've crossed his path a few times, as you well know, and the only thing he's ever done has been to order me out of the house. "

"Because he's selfish."

"Well, exactly!" Cressida agreed. "And you can look at the fact that he's not being selfish with you as evidence that he actually cares about you."

"I didn't come out here to spend all day talking about him," Victoria said. "I thought we were going to enjoy our picnic."

"You're the one who brought him up," Victoria pointed out. "That's the only reason we're talking about him now. I think you're surprised the conversation isn't going the way you thought it would, that's all."

"You're defending him."

"I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm saying he's gone out of his way to show you kindness, and I'm saying you ought to see that for what it is," Cressida said.

"I think if he didn't have some sort of feeling for you, he would have found you an engagement already—and he certainly wouldn't intervene when he saw you on the verge of finding one for yourself, would he?

He's discovered that he has unexpected feelings for you and he doesn't know what to make of it.

That's the only way I can account for his actions. "

Victoria pressed her lips together.

"You don't even think I'm wrong," Cressida said.

"You just want me to be wrong. This is why I'm so surprised that you asked him the question the other night—because you suspected this was the answer, and you don't want to hear it.

You don't like him, so you don't want this to be true. But I think it is true."

"No," Victoria countered. "No, you're wrong about that, Cressida."

"I'm not wrong."

"I don't mean you're wrong about how he feels. I can't be sure about that, but I do think your logic makes sense. But that isn't the part I mean."

"What am I wrong about, then?"

"You're wrong about how I feel about him ," Victoria said with a sigh. "I thought I despised him, it's true, but…well, now I'm not so sure."

"Oh, Victoria." Cressida sat forward. "You feel something for him too. That's the reason you asked him that question. You weren't afraid he would tell you he cared for you. You were hoping for it."

"You're being ridiculous," Victoria said quickly. "Of course it isn't like that. You know that's not how I feel about him. You know I don't want him in that way."

"I know you've said for years that you have no interest in marriage or in any gentlemen," Cressida countered.

"And then the duke came into your life. And now…

I don't know what to think anymore, Victoria.

All I can say is that everything seems to have changed.

You spend so much of your time with him.

You seem to agree to everything he asks of you.

When you first met him, you told me that you were going to try to get out of his plan to marry you off, but lately it seems you've given up on that idea.

Are you even trying to avoid marriage anymore? "

"I suppose I thought…well, he did say he would let me choose who I married as long as I was cooperative."

"I can understand that. But it still surprises me that you chose to cooperate at all," Cressida said.

"I would have thought that you would continue to fight, even if you gave him a verbal agreement to do what he wanted you to do.

But I think you're actually planning to work with him.

To go along with his plan. You're going to let him marry you off. "

"And from that you infer that I have feelings for him? Why would I let him marry me to someone else if I had feelings for him, Cressida? Why would he want to marry me to someone else if he had feelings for me? None of it makes sense."

"Because you're both so fearful of your feelings for the other that it's easier to simply lean into this plan of making an arrangement," Cressida said simply.

"That's what I think. I think you have mutual feelings for one another, and neither of you has been able to face it.

Now, can you honestly tell me that I'm wrong, Victoria? "

Victoria felt a shiver run down her spine.

As always, her sister had looked at her and had seen far more than Victoria had intended to show her.

She adored Cressida, of course—she loved her sister more than anything.

But talking to her often felt like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down.

Cressida simply knew her too well for Victoria to feel fully safe in these conversations.

With a few careful questions and comments, Cressida could penetrate right to the very heart of her.

"I don't know if you're right or not," she admitted.

"But I do know that nothing will ever come of it if you are.

James doesn't wish to marry, and he doesn't want to keep me in his house.

The only path forward for me is to marry someone else and to move on with my life, the way he's encouraged me to. "

"Perhaps you're accepting his plan for you because you know it will make him happy with you, and that's something you want," Cressida suggested.

"Perhaps I am," Victoria was forced to concede.

"But if I'm right about his feelings for you, won't he be that much happier if you force him to confront what's in his heart?

If you challenge him to look inside and accept the fact that he has real feelings for you?

The best way to help him is to get him to realize that he cares for you, Victoria. If you love him?—"

"I didn't say I loved him," Victoria interjected. She couldn't help feeling that this was getting out of hand. "I barely said that I didn't dislike him. You can't have gotten love from anything I said."

"I don't know," Cressida admitted. "All I know is that there's something between the two of you.

You might want to help him by giving in to his plans for you, but in fact I think the best thing you could do for him would be to be honest about the way you feel—and encourage him to be honest as well.

I think you should both talk about what you feel for each other, because if you don't do that, you're going to miss out on your opportunity to be together. "

"This isn't a good idea," Victoria said.

She was now fervently regretting having brought the subject up at all.

"You can't understand, because you don't know James the way I do.

I promise you that what you're suggesting is not what he wants from me.

He wants me to cooperate, to make things easy, and if I do, perhaps he and I will be able to remain on good terms when this is all over. "

"Ah," Cressida said knowingly. "So that's what you want, then. You're hoping to preserve a friendship in all of this."

Victoria wanted to object, but the truth was that her sister had it exactly right.

She couldn't bear the idea of losing everything she and James had established together.

A marriage would come between them, to be sure, but if she chose the right man—if she found one who was kind and loving and accepting—perhaps she would be permitted to go on being friends with James.

Maybe she wouldn't have to lose him altogether.

It was difficult to admit, but the thought of prolonging their friendship made her feel sense of hope.

The trouble is, if Cressida is right about that…what else is she right about?