And yet now she shunned London. After Christmas he had been unable to lure her back here even though he had offered her an abundance of luxuries to replace those she seemed to have lost since childhood.

What a comedown it must have been for her to have to remove to Bath to teach—and to wear clothes that were either several years old, like the two evening gowns he had seen her wear, or else inexpensively made like today’s muslin.

“But I did go into the country too,” she said. “My great-aunts sometimes had me to stay with them. They would have taken me to live when I arrived in England—Great-Aunt Martha was already widowed then. I suppose they thought that a gentleman could not raise a daughter alone, especially in a country that was foreign to him. But though I love them dearly and have always been grateful for the affection they have lavished on me, I am glad my father would not give me up.”

“He had ambitions for you as a singer?” he asked, noting again that she dipped her head sharply downward when an elderly couple he did not know strolled past them on the same deserted path as the one he had chosen.

“Dreams more than ambitions,” she said. “He would not even hire a singing master for me until I was thirteen, and he would not allow me to sing at any auditions or public concerts even when my singing master said I was ready. It was to wait until I was eighteen, my father said, when my voice would have matured, and even then only if it was what I really wanted for myself. He was very adamant in his belief that a child ought not to be exploited even if she was talented.”

“But did he not expect that you would be thinking of marriage at the age of eighteen?” he asked.

“He recognized it as a possibility,” she said. “And indeed when Lady Lyle agreed to sponsor my come-out when I was eighteen, he insisted that we postpone doing anything about my music until after the summer was over. By then he was dead of a sudden heart seizure. But he had dreamed for me because he knew I had dreams. He would not have pushed me into anything against my will. That was what my mother’s father—my grandfather—had done to her when she was very young.”

“Your mother was a singer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “In Italy. She was a very good one too, according to my father. He fell in love with her and married her there.”

“But did you allow your dream and your ambition to die with your father?” he asked her. “Did you make no attempt to sing at any auditions or to attract any sponsor?” Had not her aunts said that she had had a sponsor and even done some singing in public? “You went to live with Lady Lyle, did you not? Did she not offer you any help?”

“She did.” There was a change in her voice. It was tighter, more emotionless. “And I did sing a few times to small audiences. I did not like it. When I saw the advertisement for a teacher at Miss Martin’s school in Bath, I applied for it and was offered the position. I have not regretted the decision I made to take it. I have been happy there—oh, contented, if you will. But there is nothing wrong with contentment, Lord Sinclair.”

Ah. For a while he had felt drawn into her life. She had seemed to enjoy telling her story—there had been a glow in her face, a smile in her eyes, animation in her voice. But she had shut him out again. A lovely young lady who had been brought out under the sponsorship of a baroness must surely have had marriage prospects even if, as Lucius guessed, her father had left her without a penny. But even if there had been no particular beau in her life, there had been the dazzling prospect of an illustrious career as a singer stretching before her. It had been her father’s dream and her own for most of her life. Lady Lyle had been prepared to help her.

Yet she had given it all up at the advanced age of twenty?

Something was missing in her story. Something quite momentous, Lucius suspected. Something that was quite possibly the key to the mystery that was Frances Allard.

But she was not going to tell him.

And why should she? She had rejected him at every turn. She owed him nothing.

But someone should have done more for her at the time.

It was not too late, though, for her dream to be reborn.

He taught me to reach for the stars and settle for nothing less.

Tomorrow evening she would touch those stars and even grasp them.

He may have to say good-bye to her again and abide by it this time, but first he would, by Jove, restore her dream to her.

She looked up at him with a half-smile.

“I did not suspect, Lord Sinclair,” she said, “that you could be such a good listener.”

“That is because you know me as little as I know you, Frances,” he said. “There are many things about me that you do not suspect.”

“I do not think I dare ask for examples,” she said, and actually laughed.

“Because you are afraid that you might grow to like me after all?” he asked her.

She sobered instantly. “I do not dislike you,” she said.

“Do you not?” he said. “But you will not marry me?”

“There is no connection between the two,” she said. “We cannot marry everyone we like. We would live in a very bigamous society if we did.”

“But if two people like each other enough,” he said, “a marriage between them stands a better chance of succeeding than if they do not like each other at all. Would you not agree?”

“That,” she said, “is rather an absurd question. Will Miss Hunt not have you? Does she not like you?”

“I might have guessed that you would bring the conversation around to Portia,” he said, taking her by the elbow and leading her out through the gate at the end of the path they had taken and back out onto the street. He took the most direct route to

Portman Street

from there. “I take it very unkindly in you, Frances, to have refused me. I have to marry someone this year after all, as Portia herself has pointed out to me, and if you will not have me then I suppose I will have to have her. And before you pour scorn upon my head and sympathies upon hers, let me add that she told me with the same breath that she also must marry someone and he might as well be me. There is no sentiment involved on either side, you see, and very little liking either. There is no danger that you would be breaking another woman’s heart if you made off with me yourself. Would you care to put the matter to the test?”

“No,” she said, “I would not.”

“Would you care to explain exactly why, then?” he asked.

It was an ill-mannered question to ask and invited a sharp setdown that could only wound him. However, the question was out and he awaited her answer. It was brief.

“No,” she said, “I would not.”

“It is not that you do not care for me?” he asked her, taking her elbow again and hurrying her across a road before tossing a coin into the outstretched hand of a crossing sweeper who had cleared a path for them.

“I do not wish to answer any more questions,” she said. But a few moments later she spoke again. “Lucius?”

He looked down into her upturned face, jolted as he always was on the rare occasion when she used his given name.

“Yes?” he said.

“I will come to dinner at Marshall House tomorrow evening,” she said, “and I will sing in the music room afterward for your grandfather and my great-aunts. I will even take pleasure in doing so. But that must be the end. I shall be returning to Bath within the next two or three days. It must be the end, Lucius. You may not believe that you will be better off marrying Miss Hunt, but I assure you that you will. She is of your world, and she has the approval of your family and hers, I daresay. Affection and even love will grow between you if you try hard. You must forget about your obsession with me. That is all it is, you know. You do not really love me.”

He was furiously angry even before she had finished speaking. Had they still been in the park he would have lashed out at her. But the street on which they walked, though not busy, was in constant use. And who knew how many people lurked within sight or hearing behind the windows of the houses lining the street?

“Thank you,” he said curtly. “It is kind of you, Frances, to point out to me whom I love and whom I will grow to love. It is reassuring to know that what I feel for you is only an obsession. Knowing that, I shall recover in a trice. Ha! It is already done. There is your great-aunts’ house just up ahead, ma’am. It has been my pleasure to escort you home even if the course we took was rather too circuitous for your taste. I shall look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening. Good day to you.”

“Lucius—” She was looking up at him with stricken eyes.

“On the whole, ma’am,” he said, “I believe I prefer Lord Sinclair. The other suggests an intimacy between us that I no longer cultivate.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

He rapped on the door knocker for her and executed an elegant bow when it opened almost immediately. He did not watch her step inside. He turned and strode down the street.

He felt thunderous.

He felt murderous.

You must forget about your obsession with me.

He ground his teeth.

That is all it is, you know. You do not really love me.

Would to God she were right!

But sometimes, he thought, love could feel remarkably like hatred.

This was one of those times.

Mrs. Melford and Miss Driscoll arrived promptly at Marshall House the following evening with their great-niece and were received graciously in the drawing room by Viscountess Sinclair, to whom the Earl of Edgecombe presented them.