“But you ain't even mentioned Nicholas Wilde to her, and now there's Simon Ballentyne to add to the mix.”

“You're right,” Elizabeth said. “I must speak to her, and soon. But it's such a delicate business. The wrong word might do more damage than no word at all. Perhaps . . . perhaps she needs time to think.”

The fire hissed at her, and Curiosity's expression was a study in disgust.

“I am a coward,” Elizabeth said finally. “I admit it freely.”

Curiosity grunted softly, but didn't disagree.

And still Elizabeth had not found a way to talk to Lily about this situation of hers. They spoke of other things: of her art teachers in Montreal, of Luke's household, and most often of Daniel and Blue-Jay. There was a new calm between them, one that Elizabeth had been loath to upset.

But today Nicholas Wilde had been here, and now Simon Ballentyne sat just a few feet away from her. The men who loved her daughter.

Elizabeth thought for the first time of the cousins she had grown up with, prettier girls with substantial fortunes of their own, who had played suitors one against the other. She had been contemptuous of the whole business, the formal language and stiff postures and tender expectations. Her aunt Merriweather's careful planning, the strategies laid out over tea: as a poor cousin more interested in books than suitors, Elizabeth had observed it all from afar.

Aunt Merriweather had been gone more than five years, but Elizabeth knew exactly what she would have had to say to this state of affairs: a daughter in love with a married man, and sleeping with someone else.

Of course she wouldn't have phrased it like that. Lady Crofton wouldn't have come within a hundred words of such a formulation, or anything that made such a picture in the mind.

About one thing, though, she would have been very clear: Elizabeth had failed in her duties as a mother. The proof was upstairs, her daughter weeping for the man she could not have, while another man waited for her. How it had all come to pass, Elizabeth could hardly explain to herself. Not when her head ached so.

Then Lily was at the bottom of the stair, with Nathaniel just behind her. Elizabeth was relieved to see him.

“Boots,” he said. “Let's you and me go have a little discussion and leave Simon and Lily to do the same.”

The look on his face was reassuring. There was no outrage there, no disappointment, nothing but calm and even some amusement.

More assuring still was the fact that Lily was looking at Simon straight on, without apology, or embarrassment, or unease. As Simon was looking at her. With friendship, certainly, and affection, and other things that were not for Elizabeth to see, or contemplate.

“Did you come by sleigh?” Lily asked politely, as distant and cool in tone as she might have spoken to a traveling preacher or a distant cousin.

“Aye. I left the horses with the blacksmith and walked up.”

“You took a chance,” Lily said. “This late in the winter. You may not be able to drive the sleigh back until next season.”

He gave her a small smile. “I'm in no hurry to be away.”

“I'm glad you're back,” Lily said suddenly, her color rising as the words spilled out.

At that Simon Ballentyne produced a smile that made Elizabeth look away, so clearly personal was the message it sent.

Gabriel and Annie were sent away against their wishes and protests, and then Lily read her sister's letter for herself and asked Simon all the questions she could think to ask about Nut Island. Finally they fell into an awkward silence that lasted a full minute.

“I've changed my mind,” Simon said finally. “I release you from your promise.”

There were many things Lily had imagined him saying, but never this. Simon was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read: composed, calm, a wall that she could not breach.

“You don't want to marry me,” Lily said.

“Of course I want to marry you.” A flush appeared high on his cheeks. “But I won't hold you to a promise you made under duress.”

“So you are proposing?” Lily asked, and blushed herself to hear those words come out of her own mouth.

“No.”

“You are not proposing. Forgive me for being dense—”

“I'm not proposing yet.”

“Aha. And if I might ask, when exactly do you plan to propose?”

“That depends.”

He was looking at her intently, his mouth pressed hard together, a fluttering muscle in his cheek the only indication of what this conversation was costing him.

“Well, then,” Lily said, standing suddenly and turning away. She was free of him, and of Nicholas, and could do as she pleased; and she was ridiculously close to tears. “I wish you a good journey back to Montreal. Please do write—”

She let out a very unladylike squeak at the feel of his hands on her waist.

“Lily,” he said, so close behind her that his breath was warm on her ear. “Have mercy.”

She tried to pull away, and found she could not. “What do you want from me?”

“Patience. It's no easy, what I have to say. Will you sit, please. And listen.”

Outside the wind picked up and just that suddenly all the afternoon light was gone, leaving them with the glow of the hearth in the fire, and nothing else. Another winter storm, so close on the heels of the last one at a time when the season should be lessening its grip. Lily could have screamed with frustration.