“This isn’t about my teasing you, is it? There’s something else going on.”

“Let go of me,” she said. “Or I shall scream.”

His hand fell from her elbow. “I’m not trying to plague you. But if I’ve upset you—”

“Really, Mr. Archer. Your appearance in Lower Hawley isn’t as earth-shattering as you seem to believe. My present state has nothing at all to do with you. I simply need a moment to compose myself. I’m in no fit state to see my family—and I have no inclination to cross swords with you.” She dropped an abrupt curtsy. “I bid you good day, sir.”

With that, she turned and strode blindly into the woods.

It wasn’t far to Talbot’s Pond. Her secret place. Her sanctuary. At least, it had been until Mr. Archer had unceremoniously shown up there yesterday morning.

But he didn’t matter now.

Nothing mattered except her disastrous meeting with Mr. Weatherwax. She’d had a whole night to reflect on the subject, and she still couldn’t quite believe it. Couldn’t quite accept that all of her careful plans had come to naught.

What was she going to tell Teddy and Aunt Charlotte?

More to the point, what in the world was she going to do?

As she made her way deeper through the trees, her full skirts caught on the leaves and underbrush that surrounded Talbot’s Pond. Once there, she sank down on the grassy banks in a spill of petticoats and wrinkled silk. Tears leaked from her eyes. This time, she didn’t bother to dash them away.

She wasn’t a great one for weeping. It was a pointless exercise. Her emotions were better spent in solving problems and making plans. Easy enough when one had a surfeit of ideas. There was always something else to try. Another method by which to trim the Hayes family’s budget. To keep them all clothed, shod, and fed.

It had occurred to her yesterday, as she’d left Mr. Weatherwax’s offices in London, that she hadn’t adequately prepared for failure. And now, having to face it was a shade more than she could bear.

She covered her face with her hands and wept.

Once started, the tears were impossible to quell. She wept until they’d fully run their course. It might have been a quarter of an hour. Perhaps even longer. She had no sense of time. It had been ages since she’d cried her heart out so thoroughly, scarcely able to draw breath between sobs.

It was better this way, she thought as she rummaged in her reticule for a handkerchief. The cottage was no place for tears or expressions of hopelessness. There was enough of that from Teddy and Aunt Charlotte. If they knew—if they even suspected—that she was despairing, it would send the rest of the household into an uproar.