But she’d borne it before. With George. In the weeks after he’d made his insulting proposition, she’d wanted to hide in her room, weeping tears of heartbreak and anger by turns. Such girlish dramatics would have been a luxury then, just as they were now. A luxury she couldn’t afford. Not when there was a household to run, a brother and aunt to look after, and clear-starching to finish in the kitchen.

“Are you all right?” Henrietta asked.

Laura pasted on a smile, refusing to betray the pain that Henrietta’s happiness caused her. “I’m always all right.”

She had to be. What other choice was there?

The York Hotel was an elegant establishment situated directly opposite the harbor, its three stories of windows facing out to the sea. Alex crossed the crowded lobby, his head bent and his hands thrust into his pockets. After an afternoon spent on the beach, he was more than ready to retire to his rooms to wash and change for dinner.

It wasn’t that Teddy hadn’t been good company. Indeed, with his caustic remarks and dictatorial demands, Laura’s brother was surprisingly amusing. He was rather talented, too. Alex had enjoyed watching the progress of his preliminary sketches, and the resulting effect when he’d transferred his ideas to paint and canvas.

George had even joined them for a time, long enough for Alex to observe the decided tension between him and Teddy.

“You don’t like him?” Alex had asked when George left them for the bathing machines.

“He’s a scoundrel,” Teddy had said, squinting at his canvas as he applied another dab of blue. “He treated my sister abominably two years ago. I don’t know why he ever came home.”

Alex hadn’t been able to get any more information out of Teddy, except to learn that Teddy himself was partially in the dark regarding George and Laura’s infamous falling out.

It didn’t matter, in any event. Laura had no need for Alex’s protection. She’d dealt with George once before, all on her own, and seemed more than capable of dealing with him again should the need arise.

There was no point in fretting over her. In worrying about her safety. Her comfort. Her happiness.

It was time to get his head on straight. To remember why it was he’d come back to England.

And it hadn’t been to lose his heart to an impoverished perfumer’s daughter.

He glanced out the front windows of the hotel as he passed them on the way to the staircase. The calm, untroubled waters of Margate were nothing like the wild and raging seas of North Devon. There, he’d been out of control. A victim of the storm.

Here, he was master of his own destiny. Whatever happened, it would be his choice.