But Gabby interrupted him again. “You needn’t go on,” she said, her tone airy and light. “I realize that you have decided to…throw me over, and I would rather not discuss it. After all, I have a positive embarrassment of riches. At the moment I have two fiancés. I shall quite happily marry Peter.” She almost dusted her hands to emphasize the finality of her comment, but she clutched them together instead. Something about the way Quill’s face had darkened during her little speech made her heart skip a beat.

“Do you dare to imply that I am trying to break off our engagement?”

Gabby nodded.

“I would never do such a thing.” Quill’s voice was thunderous.

Gabby suddenly realized her mistake. Once again she had insulted the English sense of propriety. She had offended Quill by implying that he wished to break off their engagement. A gentleman never spurned a lady—he forced the lady to break off the engagement instead.

She placed a gloved hand on his sleeve. “Quill, as friends, can’t we speak truthfully to each other?”

Quill stared at her in some bewilderment. He didn’t want her to speak truthfully if she was going to gibber on about having two fiancés and it not mattering which she married. She had one fiancé. And he was it. And she was going to have him as a husband too. After plaguing him all day, his conscience had gone silent. She was his.

He scowled at her. “Go ahead, then,” he barked.

Gabby bit her lip. He looked just as angry as Peter had when she tried to kiss him in public. Truly, English gentlemen gave absurd credence to their rules of conduct.

“All I mean to say,” she said, as reasonably as possible, “is that given our friendship, you needn’t pretend that you still wish to marry me. You needn’t try to find ways to make me jilt you. I completely understand.”

There was a sick pain in her heart that belied her statement, but she’d think about that later. The important thing now was to preserve her dignity as much as possible, given that she’d just been thrown over. Luckily, the only person who knew about their brief engagement was Lady Sylvia, since they had decided not to disclose her change of fiancés to morning callers.

The horses were trotting down a lane on the north side of Hyde Park. Quill pulled on the reins, put on the brake, and tucked the reins into the curricle rail, without saying another word.

Gabby was feeling quite sick to her stomach now and would much rather return to the house than continue this unpleasant discussion. She expressed this desire in a slightly querulous tone.