“Your father is understandably angry with you. You have publicly flouted his authority not once but twice. But you are far too valuable an asset to be written off completely. You’re not even twenty years old, Margaret. Your mother sounds like a very sensible woman. She’ll find a way to bring you back into the fold, I guarantee it.”

“And then my father will find someone else to marry me off to.”

“Naturally, it is his duty as your father. Would you prefer he did not? You would become the spinster aunt then, little better than a glorified servant.”

“I won’t marry simply to please him.”

Julia frowned. “Then do it to please your mother. Think how relieved she would be to have you established. You would be able to forge the new relationship with her that you claim to want.”

“I do want to, very much.”

“Then bear in mind that it will be impossible if your father continues to disown you.” Julia got to her feet. “It’s a trifle cold sitting here. Shall we stroll down to the Green Pond?”

“So what you’re saying, in a nutshell, is that you think everyone would be happy if I married, except me.”

Julia drew her a level look as she opened the gate that led to the Green Pond. “Why are you so sure that marriage will make you miserable?”

They reached the edge of the pond. Margaret stared down at the water, where a shoal of tiny fish darted among the reeds. “What would you do, if you found yourself in my situation?”

“Is your situation any different from that of every other young women of our class? We are raised with the sole purpose of making a good marriage. The only choice we have is whether or not to make the best of it, or not marry at all, which is hardly a palatable option. You are fortunate to be the Duke of Buccleuch’s daughter—”

“That is highly debatable!”

“And to have a dowry to match your lineage,” Julia finished coolly, disposing herself with her usual quiet elegance on the wooden bench. “When Wingfield offered for me, I was not exactly enthusiastic. My husband is rather staid, his manner reserved, and it doesn’t help that he sports a very long beard, which makes him look a great deal older than his years.”

Margaret wrinkled her nose. “If we must spend hours every day pinning up our hair and lacing ourselves into corsets and crinolines, I don’t see why men can’t spend a few minutes every day shaving.”

“It is the fashion for a man to sport a beard, just as it is the fashion for a woman to wear a crinoline.”

“Then I must be extremely unfashionable,” Margaret retorted, “for I like neither.”