TONY’S CARRIAGE JOLTED AROUND the corner, and George swayed as she peered out the window. It had begun to rain again, soaking the already sodden pastures, dragging tree branches earthward, and turning everything into the same gray-brown color. Monotonous veils of dingy water fell, blurring the landscape and trickling down the window like tears. From inside the carriage it appeared that the whole world wept, overcome by a grief that would not fade.

“Perhaps it won’t stop.”

“What?” Tony asked.

“The rain,” George said. “Perhaps it won’t stop. Perhaps it will continue forever until the mud in the highway turns to a stream and rises up and becomes a sea and we float away.” She traced a finger through the condensation on the inside of the window, making squiggly lines. “Do you think your carriage is buoyant?”

“No,” Tony said. “But I shouldn’t worry. The rain will stop sometime, even if it doesn’t seem so at the moment.”

“Mmm.” She stared out the window. “And if I don’t care if it goes on? Perhaps I wouldn’t mind floating away. Or sinking.”

She was doing the right thing, everyone assured her so. Leaving Harry was the only proper choice left to her. He was of a lower class, and he resented the difference in their ranks. Last night, he’d been ugly in his resentment; and yet, she couldn’t fault him. Harry Pye wasn’t meant to be anyone’s lapdog. She hadn’t thought she was confining him, but he obviously felt demeaned. There was no future for them, an earl’s daughter and a land steward. They knew that; everyone knew that. This was a natural conclusion to an affair that should never have been begun in the first place.

But, still, George couldn’t shake the feeling that she was running away.

As if reading her thoughts, Tony said, “It’s the correct decision.”

“Is it?”

“There was no other.”

“I feel like a coward,” she mused, still looking out the window.

“You’re not a coward,” he said softly. “This course wasn’t easy for you, I know. Cowards are people who take the least difficult path, not the hardest.”

“Yet I’ve abandoned Violet when she needs me most,” George objected.

“No, you haven’t,” Tony said firmly. “You’ve turned her problem over to me. I’ve sent Oscar and Ralph ahead of us to London. By the time we arrive, they should have learned where this cad lives. In the meantime, rusticating for another few weeks in the country won’t hurt her, and she has Miss Hope to keep her company. That is what we pay her for, after all,” he finished dryly.