The knowledge that she was even tolerating Sturgeon's company, allowing him to call on her—at first Trev had not taken it in seriousness, supposing she'd merely been unable to summon sufficient daring to refuse to admit the man. He'd been perfectly ready to undertake a visit to Sturgeon on her behalf if she required assistance in the matter, and finish up what he'd started by giving the major a matching pair of black eyes to go with his swollen jaw.

To discover that she was entertaining an actual proposal had set Trev well off his stride. Perhaps a little more than that. Perhaps he had finally admitted the truth to himself—that he was utterly distracted and still crazy in love with her mischievous smile and that way she had of looking up at him sidelong while she discussed the various merits of an overweight peeg. He was worse off than even his mother suspected, and she suspected a good deal.

He was, in fact, dying by inches. He stood near the fire, glowering at an innocent cow and rhythmically opening and closing his fists while Sturgeon made up to her in the open street. She knew Trev was there too. After she'd turned him down, with all that bosh about how unworthy she was of Monceaux; turned him down, and he couldn't argue with her, couldn't tell her what he felt or prove it was the other way round—C'est à chier, his exalted grand-père had always said of him, not worth a shit, and God knew it was true at that moment.

He watched sullenly as Sturgeon pulled her hood round her face in a mawkish little gesture of caring. The fellow was a damned hum. How she could allow him to touch her, knowing what she did, that he'd dangle after some Belgian slut at the very moment he was supposed to be courting her—Trev set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. He slapped his hands against his arms, more out of frustrated violence than cold.

It seemed like a nightmare that he stood here wrapped up to his eyebrows to hide himself, doing nothing while his lover walked away with another man. He ought to have cut off all her silly objections and dragged her down to the cathedral, found a priest, or a bishop, or whoever did these things quietly and fast—he'd convert to the Church of England while he was at it and let his grandfather turn over in his grave. He didn't think, if he'd insisted, that she would have refused him very long. He rather thought she'd been hoping for it.

But then he'd have to tell her the truth.