“No!” The word felt as if it was punched from his chest.

He was at a crossroads. One way was . . . No. He couldn’t even visualize it, which didn’t say much for a happy future.

The other way held Ophelia, who had refused him, but looked at him with her eyes brimming with emotion. After Lady Woolhastings’s profound rudeness, Phee walked away up the slope, her hair practically on fire with righteous indignation.

Yet his fiancée would likely be surprised to hear that she had insulted Ophelia, since all she offered—to her mind—were sound observations drawn from a thorough grounding in “polite” society.

“True.” His sister came over and kissed his cheek. “I was just waiting for you to catch up to the truth. Edith’s chance of being a duchess was over when she told Betsy not to eat another piece of buttered toast.”

“It’s a cock-up,” Hugo said.

It helped to acknowledge that truth.

No matter what happened with Ophelia, he wouldn’t inflict Edith on his children. That would be as stupid a marriage as his to Yvette.

“Christ,” he said bleakly, thrusting his hand through his hair. “I have balls-all luck with women.”

“I’d say the opposite,” his sister retorted. “Marie was a darling. Ophelia is far more interesting, perhaps because we’re all of an age now. Marie never had a chance to become interesting.”

“But Ophelia—”

“Don’t tell me again that you made up your mind for her that she’d be better off without you. You have moments when I think the title has addled your brains, and this is one of them. Your job is to grovel at her feet and beg her for marriage. Do you hear me?”

He rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly because her poking actually hurt. “What if she won’t have me?”

“Then you change her mind. You wait until she has a good look at the better parts of you. You invite her to the castle for a visit and you don’t consign her to the last carriage, but keep her at your side.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” Louisa said. “You went off in the first carriage with that bald woman to whom you’d supposedly offered your hand, a few days after being refused by Ophelia . . . You could scarcely have been more offensive, Hugo. I’m not the most sensitive of beings, but even I would have trouble countenancing that insult.”

“It wasn’t meant as an insult.”

“Your intent is unimportant. I saw her eyes and you hurt her. Now, you learn from that mistake and don’t make it again.”

“I’ll have to talk to Lady Woolhastings.”

“Tomorrow at the dinner party,” his sister said briskly. “I can help, Hugo. It would be best if we could convince her that being Duchess of Lindow would diminish her countenance.”