“Well, it’s true. And why ought you or anyone conform to a particular idea of how you should be? There’s no shortage of any kind of people, so we might as well let each other be ourselves.”

“Yes,” Fen said intensely. “That is absolutely right. Why should one woman not be a serious vegetarian, and another a champion shooter, and a third a fluffy sort of—”

“—delightful person to be with,” Pat put in.

Fen dimpled. “And the fourth a drug fiend, I suppose, but one must take the rough with the smooth.”

“Maybe Lady Anna wouldn’t be a drug fiend if Haworth wasn’t such a dreadful specimen.”

“It just goes to show, one must marry with care,” Fen concluded. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel for talking it out. Thank you for talking to me, Pat. Thank you for noticing.”

“Of course,” Pat mumbled. She was trying hard not to notice the increased pressure of Fen’s fingers on hers. “Any time.”

“Oh,” Fen said after a few quiet moments. “Have you been to the gazebo?”

“I haven’t.”

“It’s lovely. This way.” Fen tugged her off the lake path through a stand of trees. After a few moments in the dappled shade of the woods, they came out under the sky, and Pat caught her breath at the vista as the land opened up in front of them.

“Glorious.”

“Isn’t it? And one can sit and appreciate the view out of the sun. Jimmy showed me.”

Pat preferred walking and sunshine to sitting and preserving her complexion, but Fen’s company trumped the rest. She followed her to the indicated summerhouse, which her housekeeping eye noted as needing a lick of paint, and they seated themselves on wrought iron chairs.

“That’s better,” Fen said. “I don’t envy you the prospect of spending all day marching over the moors.”

“I love it. I do a lot of walking at home. Or, I did.”

“Do you have to stop?”

“I have to leave. It’s my brother’s house, of course, and now he’s married—”

“They’re throwing you out?” Miss Carruth sat very straight, eyes sparkling with indignation. “That’s horrible!”

“Of course they’re not. They both asked me to stay. But I’ve been running the house on Jonty’s behalf since I was a girl, which was all very well when I was mistress of the place, but that’s Olivia, his wife, now. If I stay I’ll end up acting as housekeeper, because I’m an awfully managing person. That wouldn’t be fair to Olivia in her new home, and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”

“Oh, I see. So what will you do?”