Christiana lowered her embroidery to her lap and smiled wryly. “We stopped there for a night on the way to London after the wedding, but it was only a brief stop. We arrived after dark and left at first light so I didn’t get to see much.”

“The wedding was at your father’s home?” he asked.

Christiana nodded.

Richard peered at her silently for a moment and then said, “I was surprised neither yourself nor your sisters suggested collecting your father on the way.

I would have thought you’d want him to attend your weddings.”

Christiana sighed and stabbed her needle into the cloth, set it down and admitted, “I considered it, but Suzette was so angry at Father for gambling again and forcing her to marry so abruptly that . . .” She shook her head unhappily. “I just thought it better not to even bring up the subject.”

“And you? Are you angry too? If not for the first round of gambling you would never have had to marry George.”

“I didn’t have to marry him,” Christiana said quietly. “Had I seen through him and refused his troth Father would have supported me in my decision.

Marrying Dicky was my choice. He wooed me, I believed his lies sincere and made the wrong choice.”

“What other choice was there?” he asked.

“What Suzette is doing now, I suppose,” she said with a shrug. “Find myself a man in need of money and strike a deal with him.”

He frowned slightly and then commented, “Christiana, you have a tendency to take responsibility in every situation . . . even when it is not yours to take.”

When she started to protest, he pointed out, “You understand why Suzette is angry, but don’t claim that anger for yourself for being forced to marry Dicky when if the gambling hadn’t happened the first time you never would have been forced to make the decision at all .”

“But—”

“And then while talking to Grace, you tried to take responsibility for our night together when it was wholly my fault.”

“I was a party to it,” she said blushing and lowering her head with embarrassment. It was the first time they’d spoken of that passionate night. “I am the one who started stripping you and set the whole thing in motion.”

“And you thought I was your legal husband while I knew we weren’t legal y wed,” he pointed out quietly. “That night was my fault. As a gentleman I should have brought a halt to things.”

“Yes, well. . .” She sighed, terribly uncomfortable with the conversation and not sure what to say.

“I bet you have spent a good deal of this last year trying to figure out what was wrong with you or what you had done to make George treat you the way he did,” Richard murmured.

Christiana turned to peer unhappily out the window. She had spent the last year trying to work that out and trying to figure a way to fix things and bring back the sweet, complimentary man who had courted her.