“He’ll make you happy,” Grace added firmly when Christiana remained silent. “If you let him.”

She glanced to the maid with surprise. “What do you mean, if I let him?”

Grace set aside the clothes she’d gathered and moved back to the tub. “Child, I know George hurt you. You thought you loved him and he betrayed you by turning into the cold, critical man who has tormented you this last year. But Richard isn’t George.”

“I know that,” Christiana muttered, turning her face away and continuing to wash herself as she admitted, “And I know now that I didn’t really love George. I loved the romantic hero he pretended to be, but that man didn’t exist and the real man . . .” She shrugged wearily and dipped the cloth in the water with a sigh.

“Richard isn’t George,” Grace repeated solemnly.

“But what if he too isn’t the man he appears to be now? How do I know he will not turn just as George did?” Christiana asked almost plaintively. Tears glazed her eyes and she shook her head on a sigh, confusion rife within her. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to cry, and then she was and admitted, “I’m afraid.”

“George turned the moment the ‘I dos’ were said, or very nearly,” Grace pointed out. “He also didn’t even consummate the marriage. Richard hasn’t yet started to treat you differently. I haven’t heard anything even remotely resembling a criticism of you from him, and he trusts your judgment where George didn’t. As for consummating the marriage, the man did that before the two of you were even married.”

Grace sighed. “Child, you have a choice here. You can trust that he is the man he is presenting now and treat him accordingly, or you can keep him at arm’s length lest he hurt you as you have been doing.”

Christiana frowned. “I haven’t been keeping him at arm’s length.”

“Oh?” she asked dryly. “Well, you haven’t been yourself around him either. I have known you all your life and you have always been a bit of a hoyden. You may fool others, but I know you are not the prim proper lady who embroiders on a journey in a bouncing carriage.”

She glanced at her sharply. “How did you know—”

“I saw it in your hand as you got in the carriage,” Grace said dryly, moving to kneel beside the tub again. “I also saw it go flying out the window before we stopped for lunch.”

“Richard threw it out. He asked if I liked doing it and when I said no, he snatched it away and threw it out the window. He said with him I didn’t need to do things I didn’t care to do.”

“Then listen to him,” Grace said firmly, urging her to lean back and dip her head in the water to soak her hair. Once she was upright again, Grace began to soap the long strands and said, “You have not been yourself since marrying George and that was understandable the way he picked and chewed away at your self-respect. You are better now than while he lived, but—”