Jeremy shook his head. “It seemed she wasn’t quite as taken as I. We rode night and day, got to Gretna Green and—” he shook his head with bewilderment. “She just changed her mind at the last minute. She burst into tears and fled. She would not even allow me to return her home, but insisted on renting a hack herself and returning on her own.” He dug up another stone and bent to collect it as well. He weighed it in his hand briefly, and then tossed it into the pond before finishing, “So I am returning alone, still a bachelor rather than the newly married man I expected to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Suzette whispered, sympathizing with the man. His story was not that different from her own.

“The hell of it is, I have to marry relatively soon to fulfill my duty to my family,” he continued unhappily. “I have been resisting marrying the first likely gel for money, and thought here I would manage a love match and still meet my family’s needs, but—” He shook his head. “It seems I shall have to sell myself off to stud to the first likely hag with coin in her pocket to save the family estates from ruin.”

Suzette stared at him blankly for a moment and then suddenly just burst into tears.

“Oh say,” he cried at once. “I didn’t mean to make you cry again. ’Tis all right, my heart is a little dented and wounded now, but I’ll recover. I hope,” he added unhappily, and then said, “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry,” Suzette muttered, dashing at her tears, and then, accepting the hanky he held out, she quickly mopped them up. “It is just that we are in much the same situation.”

His eyebrows rose. “You need to marry for money?”

“No. Well, yes, but—oh,” she sighed and quickly explained the situation and her need for a husband in need of money who would be willing to allow her to pay off the debt and live her own life.

“So you have a large dower and need a husband in need of money, and I have a title and lands and need a bride with coin, and here we both sit brokenhearted and with no prospects,” he said with a short laugh, and shook his head. “Fate has a nasty sense of humor, doesn’t she?”

Suzette nodded solemnly and handed him back his hanky.

They were both silent for a moment and then he glanced at her and asked, “Would it be too bold of me to suggest we marry each other?”

Suzette hesitated and then glanced away. The thought had occurred to her, but it would mean telling him what she’d done.