She could have recovered, eventually, without hearing his grand confession. Now she knew the worst, but also the best—if she could believe it. And there was the rub and the source of her sorrow. She couldn’t believe it.

How does one trust again after being so thoroughly lied to? She’d never been lied to before, thus had never figured that out for herself. And Vincent was asking too much of her, to forgive, to forget, to accept him as he was without suspicions. How could she do that when he could lie so convincingly, so expertly, that she’d never be able to know when he was being truthful with her?

Of course, everyone made mistakes and had faults, but not everyone had such ruthless faults as Vincent did. Someone else might be able to overlook them, to say that only love mattered, but she had too many doubts for that someone to be her. Yes, she still loved him. The wrenching in her heart today made that bitterly obvious. But she despised everything he’d done and she’d never get beyond that simple fact long enough to forgive him.

She was dreading going to bed, knowing she wouldn’t get much sleep that night. So her father’s knock at the door was very welcome, even if the subject that he brought in with him wasn’t.

“I was informed that Lord Everett paid you a visit today,” he said as he joined her in front of the fireplace where she had been sitting, staring blankly at the dancing flames. “I hadn’t realized that he might follow me here to find you, or I would have seen to it that he never get past the door. I hope you know that I had expressly forbidden him to see you, to no avail, obviously.”

“It’s all right,” she replied. “I doubt he’ll try to see me again.”

“You turned him down, then?”

“You knew he was going to ask?”

“I’d gathered that was his goal, yes. He claims to love you. Do you have reason to doubt that after your experiences with him?”

“Yes—no,” she corrected, then with a frustrated sigh, added, “I don’t know anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Rissa. I know you haven’t wanted to talk about what happened. But I have assumed, from your state of melancholy, that you love the man.”

“I did. I don’t now.”

He smiled gently. “Would that it were so easy to turn love off and on with a few simple words. Here, take these and read them,” he said, handing her two letters. “I’ve had them in my possession for several days now. I wasn’t going to show them to you, since they might upset you again, but perhaps that decision was a mistake on my part.”

“What are you talking about?”