In the end, Daniel took her back to his own bedchamber, reasoning that it was one of the only rooms in the house in which she could be guaranteed privacy. He asked her one last time if she wanted her mother, or Honoria, or anyone, but Sarah shook her head and curled up in a ball atop his quilts. Daniel found a blanket and laid it over her, and then, once he was assured that she did indeed wish to be left alone, he exited the room and quietly closed his door behind him.

Ten minutes later Honoria arrived.

“Daniel told me you said you wanted to be alone,” Honoria said before Sarah could do more than look at her with an exhausted expression, “but we think you’re wrong.”

The very definition of family. The people who got to decide when you were wrong. Sarah supposed she was as guilty of this as anyone. Probably more so.

Honoria sat next to her on the bed and gently brushed Sarah’s hair from her face. “How can I help you?”

Sarah did not lift her head from her pillow. Nor did she turn to face her cousin. “You can’t.”

“There must be something we can do,” Honoria said. “I refuse to believe that all is lost.”

Sarah sat up a little and looked at her in disbelief. “Did Daniel tell you nothing?”

“He told me some,” Honoria replied, showing no reaction to Sarah’s unkind tone.

“Then how can you say all is not lost? I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. And now, I find out—” Sarah felt her face contorting with anger that Honoria did not deserve, but she could not control herself. “Don’t tell me all is not lost!”

Honoria caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Perhaps if you talked to him.”

“I did! How do you think I ended up like this?” Sarah waved her arm in front of her as if to say—

As if to say, I’m angry and I’m hurt and I don’t know what to do.

As if to say, There’s nothing I can do except wave my stupid arm.

As if to say, Help me because I don’t know how to ask.

“I’m not entirely certain I got the whole story,” Honoria said in a careful voice. “Daniel was very upset, and he said you were crying, and then I rushed off . . .”

“What did he tell you?” Sarah asked in a monotone.

“He explained that Lord Hugh . . .” Honoria grimaced, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “Well, he told me how Lord Hugh was able to finally convince his father to leave Daniel alone. It’s . . .” Once again, Honoria’s face found at least three different expressions of incredulity before she was able to continue. “I thought it was rather clever of him, actually, although certainly somewhat . . .”

“Mad?”