“How can I even talk about it?” Sarah cried. “How awful I would feel about Hugh and how angry I would be at him when obviously that would mean Daniel is already dead, and shouldn’t that be what crushes me and— God above, Honoria, it is against the very nature of man. I can’t— I can’t—”

She fell into her cousin’s arms, gasping through her tears. “It isn’t fair,” she sobbed into Honoria’s shoulder. “It just isn’t fair.”

“No. It’s not.”

“I love him.”

Honoria did not stop rubbing her back. “I know that you do.”

“And I feel like a monster, being upset that he said—” Sarah gasped, her lungs pulling in an unexpected gulp of air. “That he said that he would kill himself, and then I begged him to tell me that he wouldn’t do it, when shouldn’t I really be upset that all this would mean that something had happened to Daniel?”

“But you can see why Lord Hugh made that bargain in the first place,” Honoria said. “Can’t you?”

Sarah nodded against her. Her lungs hurt. Her whole body hurt. “But it should be different now,” she whispered. “He should feel differently now. I should mean something.”

“And you do,” Honoria said reassuringly. “I know that you do. I’ve seen the way you look at each other when you think no one is watching.”

Sarah pulled back just far enough to look at her cousin’s face. Honoria was gazing down at her with the tiniest of smiles, and her eyes—her amazing lavender eyes that Sarah had always envied—were clear and serene.

Was that the difference between the two of them? Sarah wondered. Honoria approached each day as if the world were made of greenglass seas and soft ocean breezes. Sarah’s world was one storm after another. She’d never had a serene day in her life.

“I’ve watched the way he looks at you,” Honoria said. “He is in love with you.”

“He has not said it.”

“Have you?”

Sarah let her silence be her reply.

Honoria reached out and took her hand. “You might have to be the brave one and say it first.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sarah said, thinking of Marcus, always so honorable and reserved. “You fell in love with the easiest, loveliest, least complicated man in England.”

Honoria gave a sympathetic shrug. “We can’t help with whom we fall in love. And you’re not the easiest, least complicated woman in England, you know.”

Sarah gave her a sideways look. “You left out loveliest.”

“Well, you might be the loveliest,” Honoria said with a crooked smile. Then she nudged Sarah with her elbow. “I daresay Lord Hugh thinks you’re the loveliest.”

Sarah buried her face in her hands. “What am I going to do?”

“I think you’re going to have to talk to him.”