Robert braced one hand on the newel post and used the other to tap his hat onto his head. “If her ladyship writes to Ivy, can you see that the letter reaches her?”

“I will try, Your Grace. Ivy, for the love of God, get back to your room.”

Mother and child hugged each other, for what might be the only time, and Robert had to force himself not to dwell on memories of his own mother hugging him desperately tight before he’d been packed into a traveling coach headed for “school.” He hadn’t seen the duchess again for more than a decade.

His mother had been overcome with tears, while Constance was dry-eyed and coherent, but he had no doubt their heartaches were of equal measure.

“Please, Ivy,” Mrs. Hodges whispered. “You must not anger the reverend. Once he digs in his heels, there’s no moving that man.”

Constance stepped back. “I will write to you, I promise. This battle is not over, Ivy Wentworth.”

The battle might well be over, and be resoundingly lost too, but use of the Wentworth family name had the girl smiling.

“Miss Ivy, a pleasure to have met you.” Robert bowed over the girl’s hand and then offered his arm to Constance.

She left Shaw’s rickety little house, head held high, and walked beside Robert with all the dignity of a duchess.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I let you down. I should have disarmed Shaw’s growing ire, and I did not.”

“You could not. I know that.”

I warned you this would happen. Robert kept those pointless, petty words behind his teeth. “I am still sorry.”

“I met my daughter,” Constance said, emotions roiling and seething beneath her words. “For years, that was the sum of my ambitions, and had you not spurred Miss Abbott’s efforts, I might have never even seen Ivy.”

The busy green came into view, and a wave of physical fatigue washed over Robert. “You could follow her to Australia.” Those words needed to be said.

“Not without you,” Constance replied, “and I won’t ask that of you.”

I’m sorry for that too. “I see Lord Stephen, trying to look harmless and bored. Shall we have him up to our sitting room?”

“That will cause talk. I will shop for a bit and then join you upstairs soon. You should probably rest.”

Constance was being remarkably perceptive and considerate, though Robert felt dismissed. He felt, in fact, humiliated, inadequate, and unworthy.

“I do need a nap.” He risked a buss to her cheek, and she caught him by the hand.