Robert’s heart broke for that quiet, serious, lonely girl. “Your brother found out?”

“Nobody found out. I was careful, and people see what they want to see. I never had tantrums as Stephen did, never suffered the temper that plagued Althea. My governess told Quinn I was finally settling down and making peace with my lot.” Constance used the side of her pencil, scraping it against the page in a rapid back-and-forth motion. “I was planning to elope.”

Scotland was much closer to York than it was to London. “But you were fifteen. The age of consent even in Scotland is sixteen.” The young people of England, by contrast, were not of age to marry until they turned one-and-twenty.

“I know now that eloping to Scotland would have been pointless. Matters never reached that stage. Before I could run off with my handsome cavalier…”

The pencil ceased moving. The cat leapt to the grass, and Robert risked a glance at Constance. “Before you could elope…?”

She looked down at her sketch. “I didn’t think reciting ancient history would be difficult. It’s very difficult. This is not a story I’ve told to many.”

“You need not tell it to me now.” Though he hoped she would.

“I promised Quinn, the blighter.” She clutched her sketch pad against her chest and bowed her head. The moment became painful, even before she spoke. Robert slid closer to her, wanting to stop whatever unhappy words troubled her, knowing he must not.

“Whatever you have to say, Constance, I want only for you to be happy.” What an enormous relief, to mean that, to be utterly committed to somebody else’s well-being and safety. A healthy man had those aspirations, a man competent in his mind and whole in his heart, if not his body.

Constance looked out over the garden, eyes bright with unshed tears. “There was a child, Rothhaven. Somewhere, I know not where, I have a daughter, and I cannot find her. I have searched and searched, for years I have looked for my darling girl, and I cannot f-find my daughter.”

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Maybe a seizure was a little like what Constance endured on that hard, sunny bench. Rothhaven took her in his arms, and try as she might, she could not maintain her composure. The tears had come, silent and messy, then loud and messy, and then in quiet shudders.

Before Constance was through, her face ached, her nose stung, her eyes burned, and Rothhaven’s handkerchief was a damp ball of hopelessly wrinkled linen in her fist. Her dignity was a cause so lost she doubted she’d ever recover it.

“I never cry,” she said, voice raspy. “I abhor tears.” A legacy from a father who’d delighted in tormenting any daughter stupid enough to let him see her cry.