He regarded her with a frown. In Devon, she’d spoken of such things as girlhood fancies, seeming to reflect on them with embarrassment and regret. “There’s n-nothing shameful in that.”

“Not in and of itself. But such romanticism can lead one in an unfortunate direction. It can make one fanciful. Imagining things that aren’t there.” She turned at last to meet his eyes. The expression on her face tore at his heart. “I told you that my brother had a tutor. Do you remember?”

Neville went still. Something in her voice put him on his guard.

“I was a teacher then, at the village school. But some afternoons, when I came home, Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde would encourage me to join in my brother’s lessons. He’d talk with me about books and poetry. It seemed we had a great deal in common.”

Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde?

Neville swallowed hard. She’d mentioned her brother having a tutor, but she’d never before spoken the man’s name.

“I was young. Unaccustomed to such attentions. When he complimented me or touched my hand, I imagined he was fond of me. And one day”—she brushed impatiently at the tears on her cheeks—“he met me in the meadow behind our cottage as I walked home from school. He brought me a bouquet of wildflowers and…he kissed me.”

Neville stared at her, unable to think. Unable to breathe.

Clara’s face was pale. “I told my mother we were engaged. Because I was certain we must have been. To kiss someone—to give them flowers, and to recite poetry to them—was tantamount to a proposal in my mind. And there was something else. Something he’d said. Something I’d thought he’d said.” She pressed a hand to her corseted midriff, as if the recollection made her physically ill. “My mother brought me to see the squire, to confront him about his son’s intentions. He called in Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde, and…he denied me. He said he’d only been kind.”

“He c-called you a liar?”

“No. And that’s the rub of it. He admitted to everything—everything except the kiss. He painted a picture of me as a little mouse of a girl desperate for affection, who had taken his civility—his kindness—and spun it into a romance. And you know—” Her voice broke. “I thought I must have done. For when I next saw him, he looked at me so coldly. As if I didn’t exist at all. As if I were a nonperson. And I knew I’d got it all wrong. That they were right. I’d made it up. Imagined it. Because I’d wanted so badly for it to be true. For him to have cared for me.”