He had been a fool to expect she would abandon all she’d been taught her entire life, but he had hoped. He knew she understood her responsibility in life was to marry well, as one never knew what might befall one’s family. They had discussed it, now and again through the years, and it had seemed an eminently practical way of looking at a woman’s lot in life. Poverty, she had once told him quite earnestly, was always just around the corner. Not that, to his knowledge, Lady Briston had ever been close to impoverished. Still, one never knew what went on in another household. Lord Briston had been gone for many years, and Lady Briston had never remarried. Lord Briston’s twin brother still preferred to use his military rank of colonel, instead of the title he had inherited from his brother, in homage to the deceased, no doubt. So, perhaps, neither Colonel Channing nor Lady Briston had ever completely come to terms with Lord Briston’s demise. Camille’s sister Beryl had already married well, and now it was Camille’s turn.

She had been shocked by his declaration of love and had told him, in as kind a manner as one could hope, that it simply wasn’t possible. And, indeed, she had thanked him for trying to stop her from marrying without the true love she had always longed for. But there had been something in her eyes that had belied her words.

That’s when he had kissed her. For the first time, and for the last. And she had kissed him back. And for one incredible moment, he knew, deep in his heart, that anything was possible. That regardless of what she said, she did indeed love him.

Then she had pushed him away and suggested it would be best if he left at once. He’d made the stupid charge that she would marry him if he had money; and she had said, as he didn’t, it scarcely mattered. He knew the moment he said the words that he was wrong; he knew her better than that. He had started to argue with her but realized it would do no good. She was determined to go through with her wedding. With the life she had planned. Perhaps if he hadn’t waited so long to tell her of his feelings. Perhaps if he had been stronger or they had not been so young. She had been nineteen, he was just twenty. Perhaps . . .