“It seems to me her feelings are those of anger.” He sipped his whisky. “Justifiable, I might add.”

Gray choked. “Justifiable? How can you say that?”

“Oh, let me see.” Sarcasm colored Win’s words. “You sprang this on her without warning just as she was about to marry someone else. And then you left.”

“I thought it best.” Although at this moment, it did sound rather stupid.

“To leave her and your family and your country?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“After declaring your love, you made no effort to speak to her again that day or the next. Correct?”

“It seemed pointless.” A defensive note sounded in Gray’s voice. He had recognized his foolishness years ago. It wasn’t at all pleasant to have his cousin now point it out.

“Furthermore, you have made no effort to contact her for eleven years. Is that correct as well?”

“Yes.” Gray forced a cool note to his voice. “As I said, it seemed pointless.”

Win took another swallow and studied his cousin. “Has it never occurred to you that this abrupt declaration of yours might have been so unexpected as to leave her stunned? Speechless?”

“She did manage to get a few words out,” he snapped. “She did admit she would marry me if I had money.”

“Did she?”

“Not in those exact words, perhaps . . .” Indeed, as Gray thought back, he had been the one to say she would marry him if he had prospects. She had simply said, as he didn’t, what was the point?

“So you asked her to marry you instead of Lord Lydingham?”

“No.” Gray resisted the urge to squirm in his seat. “But I intended to.”

“My dear cousin. It appears you have a great deal to make up for.”

“I am well aware of that.”

“So”—Win swirled the whisky in his glass—“now that you have seen her again, do you still say you have put her in the past?”

“I don’t know.”

Win cast him a skeptical glance.

Gray shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

“I see.”

Gray frowned. “What do you see?”

“Why are you staying at Millworth Manor, and what does Camille wanting a prince have to do with it?”

Gray started to point out Win had changed the subject; then thought better of it. The subject of his feelings for Camille was best left alone for now. Still, he had known the moment he looked into Camille’s blue eyes again that something still lingered between them. She could deny it as much now as she had then . . . but then she never really had, had she? She’d never told him she didn’t love him. At once his mood lightened.

“Camille’s prince is eager to experience an English Christmas the way it is portrayed in literature. He’s quite a fan of Mr. Dickens. So she is determined to provide him with that proper English Christmas, as well as a proper English family to go along with it.”