The dinner had confirmed Grace's opinion that James was not even worth consideration, but Mr Follet was not so easily satisfied. Soon after Mrs Follet had pressed her daughters to take out their embroidery and Mrs Redwood had offered her thin praise of it, a maid came to summon Grace back to the dining room on the excuse that her father wanted something read to him and needed her young eyes. When she entered, there was neither book nor newspaper in sight, only empty brandy glasses.

"Ah, it's Grace," Mr Follet said, as though she had taken him by surprise. "Why don't you take Mr James to see the garden? Two old men must be dull company for such a bright young man."

Grace looked at James slouching in his chair. There was a particular, petulant twist to his mouth, not unlike the glower her five-year-old niece displayed just before throwing a tantrum. A dose of damp night air might do him good.

"Of course," she said. "Mr James?"

James hauled himself to his feet. "Alright, alright."

They went down the hallway and into the back garden where the box hedges were crinkling in a splintery breeze. Grace shivered but had the satisfaction of seeing James shiver likewise. They took one turn of the walk in silence, bar for the crunching of the gravel beneath their feet. Judging by the frown on his face, James was thinking, and Grace did not wish to disturb him. She suspected he found thinking difficult.

At last, his thoughts drew to a conclusion and he uttered it: "This is not very romantic."

"What do you mean?"

"As a first meeting, for a pair who are to be married."

Were they to be married? He sounded very sure of that. "It is not the first time we have met. We have met several times. The Tempest, last year at the Theatre Royale. We shared a box. I remember well."

"With Martha Bainbridge and Lady Howell?"

"No, Sir. It was the Daltons and the Albrights."

James cleared his throat. "You were there?"

"I was." And she had not failed to notice the tender attention James had paid to Mrs Albright. "Then there have been balls, routs, picnics where our paths have crossed. It seems we have many mutual friends. I do not recall when we first met, Mr Redwood, but it must have been some years ago."

"I really can't remember you at all."

They made another turn of the walk. When they once more reached the stairs leading to the house, James stopped and regarded her. "Aren't you cold in this wind?"

"I'll warm up."

"We can just as easily maintain an uncomfortable silence indoors."

"My sisters will eavesdrop. Emma will giggle. It won't be silent."

James shuddered. "Then outside we remain."

"If you're really concerned, you might offer me your coat."

"If I give it to you, then I will be cold." James started around the walk again. "Come on. You'll warm up faster if we're moving."

Grace stared at him in disbelief. She could not recall ever meeting such a selfish man — except perhaps her father.

She trotted after James to catch him up. "It doesn't signify if you think this is unromantic," she said. "I might as well tell you now that—"

"I just can't believe my father would put me up for this," James interrupted, turning on her. "Why on earth would he think I'd ever want to marry you?"

She had been about to tell him that she had no intention of marrying him. Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and said nothing. Let him have his tantrum. He deserved it.

"We're not at all suited," James grumbled. "You're so..." He waggled a hand at her. "...plainly dressed."

"I suspect your father thinks my plain dressing might improve your colourful reputation," Grace said drily.

"And yours, I suppose, thinks I'm going to save you from spinsterhood."

"You forget the influence your wealth has upon him. If it were merely spinsterhood he wished to save me from, the dustman would do."

"I've always dreaded fortune hunters." James kicked at a piece of gravel, sending it flying into the hedges. "Unfeeling women who marry for the sake of a large income or a grand house, and damn all other happiness in the pursuit of material comfort."

"I'm not the fortune hunter, Mr Redwood. My father is."

"What other reason could you possibly have to marry me?" James's eyes widened. "You're not in love with me, are you? All those times our paths have crossed... hidden feelings might have developed...?" He smoothed the forelock that fell artistically across his forehead. "It wouldn't be the first time."

Grace wondered if he had any idea how very ridiculous he was. Surely that should have prevented any sensible woman ever falling in love with him — but the company he kept, no doubt, was anything but sensible. "No hidden feelings," she said. "But I ought to marry if I can. An unmarried woman is a burden on her family."

"And a married one is only a burden on her husband."

"Ideally."

"You don't have to marry me."

"There isn't anybody else who has offered. And even if there were, I still might prefer you."

He looked hurt. "You might?"

"As long as your rival were not just a little taller," Grace said. "I think most men are."

James straightened his posture. "You're a damn cold fish, Miss Follet."

It was not the first time Grace had been accused of it. But emotions were so very difficult, so very cumbersome. And when you did display them, they were so very often obviously unwelcome.

"That's probably why my father likes you," James continued. "He was full of what he calls compliments for you — wise, prudent, sensible. He thinks you will tame my wild ways and improve my behaviour."

Grace had not been aware that Mr Redwood knew her well enough to have an opinion of her, let alone a positive one. Of course she was polite to him, she said hello and how-do-you-do when he came to visit her father, but that was not exactly indicative of anything other than good manners. She wondered where his opinion had come from.

"Meanwhile, he's always been ready to believe the worst of me," James said. "Now that everyone else believes it too, he simply thinks he's been proved right."

"And is everyone wrong?".

James shot her a disgruntled glance. "I've had my... intrigues over the years. Lady Mosrow was a good friend three years ago. There's no lie in that."

"Only a euphemism."

"If that's what you want to call it." James sank down upon the edge of a raised garden bed. "We were friends. No one would ever have known we had been more if she hadn't... lost her head and announced it to the world. And now everybody knows, and that starts them thinking that every halfway pretty woman I've ever met has been my mistress."

Grace regarded him skeptically, recalling how often he had found cause to touch Mrs Albright's hand or whisper in her ear during The Tempest.

He rolled his eyes. "Well it wasn't every halfway pretty woman, Miss Follet. It was only a discreet handful of them. And they weren't my mistresses. A mistress is a financial transaction. I've never done that. My... love affairs were exactly that. I fell in love. I've got a bad habit of falling into love and then tumbling out of it again."

"Once we're married it won't be so easy to tumble out of it."

"You assume I'll fall in love with you in the first place." He snorted. "I won't."

Grace had been thinking it was time to tell James she no more wished to marry him than he did her, but that derisive snort demanded further punishing. She settled herself companionably down on the wall next to him, despite the chill of the brick sinking through her dress. "I'm not likely to fall in love with you either. So at least we'll have that in common."

"Oh, that's balm to the soul." James hunched over his knees, resting his chin in his hands. "What are two people to do when they'll never love each other and have to be married for the rest of their lives?"

"I'm sure we'll get along well enough," she said. "I'm quite agreeable. I never make trouble."

"I make more than enough trouble for the both of us, I assure you."

"And it would, after all, improve both our situations to be married. You would restore your reputation. I would have a future."

"A black one."

"A lighter shade of grey than the alternative. Remaining a spinster til the end of my days does not appeal."

"Spending the rest of your days with me can't appeal either. You have no idea what bad company I can be."

"Even bad company is better than being alone. Besides, I suppose we'll have babies. That'll be good company of a kind."

"Babies!? You would— I can't believe you're not horrified by the whole idea."

"I'm not horrified by you," Grace said. "And you are the whole idea."

James dropped his head into his hands and groaned. "I give up," he said. "Let us be married. Let us be married and let love have no part in it."

Grace smiled to herself. He was a vain, selfish, rude young man, and it amused her to have taken him down a peg. Now, she would turn him down and go back to her father, who was a vain, selfish, rude old man, and... Her smile faded.

"There's no reason you should not marry me, is there?" she asked. "No other woman you have given your heart to?"

"Only about a dozen, but it was more of a loan, and I've got it back now."

"No promises you have made someone? No moral obligations?"

"None that would prevent me marrying you."

"I see." Grace shivered, this time not from cold. "Do you mind if we stay out here a little longer? I want to think."

"You were a long time in the garden with James," Mr Follet said later that night as he was locking up after the Redwoods left.

"We had a great deal to talk about," Grace said.

"You have decided then."

"I have." She ignored the frisson of doubt that rose over her; being James's wife could not be worse than being Mr Follet's daughter. "I will marry James Redwood."

The creases below Mr Follet's eyes deepened as he smiled. "I knew you would say yes. You are such a sensible girl that you could hardly do otherwise. It is a very good, practical choice."

"I do not always do as you think, Father."

"You could never surprise me, Grace. I know you far too well. Now take my blessing—" he kissed her cheek "—and go and tell your sisters the good news."

Telling herself that her father did not know her half as well as he thought, Grace went upstairs to the bedroom that Alice and Emma shared. They were both in their nightgowns already, preparing for bed. Emma was helping Alice twist curling papers into her hair. Alice glanced through the mirror at Grace as she entered.

"Grace darling, do give us a smile occasionally. You'll put me in the megrims."

"Nothing could," Grace said. "Now come here. I've something important to tell you both."

"Oh? What is it?" Emma abandoned Alice's hair and settled herself down on her bed. Alice pouted and stayed at the dressing table with the comb and curling papers.

"It is the reason Mr Redwood and his family were invited to dinner tonight." Grace took a shallow breath. "James and I are to be married."

The shocked silence that Grace expected to follow that statement lasted only a moment before Alice broke it with a shriek of laughter. "Goodness, Grace, that is a fine joke!"

"But... Grace doesn't joke," Emma said, confused.

"It is not a joke," Grace said. "I am of an age where I should be married, and Mr Redwood would benefit from a wife. This answers for us both."

Alice hiccuped into silence. Emma stared at Grace.

"No wonder he wanted to know who you were," Emma said. "I am glad it is not me!"

"I suppose that I should wish you happy," Alice said. "But I don't think I will waste my breath. You are sure not to be."

"I have thought it over and decided that I will be very happy in new circumstances."

"Decided! As though that has anything to do with happiness!"

"He is handsome at least," Emma said, scratching a spot on her chin. "But goodness, he is so very rude!"

"And he has a terrible reputation!"

"Neither his manners nor his reputation are worse than most men's," Grace said.

"I heard he was the Duchess of Longford's lover," Alice said.

"That is very unlikely to be at all true."

Alice shrugged. "Nevertheless, he is a terrible flirt. I saw him with Mrs Williams at the assembly ball last Christmas. It was disgraceful, the way they were behaving. Mr Williams was quite purple watching them."

"Mr Williams goes purple bending over to smooth his stockings," Emma pointed out. "And Mr James did not flirt with us tonight."

"Oh, he is one of those men who only goes for married women," Alice said with a toss of head — and a subsequent shriek as several curl papers were lost. "Bother!"

She fell to her hands and knees to retrieve them. Emma leaned forward to speak to Grace in a low whisper.

"Do you think you will really be happy with him? Harriet and Ellen seem happy enough, though Mr Underton is so pompous and Mr Montague so old, but you... well, Mr James is neither pompous nor old but he is very rude. I think he would be upsetting to live with."

Alice had heard the whispers and was listening. "He is only upset because he is to marry Grace," she said. "Quite understandable really."

"Alice," Grace snapped. "You will hold your tongue now."

"I shan't. I must speak." Alice collected the last of her curling papers and tossed them on the dressing table. "I must caution you, for you are about to make a terrible mistake. Mr Redwood is worse than a mere lady-killer." Her eyes sparkled with malicious glee. "You must have heard of what happened to Catherine Balley — everybody has been whispering about it—"

"What happened to Miss Balley was unfortunate," Grace said sharply. "And unless you wish to add to her misfortune, you won't listen to those whispers or repeat them."

"No, listen! Miss Dalton told me that her mother knows Lady Balley and that Lady Balley said that if there ever was a man she could murder it would be that blackguard James Redwood. And what do you think that means? What else could it mean?" The glee in Alice's eyes darkened. "You could never be happy married to such a man."

"James is not such a man," Grace said. "And you will never speak of such gossip again."

It could not be true. Certainly, it could not. James had confessed to having taken lovers, but he had also told her that there were no obligations to prevent him marrying Grace, and an unborn baby was quite definitely an obligation.

An awkward silence fell over the room.

"What about Mr Benson?" Emma said timidly.

"What about him?" Grace said.

"Well. You were so very much in love with him. And he so very much in love with you."

A grain of doubt inside Grace crystallized, but she shook her head. "That was years ago. Mr Benson is of no importance to me now."

Emma screwed up her mouth. "I hope James feels the same way, when he hears of it."

"I don't see why he shouldn't," Alice said. "If James has a dozen Mrs Smiths and Mrs Browns, Grace is entitled to at least one George Benson."

"There is nothing for James to hear of," Grace said. "My conduct has always been impeccable."

"Yes," Alice said with a sigh, "and you never could understand that was the problem!"

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A/N 2021-05-26: Honestly, I'm just gonna say it, Grace has daddy issues. Also, she's not nearly as sensible as everyone thinks.