must be meant by an English rose—ivory skin, rose-pink cheeks and huge blue eyes. A graceful, demure beauty. Julia had the sort of haunting gorgeousness that was made for austere, lovely Brideswell and the incessant rain, the ordered gardens, the rich green lawns. Sebastian’s sister had been welcoming—the only one in the house who had—but in unguarded moments she looked sad.
Zoe knew all about being sad. She beamed a bright smile at Julia. She ignored the sharp glance from the dowager, who had the air of the Olympic bearing down on a harbor, if that liner had been dressed in throat-high purple silk with an anchor of amethysts around the neck.
“Lady Julia, I would like very much to go riding,” Zoe said. “Would you be interested in a morning ride? If the weather lets us. I’m beginning to fear England is located beneath a permanent rain cloud.”
Julia looked startled. “Oh—oh, I should love to.”
“I am afraid that will be impossible,” declared the dowager. “You have a meeting with the Women’s Institute.”
Zoe had known loneliness in New York society and in Julia’s slightly hesitant, then ebullient tone, she sensed a girl happy with the idea of making a new friend.
She wanted a friendship with Julia. It probably wouldn’t survive the divorce. But she wanted to try, and no ocean liner of a British matriarch was going to stop her.
“I should be happy to go with you to the Women’s Institute meeting,” Zoe said to Julia. “And see how these things are done.”
She felt Langford’s glare, but ignored it.
The dowager harrumphed. “Sebastian told us some nonsense that you plan to be married in America.”
“That is correct. In New York.”
She pursed her lined lips. “You should be married here, in England. Sebastian, why did you not insist?”
Sebastian did not answer. He finished his champagne and touched his glass. At once, the young footman refilled it to the brim.
“I think it’s perfect that my darling will marry where she’s grown up,” Mother gushed, “where all her friends can be witness to the happy event. We’ll have a huge reception and the wedding will be at—”
Thump. Even at the table, the dowager slammed her cane on the floor. “Mrs. Gifford—”
“Every June bride hopes for sunshine,” Zoe broke in cheekily. “I don’t think I could guarantee that here.”
The two footmen hurried in with another set of silver trays bearing two fish dishes. Their presence did not even slow the dowager as she snapped, “Marrying Sebastian will make you British, Miss Gifford. This will now be your home. It is preposterous to think of holding your wedding elsewhere.”
“Then I shall embrace being preposterous.”
“No granddaughter-in-law of mine shall be so poorly behaved. You will listen to me.”
“I will do as I wish.”
The dowager’s cane clattered to the floor. Utter quiet fell. Even the servants ceased to move, though the dowager needed her cane back. For a crazy moment, Zoe thought the bubbly pouring into Mother’s glass had stopped in midstream.
The youngest girl, Isobel, stared in openmouthed shock at Zoe. Mother was apparently attempting to keep pace with Sebastian’s champagne consumption. Sebastian’s mother, Maria, the duchess, was putting all her attention on her dinner and did not even look up. The duchess looked exactly like him, slender, exquisitely beautiful, with golden hair. She was frail and pale, and had said nothing more to Zoe than a stuttered greeting in the drawing room, where they’d had cocktails before Sebastian’s unexpected and dramatic proposal.
The dowager’s lips moved, but no sound came out, as if she had been robbed of her voice.
“That is a careless and selfish attitude to take, Miss Gifford.” The slow, deep drawl was the Duke of Langford. “If soldiers had taken such an attitude, our respective countries would be in smoldering ruins.”
“We are speaking of my wedding,” Zoe said brightly. “Not of war.”
He stared at her with open dislike, and the dowager said sharply, as a footman jerked into motion and retrieved her cane, “You seem determined to launch a war, yet I thought Americans liked to keep out of skirmishes until all the dangerous work was done.”
Zoe’s chin went up. “If you are speaking of the War, we arrived just in time to help win it.” She thought of her brother, Billy, and a cold anger settled around her heart. She knew about pain, loss and sacrifice, but it was as if the British thought they were the only ones who had experienced suffering, and everyone else should be condemned for having it easy.
She was not a criminal here. She had promised Sebastian a substantial amount of money as a settlement, and his family could use it. Brideswell obviously needed repair—and electricity, not to mention indoor plumbing.
As for scandal—really, divorce was not so horrifying anymore.
But the duke had pegged her as a scarlet woman, the dowager was determined to find fault with her, and Sebastian’s mother appeared to want to ignore her.
Defiantly, she went on, “The War was in the last decade. Time has marched on. You should install electric lights, Your Grace. Perhaps, twenty-two years in, it is time to embrace the twentieth century.”
The dowager sniffed. “The rooms are best suited to display by candlelight.”
“The rooms are best suited to being gloomy?” Zoe asked. Langford glared at her with brooding intensity, so she sweetly asked, “What about plumbing or central heating, Your Grace? Surely you would wish some modern convenience.”
Sebastian laughed. “Langford has no desire to be modern, my dear.”
“Then I will make him more comfortable and speak of the past.” She resented him calling her selfish. She was not doing this for herself, but for her mother. And the duke was going to benefit a great deal. “In what regiment did you serve in the War, Your Grace?”
Lady Julia’s fork clattered to the table. The dowager gasped and pursed her lips, looking distinctly like a fish. Isobel stared at her brother, a bite of food balanced on her lip.
Everyone stared at the duke, waiting for something to happen.
“We don’t— We can’t—” Lady Julia began, but she stopped abruptly. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.
The duke cleared his throat. Cold anger radiated from his gaze. “We will not discuss war at my dining table. It is not done. My family have all suffered a great deal because of the War.”
“It’s something we all have in common, isn’t it?” she argued. “I’m quite happy to field all the awkward questions you can throw at me. I’m not marrying Sebastian for his title, and I don’t give a fig for social strictures. We’ve all suffered loss, life is short and I’m in it for the fun and the happiness now. I don’t see there’s any sense at all in pretending there’s no world beyond those rain-streaked windows of yours. You cannot pretend the world is not changing around you. My goodness, even Britain now has the
