I'd hardly slept at all last night. After Victor had confessed everything to me about his past and then he'd kissed me like that, it had been difficult for me to settle at all, much less sleep. We hadn't been courting for long but, somehow, I already felt closer to him than I'd ever felt to anyone ever before. His confessing to me about his past, about Gwendolyn and his Uncle, had only seemed to strengthen that connection. I could see how he felt about the things he'd done, how he seemed to think it made him somehow unworthy. I wasn't sure that he really comprehended how much that woman had broken him, how much she had stolen away from him. I felt bad for the women who had come after, the the ones he'd used in his quest for revenge, but he was a victim too. We were all hurting from something.

"Thank you for allowing us to stay for a few days," my brother was telling the Duke now, shaking his hand as the footman loaded his and Colin's things into the waiting carriage. "Now that the wedding date has been set so soon-"

"Two weeks," my mother interrupted, reminding the boys of the date. Elijah smiled.

"Yes, two weeks from now," he finished, turning back to Victor. "I imagine we will be imposing upon your hospitality once again in the very near future."

"I meant what I said," Victor told him, jovially and I wondered if I was the only one who had noticed the Duke's remarkably good mood this morning. "You're always welcome."

Elijah smiled and clapped him on the back before mother moved forward to hug him and Colin turned to embrace Emily. I waited until my turn and then leaned forward to hug my brother as well.

"Fix it," I whispered to him while the others were saying goodbye to Colin and no one could overhear. "With whoever you're with. It's rarely worth the argument. Trust me."

I backed away and Elijah cocked his head curiously but smiled and nodded in response. I smiled back and waved with the others as they took their leave, climbing into the carriage after their things and riding away back towards home.

The moment they were gone, my mother announced that the invitations would need to be sent out today since the wedding would be taking place in two weeks and bustled off with Emily and Madison to get to work on just that task. I was certain that I was intended to be in that group, that I would need to help. And I would. But, for a moment at least, I needed a break from the wedding planning. I just needed to get away from everything for a time, just a little time, on my own.

So as Benthem and Victor disappeared down a hall discussing some business or another, I meandered down a different one. I paused at every painting and sculpture, admiring the artwork and guessing at how long it had been in the Winterbournes' ancestral estate all while trying not to think about the fact that I might someday be a Winterbourne, that this all might someday be mine as well.

She wasn't ready to be a Duchess.

He'd been talking about Gwendolyn but had he known that I'd wondered the same of myself?

"Beautiful, isn't it?" someone spoke and I turned to see Lady Winterbourne standing a bit further down the hall, head held high and smiling at me as I admired a late Renaissance painting of Biblical subject matter. "The Adoration of the Trinity."

She was walking toward me now, eyes set on the painting I'd been staring at.

"Painted by Albert Durer in 1511," she told me. "Fetched a heavy price at auction but my husband always was obsessed with the Renaissance period."

"It's incredible," I replied. She turned to me and smiled.

"Are you a fan of art, Miss Harrington?"

"Please, call me Ella. And in truth, I'm not certain. My father isn't much of a collector. I only ever see paintings at the homes of the other nobility in town and those are nothing in comparison to this."

"But you appreciate the beauty," she said. "I can see that just from how you look at it now."

"I try to appreciate beauty in all its forms."

"Ah, yes," she replied with a chuckle. "Your dresses."

My cheeks heated.

"Madame Francis, our dressmaker, she's the only true artist I've ever known. Her medium may be silk and chiffon rather than canvas or marble but, I assure you, her work is as much art as anyone with an easel. I only wish she had a far better model," I smiled to indicate the joke though I was quite serious at the same time.

"Her model is just fine, dear," Lady Winterbourne responded, patting me on the arm as we began walking together down the hall. "I know my son thinks so."

The flush was creeping back up my neck to my cheeks again. I cleared my throat and stared at my shoes as we walked.

"He's very kind," Ella said when she had regained her composure enough to speak again. "My mother and Emily are thrilled to be here."

"And you?"

I hesitated. We weren't supposed to tell her anything. But, somehow, it seemed that she already knew.

"I'm happy as well," I confessed. "Happier than I've ever been before, in truth."

She grinned knowingly at my response.

"When I married Victor's father," she began as we rounded a corner to another hall with even more art than the first, "I was afraid. I was just a girl from a family of modest means two provinces away. I'd never hosted a ball, never managed an estate, never even had a title. It was all new and all utterly terrifying."

I averted my eyes. It was as if she was reading my mind and knew precisely what I was afraid of. Perhaps she really did. I'd never thought about what Lady Winterbourne had come from before marrying the former Duke,

"What makes it easier," she continued, "for both of you, is love."

I stopped walking.

Both of you, she'd said. Not both of us. Both of you.

"You know," I said simply. She just smiled at me.

"Victor's always been a terrible liar," she said and then she turned and walked on down the hallway alone, leaving me behind to ponder what she'd told me.