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to end it.
    “You may have doubted, but I didn’t,” her mother said, tossing a card to the table. She, Lady Harcastle, and Lady Carnach were playing whist, with a dummy hand to make up for the lack of a fourth player, and the ratafia flowed freely now that the men would not be joining them. Prudence and Amelia sat nearer to the fire, which made Amelia feel somewhat overwarm even though the extra light was welcome.
    She forced herself to believe that the flush on her face was caused by the fire. It couldn’t be related to the strange fluttering she’d felt since dinner, when she looked up occasionally and caught Lord Carnach watching her over his wineglass. It was travel fatigue, or indigestion, or perhaps typhus.
    Yes, typhus. Better to believe she was dying than that she’d inadvertently solicited the interest of the man her friend needed to marry.
    Lady Harcastle frowned at her hand. “Just because you made a love match doesn’t mean you can still lord it over us, Augusta. And with an earl to boot — how unfair.”
    Her usual venom seeped into her voice. There had been a time, years earlier, when Lady Harcastle was quite charming. But she’d grown more difficult in recent years, and Amelia didn’t understand why her mother still tolerated the connection.
    Augusta took a long draught of ratafia, then sighed. “The fun of lording it over you was lost when Edward died.”
    Amelia’s father had been dead a decade, but her mother’s voice was still pained. Amelia looked down at her stitches. They were uneven, but she couldn’t pick them out again; the linen was more hole than cloth. She stabbed at the fabric and wished she could steal some ratafia without her mother noticing. Really, it was no wonder Prudence wanted to escape Lady Harcastle — the woman was the worst.
    “I am sorry, dear,” Lady Harcastle said. Guilt replaced the venom, as though she had been sleepwalking through their earlier conversation and had just awoken to the reality of what she’d said.
    Amelia’s mother waved her glass. “It’s been years. And for all that I loved him, I would rather have lost him than my sons. I don’t know how you’ve survived it, Mary.”
    The silence grew, became absolute. Amelia looked up and saw her mother flush. Augusta was often blunt, but perhaps it was the ratafia that had added an edge to her voice. Augusta reached out a hand toward Lady Harcastle, but the other woman evaded her touch.
    “I haven’t survived,” Lady Harcastle said, in a voice turned raspy with buried emotion. “If only Prudence...”
    She broke off, looking over at her daughter. Prudence stood abruptly and thrust her embroidery into her workbag with all the fire she hadn’t displayed for Carnach at dinner. “If you will excuse me, Mother, I have the headache.”
    Lady Harcastle nodded, covering her eyes with her cards. Amelia followed her friend from the drawing room, not waiting for permission. Amelia was only a few steps behind, but by the time she touched Prudence’s shoulder, she knew the woman was already in tears.
    She didn’t say anything, just pulled out her handkerchief and wrapped her arms around Prudence. She was half a head taller, and she felt Prudence’s tears on her shoulder as she glanced down the hall. There was no one about to find them, although she suspected the mothers would hear Prudence if she became much louder.
    She patted Prudence on the back, waiting for her to calm down. When her sobs subsided into sniffles, Amelia squeezed her gently. “Is this about your brothers, or something else?”
    Prudence stepped back, wiping her cheeks with Amelia’s handkerchief. “Both — or neither. I don’t know, Mellie. It’s been almost three years since they all...”
    She still couldn’t say the words. Prudence’s father never should have let both sons buy commissions, not when the estate was entailed, but he wasn’t stern enough to turn them down. When they died together, fighting under Wellington at