It was a strange feeling – she was entering Albrook Hall as her own mistress at last. No matter how many years had passed, she had never quite overcome the feeling that, at Albrook, she was merely the crippled little girl whom everyone viewed with pity. Now, on Captain Avebury’s – Jocelyn’s – arm, she was finally her own person. How cruel, the lot of a female: passed along from one man to the next. To think that her only hope of independence was to find a man who would marry her.
She wondered what Jocelyn was thinking now, whether he was regretting his impetuous acceptance of her offer. She wondered what had finally pushed him over the edge, what part of her attempts to persuade him to marry her had made a difference.
She dismissed the butler, saying that she would announce herself to Be
