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Sutton looked into his wife's eyes, and understanding dawned on him. She had sat in her newly renovated drawing room and watched two people laugh with their fingers laced like newlyweds, and take real interest in their son.

Granted, their open affection was new to him as well. But even during his childhood, his father, though cold and distant, had always worried, in his own stiff, silent way, for his children. His mother had been warmth itself. Whatever else he might say of his parents, they had never made him doubt that he was cared for.

Temperance, who had never had such an experience with her parents, no doubt wanted, for an instant, to be let in, to become a part of this caring family.

And then he had to bring up Marie's name.

And no matter how mistaken Temperance was about Marie, she was entitled to her hurt. In her eyes, another woman had been given a place in his family that a wife ought to occupy. And in a way, perhaps Marie had.

"They love me," he said. "They love my sister more, but they do love me. And they know that you hurt me. They do not know what transpired, but they know enough to be cautious. But I don't think it is unsalvageable."

"I doubt it," she murmured.

"Nothing is unsalvageable," he said firmly, and offered her his elbow.

She looked at it for a long moment, then slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. "Oh, I did not mean that," she said. "I doubt they love your sister more."

"They do." He let out a short laugh. "I take no offense. I love her more, too."

She laughed, a soft, surprised sound, and some small tight thing in his chest came undone.

They left her bedchamber and were halfway down the corridor before she spoke again.

"You are starting to sound like her."

He glanced at her. "Pardon me?"

"Your mother." She smiled up at him. "Do you notice? When you're in her company, you begin to sound like her. The brogue and all."

He let out a bark of laughter. "I do not."

"You do, rather."

He hadn't noticed himself slip back into his childhood accent.

It had been much stronger as a boy. It had thinned during his years at Eton, and thinned further in London, where a lad with a Scottish lilt was an easy target for ridicule.

"Aye, well," he said, deliberately and absurdly broad, and she burst out laughing. "Doon we go, my bonnie lass, afore my mither sends oot a search party."

The laughter overtook her so hard they had to pause on the stairwell. She clutched his sleeve with one hand and pressed the other to her ribs, her shoulders shaking.

Sutton waited until she had caught her breath. Then he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in mock offense. "Och, are ye makin' sport o' my fine Scots tongue, ye wee besom?"

She wiped at the corner of her eye with a knuckle, still chuckling. Then she bit her lip and patted his shoulder. "Maybe a little. But only because I quite like it."

Warmth bloomed in the middle of his chest and spread to his fingertips.

He had spent half his life sanding down his accent for the comfort of other people. No one had ever told him they liked it.

"Well," he said, and cleared his throat. "I'm... glad ye think so."

Her smile deepened. She squeezed his arm and drew herself up with enormous dignity.

"Now come along, my bonnie lass," she said, in the worst brogue ever to defile a staircase.

Sutton coughed a laugh. "Lass is for ladies."

"Apologies, and I did know that." Her cheeks turned crimson. "I meant, my bonnie laddie."