"Ah-hah!" Triumph glowed in Minnie's eyes. "Sits the wind in that quarter, heh?"
"As you well know," Vane stated, his accents clipped, "the wind's been in that quarter since I first set eyes on your niece."
"Perfectly proper-as it should be. So what's the rub?"
"She won't have me."
Minnie blinked. Her smug expression faded. "Won't have you?"
Total bewilderment rang in her tone; Vane struggled not to gnash his teeth. "Precisely. For some ungodly reason, I'm not suitable."
Minnie said nothing; her expression said it all.
Vane grimaced. "It's not me, specifically, but men, or marriage in general, she's set her mind against." He sent a saber-edged glance Minnie's way. "You know what that means. She's inherited your stubborness with interest."
Minnie sniffed, and set aside her cocoa. "A very clearheaded girl, Patience. But if she harbors reservations about marriage, I would have thought you, of all men, would have been up to the challenge of changing her mind."
"Don't think I haven't tried." Exasperation rang in Vane's words.
"You must have made a muddle of it. When did you offer for her? In the conservatory last night?"
Vane tried not to remember the conservatory last night. Vivid memories had kept him awake until dawn. "I first offered for her-twice-at Bellamy Hall. And I've repeated the offer several times since." He swung on his heel and stalked down the rug. "With increasing persuasiveness."
"Hmm." Minnie frowned. "This sounds serious."
"I think-" Vane halted; hands on hips, he looked up at the ceiling. "No-I know she initially confused me with her father. Expected me to behave as he had." He swung about and stalked back. "She first expected me to have no interest in marriage, and when I proved to think otherwise, she assumed I had no real interest in family. She thought I was offering for purely superficial reasons-because she might suit, in effect."
"A Cynster not caring about family!" Minnie humphed. "Now she's met so many of you, she can't still be blind."
"No, she can't. Which is precisely my point." Vane stopped beside the bed. "Even after the family's attitudes were paraded before her, she still wouldn't change her mind. Which means there's something more-something deeper. I felt there was from the first. Some fundamental reason she'd set her mind against marriage." He met Minnie's eyes. "And I think it derives from her parents' marriage, which is why I'm here, asking you."
Minnie held his gaze, then her expression grew distant. Slowly, she nodded. "You could be right." She refocused on Vane. "You want to know about Constance and Reggie?"
Vane nodded. Minnie sighed. "It was not a happy story."
"Meaning?"
"Constance loved Reggie. By that, I do not mean the usual affection found in many marriages, nor yet some warmer degree of affection. I mean love-selfless, complete and unswerving. For Constance, the world revolved about Reggie. Oh, she loved her children, but they were Reggie's and so within her purlieu. To give Reggie his due, he tried to cope, but, of course, from his point of view, the discovery that his wife loved him to distraction was more an embarrassment than a joy." Minnie snorted. "He was a true gentleman of his time. He hadn't married for any notion as outrageous as love. It was considered a good match on all sides-not his fault, really, that matters developed in such an unlooked-for direction."
Minnie shook her head. "He tried to let Constance down lightly, but her feelings were cast in stone, never to be rewritten. In the end, Reggie did the gentlemanly thing and kept away. He lost all touch with his children. He couldn't visit them without seeing Constance, which led to situations he couldn't countenance."
His frown deepening, Vane resumed his pacing. "What, for want of a better word, lesson, would Patience have drawn from that?"
Minnie watched him pace, then her gaze sharpened.
"You say it's this deep reason that's keeping her from accepting your offer-I presume you're therefore certain she would otherwise agree to your suit?"
Vane shot her a glance. "Perfectly certain."
"Humph!" Minnie narrowed her eyes at his back. "If that's the case," she declared, her tone tending censorious, "then, as far as I can see, the matter's perfectly obvious."
"Obvious?" Vane bit the word off as he rounded on the bed. "Would you care to share your insight with me?"
"Well"-Minnie gestured-"it stands to reason. If Patience is willing to accept you at that level, then the odds are that she's in love with you."
Vane didn't blink. "So?"
"So she watched her mother endure a life of misery through marrying a man she loved but who didn't love her, a man who cared nothing for her love."