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“I am glad.”

“Though I believe you danced with almost everyone except me.”

He recognized the invitation in her smile. She was teasing, and doing it well. There was no demand in her voice, only an opening he would once have entered for the pleasure of being welcomed. “I was a neglectful host.”

“A busy one. I might be persuaded to forgive you.”

He knew the answer she invited. He pictured Lydia rising alone in the greenhouse, too proud to trouble Samuel, and hated the speed with which concern arranged itself into an excuse to return.

“Your Grace?”

He returned his attention to Esther. “I beg your pardon.”

“I asked whether you would be in London soon.”

“I have not settled my plans.”

“Perhaps we shall see you there. My mother intends that we make the most of what remains of the Season.”

“I hope you enjoy it.” He heard how flat it sounded.

Esther waited until he had finished, then drew on her remaining glove. Her smile changed, becoming a little less intimate. “Thank you. I intend to.”

He felt the discourtesy at once. Esther had offered him lightness; he had answered as though she were talking about the weather. “Will you be staying with relations?” he asked.

“My aunt.”

He remembered where her aunt lived and asked whether the square was still troubled by building work. Esther answered readily. By the time her parents returned, they were discussing how long the scaffolding had stood outside the neighboring house. He escorted the family to their carriage. Esther thanked him again before stepping inside. She was composed, and he was relieved that he had not turned his inattention into another young woman’s embarrassment.

When the carriage left, he remained on the steps. Once, a smile offered as easily as Esther’s would have invited an equally easy answer from him; he had liked flirtation for the simple pleasure of being good at it. Today he had barely noticed whether she smiled at all. Beyond the side path, the greenhouse door was still open. He could return. Henry might not yet have arrived, and Lydia would require help getting back to the house. Samuel could not be expected to abandon his work whenever she wished to move.

Halfway down the stairs he caught himself inventing reasons to go back, and stopped, disliking how easily they came. He went inside and asked a servant to find Henry. Then he returned to his study. On the desk, the corner of Lydia’s wrapping paper remained beneath a book. He drew it free, brushed away the dried soil, and set it aside for her.

She was leaving tomorrow. The fact had been present all day, disguised by luggage, farewells, and household business. Tomorrow made it blunt. Lydia would return to London, where Harrington could call without crossing Tristan’s drawing room and where friendship would become whatever survived distance. The thought produced no panic, only a persistent dissatisfaction he could no longer attribute to his mother.

A cutting for the journey was courtesy. Remaining beside Lydia until she smiled at him had nothing to do with courtesy; it was pleasure, and he knew it. He took up Collins’s note. This time, when he heard footsteps in the corridor, he did not go to the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Beneath her shawl, Lydia found the botanical book when her maid asked whether the smaller case could be closed. She had packed it by mistake and kept her hand on it long enough for the mistake to become a decision. For a few seconds she pictured the theft becoming correspondence: a note to Ashcombe admitting the book had traveled to London, his reply would follow naturally, their correspondence continuing with new questions arising before the old ones had been answered Tristan had said she might take it to her room after all. And the rest would ensue from a simple mistake. But a borrowed book was not a future. She lifted it out. “That stays here.”

“Shall I give it to Mrs. Bell, my lady?”

“Yes, please.”

The maid took it, and Lydia turned back to the window. Her ankle was still tender. The soft boot she had chosen for the journey fastened more loosely than the other, but she could walk without Henry’s assistance, provided she took care on the stairs. She had already told him so twice. Below, a footman crossed the gravel with her father’s traveling case. Their carriage waited beside the steps, its door open. Four days ago, she had looked out from it and wondered what the duke would be like.

Now she knew how carefully he listened while pretending not to, and how his hand warmed after resting against hers. She knew the sound of his laugh near her ear. The knowledge had not helped. It had made leaving more difficult. At dinner the previous evening, he had asked after her ankle and spoken to Edmund for most of the meal. Afterward, he had remained with the gentlemen. She had gone upstairs without seeing him again.

Friendship ought not to have disappointed her before it had properly begun.

“Your gloves, my lady.”

Lydia accepted them. Her maid had found the pencil which had rolled beneath the table and laid it beside the sketchbook; Lydia slipped it into its case, checked the floor herself, and went to join her family. In the hall the Dowager Duchess was directing a footman who was trying to carry three things at once.

Samuel had sent the cutting in a narrow basket padded with straw, and wisps of it had already escaped across the flagstones. A folded paper accompanied it, with instructions about watering and keeping it out of the strongest sun. Lydia bent to examine the leaves. They had survived their first night away from the greenhouse.

The Dowager Duchess touched her arm. “You must come back when you can walk about more comfortably. You have seen very little of the grounds.”