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“The marmalade.” She had meant it to be a correction, but her voice was too quiet.

His gaze moved from the dish to her hand. She turned her palm a little toward him before she had decided whether it was wise. He touched her fingers lightly, leaving her free to withdraw.

His thumb passed over her knuckle. She had missed the warmth of his hand all night. It was worse to discover how quickly she would accept it now, as though neither of them had said anything in the carriage.

“Have you forgotten the second rule?” she asked. She had not taken her hand away.

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

He released her. “I should not have done that.”

An apology was not what she had wanted. She had hoped he might tell her he wanted to be near her, even when nothing required it. But his hand was back beside his cup before she found the words. She pushed the marmalade toward him and took a bite of cold toast.

“Perhaps it would be best if we kept to the list,” Lydia said.

“Perhaps.”

He asked whether her room had been comfortable. She said it had. There was nothing wrong with the room. She ate the rest of her toast while he drank his coffee, each of them taking care not to reach across the table again.

After breakfast Mrs. Bell showed her the stillroom and asked which household matters she wished to take on first. Lydia listened, asked more questions than she answered, and arranged to meet the cook the next morning. She was about to fetch her sketchbook when the housekeeper asked her to wait.

Mrs. Bell brought her a letter from the Dowager Duchess. The dowager hoped they would enjoy a quiet honeymoon, with no callers to disturb them. The rest of the letter concerned the blue drawing room, where the Dowager had arranged for Lydia’s drawing table to be placed. Lydia glanced towards the stairs. Her pencils and the green volume were already beside the east window in her sitting room.

“Her Grace had the blue room made ready before the wedding,” Mrs. Bell said. “Shall I have your things taken down?”

“No, thank you. I prefer them where they are.” Lydia kept the letter in her hand. Tristan had come from the library and was close enough to have heard. She waited for the small correction, the explanation that his mother knew the house better.

“Then they will stay there,” he said. Mrs. Bell curtsied and went to speak to the cook. Tristan glanced at the letter. “My mother should have asked where you preferred to work.”

“She also hopes we are enjoying our time alone.” Lydia folded the sheet. “What shall I tell her?”

“You need not account to her for it.”

“I was not asking for her sake.”

He looked at her then, but a footman crossed the hall with a packet of correspondence, and Tristan turned to take it. He said he would be in the study if she needed anything. Lydia watched him go. He had defended her choice of room without hesitation. She could not understand why spending half an hour there with her seemed so much harder.

Several days passed in much the same fashion, Tristan attentive whenever they were together, yet always finding some reason to leave. Lydia had begun to wonder whether he was avoiding her deliberately. That morning she made her way to the greenhouse. The familiar damp warmth met her at the door. Samuel had cleared a place on the bench where she had drawn the mint, and she set her sketchbook there, relieved to return to something familiar and uncomplicated.

“I brought these in from the bank you described,” Samuel said, indicating two potted specimens. “Kept the roots with them, so we could see what they did. The one on the left opened yesterday.” He set down his pruning knife. “I thought Your Grace would want to look before I put them back.”

“I should like to draw them first, if that would do no harm.”

“Not if we keep them out of the strongest heat.”

It was pleasant, working in the humid heat, with her hands in the dark earth and a gardener who asked nothing of her except her attention. It was an hour before she noticed that a shadow had fallen across the bench. She looked up. Her husband stood in the doorway with his hands behind him and the air of a man who has come upon the greenhouse by pure accident.

“Your Grace,” said Samuel, and became extremely busy with a tray of cuttings at the far end.

“I was passing,” said Tristan.

“Through a greenhouse.”

“I have a letter for Collins. He was to meet Samuel here.”

“He left ten minutes ago.” Lydia wiped her hands. “You could try the stillroom passage. Or the library. We seem to have been visiting the same rooms this morning, yet somehow never quite crossing paths.”