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She met his eyes. Edmund did not try to improve the answer. After a moment, Lydia nodded. “I would rather know next time.”

“You will.”

She slid one pencil free of the packet. Its point had broken during the journey. Edmund held out his hand. She gave it to him, and he took a small knife from his pocket. For a while, the only sound was the soft scrape of wood. Edmund did not tell her Ashcombe was a fool, or promise that a better man would appear by supper. He simply sharpened the broken pencil until it could be used again. Lydia watched the curl of pale wood fall into his palm and felt the humiliation become ordinary enough to handle.

“The ball is still ahead,” he said. “There will be other men.”

“I know.”

“Men who will be pleased to dance with you.”

“Must we find one immediately?”

“No. You might even enjoy an evening without deciding whom to marry.”

She studied him. “That sounds dangerously like something Henry would say.”

“He is occasionally right. It rarely improves him.”

Lydia smiled despite herself. Edmund finished the pencil and wrapped the shavings in the paper from her packet.

“I can speak to Father if you wish.”

She considered it. There would be lowered voices, an offer to leave, and possibly an apology extracted on her behalf. She would become the reason everyone altered their plans, and the duke would know she had required rescuing from a conversation she had claimed to understand perfectly.

“Not yet. I would like to stay for the ball.”

Edmund nodded. “Then stay. You have as much right to enjoy it as anyone.”

After he left, she carried the pencil to the window. The beeches outside had gone the color of slate, and a rook complained somewhere among them, but there was still enough light to work. She opened the sketchbook to the foxglove and studied the leaf she had meant to correct. The page did not care whom she might marry. At dinner, she would wear the blue gown because she liked it, and because he would see it. Both things could be true.

She set the pencil to the page.

CHAPTER THREE

Tristan left the breakfast room before Lady Lydia arrived. The countess had just mentioned that her daughter would be down shortly. His coffee had cooled, and Collins’s report was waiting upstairs. He used both excuses, though no one had asked him for one. By half past ten he had read the same account of a damaged field gate three times and retained only the shape of Lady Lydia’s mouth when she told him what he did not want.

And you do not. He put the report down. She had said it without anger. Anger he could have dismissed as the price of embarrassment. She had considered him and reached a conclusion. At dinner, she had behaved accordingly. She answered him when courtesy required it, spoke to Henry about a horse belonging to a mutual acquaintance, and asked Mrs. Bell for water for her drawing things. When his mother attempted to involve him in a discussion of the gardens, Lydia turned to the earl before Tristan could reply.

She had relieved him of every obligation he claimed to dislike and he had noticed each absence. Lady Lydia had neither demanded an explanation nor tried to prove him wrong. Instead, she had simply accepted his refusal and removed herself from the equation, leaving him with precisely the solitude he insisted upon. He was beginning to discover it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he had imagined.

A knock interrupted him.

“Come.”

His mother entered carrying a folded list. “The musicians arrive tomorrow afternoon. Lady Pembroke asked about a circulating library, and Lady Lydia would like something on local plants.”

“She will find material of interest in our library.”

He waited for the inevitable suggestion. It did not come.

“I shall tell her she is welcome to look,” his mother said.

“She is welcome to use any of the rooms open to guests.”

“How hospitable.”

“Mama.”