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“Yes, yes. Something about my breakfast did not agree with me, but I am fine.”

He took a brisk inhalation. Here he had thought the second part of their trip, the earls-plus-girls week, would feature him as the odd man out. He’d expected the other two gents to be swanning off with their respective brides, but if they were, he hadn’t been around to notice.

“What if the three of us gents set off on an adventure?” he suggested, for he needed to break free, to be away from this place for a while.

Archie agreed.

“You rouse Effie,” Simon said, “and I shall appeal to Cook for a basket of victuals, and we can ride off and see where the winds take us.”

The winds took them to a pub two towns over.

“Just ale, I should think,” Archie said when they sat at a rickety oak table. “I must’ve eaten two dozen of those biscuits you procured, Simon.”

“The cook here is very good, Archie,” Effie said.

“Indeed, and her talents extend to the vegetable dishes Clementine favors.”

“Perhaps you ought to lure her back to Mollybrook with you,” Effie said.

“She won’t go,” Simon said. “She has a grandniece here she is raising.”

“Well, the grandniece can come, too, can she not?” Effie asked.

“The grandniece is thriving after a difficult few years with unreliable parents—the cook’s nephew being her father. Would you really uproot a child in such circumstances for your own convenience, Archie?”

“I would not,” Archie said, regarding Simon quizzically, “now that I know the backstory. Anyway, the cook has had a terrible time distinguishing between the two Lady Harcourts. It has made for some amusing mishaps.”

Amusing mishaps? Simon had no knowledge of amusing mishaps. How had he missed them?

Well, he knew how. And wasn’t that what Archie had meant this morning when he’d said he hadn’t seen much of Simon?

“Can it be any more confusing than my situation?” Simon asked. “If I were to marry, there would be three Countesses of Marsden.”

Effie laughed. “Yes, Simon is rather more awash in dowagers actual and potential than you are, Archie.”

“But only if he were to marry,” Archie said.

“That’s why I said ‘potential,’” Effie said.

“But is he ever going to marry?” Archie asked.

“I don’t know, is he?” Effie countered.

“I’m right here, you know,” Simon said. “I can hear you.”

They all laughed, but Archie sobered and said, “But what is the answer? Is Simon ever going to marry and add another Countess of Marsden to his collection?”

Simon said, “Not anytime soon, no. Or so I always thought.”

“But now you think yes?” Archie asked.

“Or perhaps merely not no?” Effie suggested, and when Archie shot him a bewildered look, he shrugged and said, “Baby steps?”

Simon said, “My resolve was never not to marry, it was not to marry while Mother was alive.”

“But now?” Effie prompted.

“If anything, my visit to Frances should have confirmed the wisdom of that stance. But now Mother herself is suddenly making noises about my marrying. What am I to do? Let her choose a bride for me whom she will proceed to terrorize?”