"You must forgive my brother," Lady Rosanne said, her tone a mixture of exasperation and apology. "He is not always so... so..."
"Direct?"
"I was going to sayrude, but direct is kinder." Rosanne sighed, watching her brother's retreating form with the weary affection of someone who had spent a lifetime making excuses for him. "He does not mean to be. He simply... He is not comfortable with people."
"Most people are not comfortable with people," Lillian said. "They merely hide it better."
Rosanne laughed, but there was a note of surprise in it, as though the observation had caught her off guard. "I suppose that is true. I am certainly not comfortable with people. Not in London, anyway. Everyone is alwayswatching, andjudging, and waiting for you to make a mistake so they can talk about it behind their fans."
"That sounds exhausting."
"Itis." Rosanne's shoulders relaxed slightly, as though she had been holding them tense without realizing it. "That is why I prefer the country. Here, no one cares if I say the wrong thing or wear the wrong dress or forget which fork to use for the fish course."
"Is there a specific fork for the fish course?"
"Apparently. Though I confess I have never understood why fish require their own utensil. Fish are notthatspecial."
Lillian found herself warming to Lady Rosanne Wynthorpe. She had met the girl once before, briefly, at a card gathering hosted by the Vicar's wife, and had thought her shy and rather nervous, with the hunted look of someone who expected criticism at every turn. But here, away from the social obligations that seemed to cause her such distress, she was quite charming.
"I agree entirely," Lillian said. "Fish are perfectly capable of being eaten with ordinary implements. I have done so, many times."
"Have you?" Rosanne's eyes widened. "What was it like? Did anyone faint?"
"No one fainted. The fish did not appear to notice the insult."
Rosanne laughed again, a real laugh this time, bright and unguarded, and Lillian felt something settle pleasantly in her chest. She liked this girl. She liked her nervousness and her earnestness and the way she laughed as though she had just been given permission to do so.
"I am sorry we have not had more opportunity to speak," Rosanne said. "After Mrs. Harrison's card gathering, I mean. I wanted to call on you, but Daniel said..." She stopped, color rising in her cheeks. "That is...I was not sure if..."
"I would be delighted if you called," Lillian said, rescuing her from whatever tangle of social anxiety she had gotten herself into. "Hartfield is not a big house, but we have adequate tea and a very comfortable settee."
"Truly?" Rosanne's face lit up. "You would not mind?"
"I would not mind in the least."
"Oh, that would be..." Rosanne caught herself, visibly tamping down her enthusiasm into something more appropriate to her station. "That is to say, I would enjoy that very much. If it is convenient."
"It is nearly always convenient. My schedule is not particularly demanding."
This was a diplomatic way of saying that Lillian's schedule consisted primarily of household management, occasional visits to neighbors, and long walks through the countryside during which she thought about very little in particular. It was a quiet life, perhaps too quiet, for a woman of three-and-twenty who had once harbored rather more ambitious dreams, but it washers, and she had made her peace with it.
Mostly.
"Then I shall call," Rosanne said, with a decisive nod that suggested she was committing the plan to memory before her courage could fail. "Tomorrow, perhaps? Or is that too soon? I do not wish to impose."
"Tomorrow would be lovely."
Rosanne beamed, and Lillian smiled back, and for a moment they simply stood there, two young women on a village green, united by mutual awkwardness and a shared indifference to fish forks.
Then Rosanne's gaze drifted over Lillian's shoulder, toward the spot where her brother had disappeared, and her expression shifted into something more complicated.
"He is not as cold as he seems," she said quietly. "Daniel, I mean. I know he appears... Forbidding. But underneath all that, he is..." She paused, searching for words. "He iskind. In his way. He just does not know how to show it."
Lillian thought of the duke's stiff bow, his clipped sentences, the way he had looked at her as though she were a puzzle he had not asked to solve.
"I am sure he is," she said, because it seemed the thing to say.
But privately, she was not sure at all.
