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Preston looked down into his cup. “This is supposed to help, but I can’t force a sip.”

“I warned you blue ruin kills.”

“Yes, well, I won’t be having any more. At least not from The Plow.”

“What happened?”

A dark look flitted over Preston’s face. “You also warned me to stay away from Willard. For a while, I heeded your advice. Until last night. After you ordered me about like a lackey.”

Asquith lifted his eyebrows. “That wasn’t my intention. I was concerned for my mother and Miss Lenora.”

“I can see that now, although I didn’t notice at the time. A lack of pleasantries is understandable. Your mother was leaning on you, and she’s not exactly featherlight.”

Asquith half-smiled.

Preston glanced back out the window, lips tight with self-recrimination. A perceived insult on Asquith’s part was not enough to upset him this much.

“Am I the reason you’re angry now?” he asked.

“No. Willard. He is...” He shrugged. “He was never a true friend. I knew that. I listened to you. I really did. I hadn’t been to The Plow since...” Preston squinted. “Since before I met Miss Lenora.”

Ah. “And yet, because you were angry with me, you turned to him?”

Preston bubbled his lips and nodded. “Watching Lenora moon over you was too much.” He set down his cup. Then he turned. “How could you hurt Lenora the way you did last night?”

Asquith didn’t take offense. He understood Preston's effort to redirect his own distress. “I intend to make amends. Did she tell you what was on her mind?”

“She said nothing,” Preston continued, “but she didn’t have to. She was acting far too much like Amelia and not at all like herself.”

Asquith absorbed that blow.

Ironic that Preston could see the real Lenora when he, who had known her most of her life, had needed to piece together an accurate picture.

Then again, Lenora did not love Preston, so he did not make her equally nervous. With Preston her “armor” was unnecessary.

“You know,” Preston said, “Amelia suggested Lenora use me to provoke your jealousy, but Lenora refused.”

Asquith frowned. “When was this?”

“The day we met.”

Ah, Lenora. And yet, on that same day, Asquith had accused her of betrayal. He closed his heavy eyes.

When he’d seen Lenora and Amelia in deep discussion, they had been discussing him, but not in the way he’d feared. Amelia had asked her to make him jealous, and Lenora had refused.

He’d gotten jealous, anyway. And taken it out on Lenora. All because he had not been able to admit how she made him feel.

Preston sank down into a chair. He put his head in his hands. “She loves you.”

Asquith hoped she did. That hope sustained him. “Did she tell you as much?”

“No, stupid. But anyone with eyes can see.”

Stupid Simon. The echo merely brought a regretful, rueful expression to his face. This time, he quite deserved the moniker.

He would make everything up to Lenora. But first, he must remove Willard as a threat.

“Preston, why are you ‘rusticating’?”