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Clive shook his head. “I hope you still want to attend the Langford ball?”

“Oh yes. I must. It’s the first real ball of the year.”

“Then we must see that you recover.” Clive glanced at Jane. “Jane, you’ll stay with us until the ball?”

“Of course.”

One of the more serious errors of perception the Husband Hunter must avoid is the failure to distinguish between the general and the particular in the attentions of a gentleman. A young woman may be drawn to a man who shows kindness to her. She is grateful for his attention when seeing her overlooked, he draws her into a conversation, or seeing her fatigued, he procures her a chair or a place in a carriage, or seeing her slighted by other partners, he restores her to dignity by soliciting her hand for a set. Such a man deserves the Husband Hunter’s careful attention. She will want to note whether he is as kind in general and thoughtful of other ladies, no matter their age or condition in life, as he has been to her. If he is, if she discovers that his disposition is to be kind to all women, she will then have to exercise the most dispassionate judgment to determine whether there is in his kindness to her any element of particular interest. And here, the Husband Hunter may err from wanting it to be so.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter Twenty

On the third day after the accident, when Dr. Lions declared Allegra recovered enough to join the family for a meal, and when the stream of messages and floral tributes had dwindled to a trickle, Jane helped Allegra descend the two flights of stairs from her bedroom to the breakfast room. It still troubled Allegra to look down, and her peach silk wrapper trailing long pale green ribbons brushed the floor, so she clung to Jane’s arm and the banister.

In the breakfast room, the family sat around the table with the exception of Clive. Four golden heads lifted and turned to Allegra and Jane when they entered. Phoebe at the foot of the table cast a critical eye over Allegra, and raised a brow indicating that Annabel should move her seat.

“Papa, do I have to give up my seat for her if she’s better?” Annabel demanded. Teddy winked at her over the top of his newspaper, but nodded his head toward the lower seat.

“Does your head still hurt?” Philip demanded at a headache-inducing volume.

Allegra winced, but took Annabel’s seat, arranging her silk and lace and accepting a shawl from Jane. Jane offered to fill a plate for her from the sideboard.

“Just toast and jam, please, Jane.”

Annabel and Philip questioned Allegra as Jane stood at the sideboard, sensing something different and wondering what it was. The same platters of eggs, bacon, toast, and ham lined the sideboard. She handed Allegra the plate of toast and jam, and turned back, reaching to pour herself some coffee when she realized that the coffee had changed. The smell was rich and earthy with a lingering hint of caramel, brought out from the roasting. Even in the large English cup, even without the distinctive crema of coffee in Halab, the taste was unmistakable.

Hazelwood. The association was instant. Briefly she imagined him on the other side of the breakfast room door, holding his flannel-wrapped flask.

“Jane,” Allegra said, “are you going to eat?”

All the golden heads were turned her way, reminding her of not being one of them. “Of course, I was just enjoying the coffee.”

“Oh,” said Phoebe, “The coffee is different? Allegra, dear, don’t slump. Hold your head up.”

Annabel spoke up from her seat next to Jane. “It’s the new footman. He’s Nick or Nate or something. He’s taught cook his way.”

Phoebe cast her youngest daughter a sharp glance of disapproval for consorting with the servants.

Jane dropped her gaze to her cup. Whoever the new footman was, there could only be one explanation for his being there. Hazelwood had sent him. In the three days she’d spent with Allegra since the accident, there had been no further attempt to harm her cousins or herself, but that did not mean that the danger had ended. And Hazelwood apparently didn’t think so either. He’d managed to place someone he trusted in the household. The coffee was a message. The trick would be for Jane to find this new footman and speak to him privately.

She looked up from her coffee to find Phoebe studying Allegra. “I don’t like your color, dear. We have to restore some bloom to your cheeks.”

Philip glanced up from his eggs. “You look like a trout belly, Al,” he told her.

Allegra stopped tearing her toast apart and glared at him.

Bolton, the butler, who had been looking on, went to answer a knock at the breakfast room door.

In the opening stood a footman, who announced that a gift had arrived for Miss Walhouse. Annabel leaned toward Jane and whispered, “That’s him. That’s the new footman.” Jane caught just a glimpse, enough to know the young man had prominent ears and white, white teeth. She would have to think of some way to excuse herself from the group to speak with him.

Allegra lifted her head at the promise of a gift. “May I see, Papa?” she asked.

“Just the thing to put color in your cheeks, girl,” said Teddy from behind his newspaper. He nodded to Bolton.

“What can it be?” Allegra wondered.

“Who is it from? Do we know, Bolton?” asked Phoebe.