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“Jasper,” his lordship cried, “with me.” Without another word, he turned to mount his curricle.

Jasper let out a loud whoop and tossed his hat in the air, which brought a severe maternal frown. The boy recovered his hat and stood before his mother, who straightened his collar. Under her gaze he promised, “I’ll obey Papa to the letter.”

A moment longer that gaze held him before his mother nodded her dismissal, and the boy scrambled up beside his father. Luxborough set his horses in motion.

Ned turned to his mother with a laugh. “See you in Reading, mother,” he said.

“Are you off, then?” she asked her oldest child.

“You’d best be off, too,” he said as a second groom brought his horse forward. “You want to be ahead of the snow.” He kissed her cheek, nodded to Charles, and mounted his horse.

Laughing, Lady Luxborough pressed a list of instructions in Harriet’s hands, gave those hands a quick squeeze, and summoned her daughters. Pris came at once; Anne and Camille gave Octavia parting embraces and followed along.

Lady Luxborough called to Octavia, “Do enjoy your ball, Miss Davenham. The girls will want to hear your account of it when they return, and do not forget that we give a Twelfth Night party, to which you and your brother are invited.”

At the carriage door, she turned to Charles. “Wynford, can you assist us?”

He stepped forward to hand the ladies into the coach. As she entered, Lady Luxborough said for his ears alone, “If you do not dance with that stubborn girl at Lady Hardwicke’s ball, Wynford, I shall wash my hands of you.”

“I intend to, ma’am,” he said. A footman stepped forward to fold up the steps and close the door.

As the first coach pulled away, two maids and his lordship’s valet climbed into the second coach and a footman sprang up on the box beside the coachman, and it too rattled off, leaving Octavia, Charles, and Harriet standing on the paving stones looking after them. The shift from the noise and animation of the family group to the silence of the empty street was pronounced. He remembered Harriet Swanley saying that for her Christmas was a scene in a lighted window observed from the street. He thought he understood.

Miss Swanley’s questioning gaze met his over Octavia’s head. Something in her eyes lifted his spirits. She was not indifferent. He mouthed the words “not speaking to me.”

Miss Swanley turned to Octavia. “Octavia, will you join me for some chocolate this morning? Your brother can collect you later if you like.”

“Thank you, Miss Swanley.” Octavia turned away with stiff dignity and without a backward glance.

Charles bowed and took his leave. Octavia was safe for the moment, and he had hours of work to do. Later, after he had sifted through pages of intelligence reports for clues to the marchioness’s true identity, he would seek Miss Swanley and confess the way he had mishandled the conversation with his sister. If he had briefly had the upper hand in this game they played, he had somehow lost the advantage. He meant to regain it before the Hardwicke ball.

Neither marriage nor happiness is reserved solely to persons of a high degree of rank in society. The husband hunter whose rank has destined her for certain employments in society may as confidently seek a husband worthy of her goodness and wit as any duchess.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 16

Over thick, dark chocolate, Harriet sought to discover what had happened between brother and sister. She had done her best to avoid looking at Wynford, but in the midst of the Luxboroughs’ family cheer, she could not miss the rift between the siblings and hoped she was not to blame for encouraging Wynford to speak to Octavia.

They retreated to the second-best drawing room. Some brightness had left the room from the night before when everyone had been in high spirits, but Harriet pushed the drapery aside to let in as much light as the overcast day permitted and set the chocolate and ginger cakes near the fire, which burned brightly. Jasper’s mistletoe still hung from the chandelier, but she tried not to think about that.

Octavia wandered about the room, picking up a book from a side table, moving a vase. “You know,” she said at last, sitting down opposite Harriet on one of the sofas. “I think that Charles should redo his house. His morning room is painted such a dismal, gloomy blue color, not like these cheery walls at all.”

“This room always cheers me,” Harriet said. “And chocolate. Will you have some?”

Octavia nodded. Harriet poured, waiting, letting the girl pick her moment.

“I suppose you have been with the Luxboroughs a long time,” Octavia said.

“Ten years.”

“Since Charles came into his title.” Octavia stared at her chocolate without sipping.

Harriet waited for any further revelation. It was an interesting way to measure time, not in terms of her own life, but in terms of her brother’s. “Did he leave you behind then?”

Octavia’s head came up. She nodded and at last tasted her chocolate. “Oh, this is so good.”

“And now?” Harriet asked. “I thought him very attentive.”