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“Did Lord Dalmeer speak of me to you just now?”

Nell hesitated before responding. “He did not.”

Miss Orston pressed her lips together, but her eyes twinkled with some strange glint of humor as she took Nell’s hands. “Then, at the risk of being quite forward and unbearably managing, allow me to tell you what he no doubt wished to.”

Nell braced herself.

“He and I have agreed we would not suit.” She smiled as though it was a matter for celebration.

It was quiet but for the hum of music and conversation from the gallery.

“Agreed.” It was the only word Nell could manage to say.

“Agreed.” Miss Orston’s tone was decisive. “I simply thought you should know.” She winked at Nell, then released her hands, and returned through the door.

Nell stood in the quiet corridor, trying to understand. It made her mind spin.

She ran her hands down her skirts and realized she was still holding the paper Lord Dalmeer had given her.

She stared at it, then unfolded its crinkled edges. Her own writing stared back at her.

To be loved without reservation.

A hope.

To remain as I am.

And a prediction.

Her brow knit, for another paper of the same shape sat behind hers—and something else besides.

She moved her hope and prediction, and a masculine script stared back at her as a pressed purple hellebore bloom fell to the floor.

To love you without reservation.

Just as you are.

Twenty-Five

NELL

Lord Dalmeer was not in the Long Gallery.

He was not in the conservatory, nor the Billiard Room, nor the saloon, nor the entry hall.

Breathless, the two papers still in her hand and her skirts held up with the other, Nell made her way to his bedchamber. Her slippers pattered on the marble floor of the first Antique Passage, still decorated with the greenery they had cut the day before Christmas Eve.

It seemed a lifetime ago.

She turned the corner into the second part of the gallery and stopped short.

Lord Dalmeer stared at her, his arm resting on the plinth of a marble bust.

Mercury’s.

They stared at one another as Nell tried to catch her breath.

He remained quiet, his eyes more subdued than usual.