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“I would like to see where it hurts.”

Lydia hesitated, listening to Mrs. Bell speaking to the maid just beyond the open door. “We did agree to be friends,” Lydia said.

“We did.”

“You take a great deal upon yourself for an ordinary friend.”

“I will fetch your mother if you prefer.” He did not move to go.

She drew her skirt clear of the damp cloth. “No. You may look.”

He touched her carefully as she showed him where it hurt. His cuff brushed her stocking. A dry leaf clung to his coat sleeve, left there when he carried her, and the small evidence of contact felt more intimate than it had any right to. His fingers rested against the swelling, warm through the stocking.

“Here?”

She nodded. When he raised his head, she had to stop herself from plucking the leaf from his sleeve. She could have touched his hair without leaning. One lock had fallen toward his brow; she remembered his face near hers during the lesson and wondered, with dismaying clarity, what would happen if she put her hand there now.

Lydia pressed her palm flat to her skirt and left it there. Mrs. Bell returned with another cloth, and Tristan moved his hand away. “I shall tell the countess you are resting here,” the housekeeper said.

“Thank you.”

“And if it does not ease, we shall send for the doctor.”

Tristan stood, placed Lydia’s sketchbook on the desk, and opened the collecting case. The paper around the flower had been crushed along one edge. When Lydia held out her hand, he brought it to her. The flower lay crookedly inside, its stem bent but unbroken, and she smoothed the paper against her lap. “Did it survive?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“The botanical volume is still in the library,” he told Mrs. Bell. “Would you have it brought up?”

When the maid returned with it, he set it within Lydia’s reach. Then he drew up a chair. Lydia kept her finger between the pages, waiting to see whether he meant to open his correspondence. “You need not stay,” she said, wanting him to contradict her.

“I know.”

She opened the volume before her smile could answer for her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tristan sent word to the shooting party that he would not be joining them for the remainder of the day. He told himself the decision was practical. The house was full of departures, Lydia’s ankle was injured, and there were matters a host ought to supervise. None of those explanations required him to remember the weight of her against his chest, or the way she had said please when asking him to put her down before anyone saw. By noon he had discovered that memory needed no encouragement.

The groom accepted the message without surprise. Tristan explained that matters at the house required him, although the man had neither asked nor looked curious. Even his excuses had begun seeking an audience. By the time he returned upstairs, Lady Pembroke had come for her daughter. Mrs. Bell was gathering the basin and cloths. The botanical book remained open on his desk, beside the paper in which Lydia had wrapped her flower. “Lady Lydia has gone to rest, Your Grace.”

“Did she get back to her room comfortably?”

“Her brother helped her.”

“Which brother?”

“The younger.”

He nodded.

Mrs. Bell took the tray and left him, and when the door had closed behind her Tristan remained beside his desk. Ten minutes was all he had meant to spend with Lydia while they waited for her mother. They had compared the specimen with two illustrations and disagreed over which drawing belonged to the description. The crushed lower leaves made certainty impossible. He had watched her delight in the puzzle, struck once again by the ease with which she embraced uncertainty when it belonged to plants.

The accusation that the book was evading the question had made her laugh. The unguarded sound remained clearer than anything on the page. The paper held a little earth along one fold. He moved it away from the correspondence before the soil could stain anything, then sat down. Collins had sent a note. Whitmore had left a list of guests departing before dinner. Both required answers.

He began with Collins.

By the afternoon, the busiest part of the house had shifted toward the front entrance. Luggage came down, carriages were called, and several guests who had announced their intention of leaving remained to take refreshments before the journey. Tristan went from one group to another, accepting thanks and promising to return visits. He saw Esther Fairchild beside her father near the drawing room doors. The Fairchilds had held the neighboring estate since before his father’s time, and there had been a season, years ago, when winning Esther’s smile had been an agreeable game that neither of them had ever mistaken for more.