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“I was enjoying this one.”

“So was I.” He sounded troubled by it. She waited for him to change his mind, then wished shehadn’t. . They turned back together.

She had asked for room to work, not for every pleasant moment between them to end with his departure. By the time she reached the house, she was tired of wondering what she might safely ask of her own husband.

The evening post brought a note for Tristan from Lady Fairchild and one for Lydia from Miss Harrington. Lydia read hers in the hall. Her new friend described a quarrel with her brother over the correct place for the botanical books and added that the shelf had at last been arranged. She hoped the mint had survived its second journey. There was no inquiry about the wedding, and Lydia was grateful for it.

She folded the note and slipped it into her pocket. Tristan waited at the foot of the stairs, turning his own letter over. For a moment she wondered if he recognized Miss Harrington’s handwriting and would ask about it. He did not.

“Lady Ellsworth is giving a ball at Wexcombe Park tomorrow evening,” he said. “Lady Fairchild has written to remind us of the invitation.” He turned the letter over. “I shall send our regrets. We are supposed to be on our honeymoon.”

“I would like to go,” said Lydia.

“You would?”

“Yes. You have been very busy the past few days and I would like an evening in company.” She held out her hand for the note.

“We walked this afternoon.”

“Until I asked you to sit with me.”

He looked down at the invitation. She had not meant to quarrel, but there was relief in having said it plainly.

“We are meant to be alone together,” he said. “People will wonder why we have come.”

“I know what they will wonder.” She lowered her hand. “I agreed that we should not share a bed yet. I did not agree to spend my honeymoon chasing after you.”

He gave her the letter. “You should not have to.” He did not try to explain further, and she was grateful for that much. She had heard enough about his papers.

“I shall write to Lady Fairchild,” he said. “We will go together.”

Lydia folded the invitation. She had wanted him to choose her company without being asked. For tomorrow evening, at least, she would not have to go looking for him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Wexcombe Park blazed from every window. Carriages stood three deep along the drive, their lamps a long, wavering river of light under the limes, and the orchestra reached them before the horses stopped: strings, a horn, the bright clatter of three hundred people talking at once. Every August Lady Ellsworth filled her husband’s ballroom with whoever had fled the town and found the country too dull to stay home. Among the crests on the carriage doors Tristan saw the Countess of Castlemere’s, which meant that by Monday Mayfair would repeat every word spoken tonight.

He had wanted to refuse the invitation so badly that he had almost regretted telling Lydia about it. Now, handing her down onto the gravel under the lanterns, he wished he had thought less about refusing and more about what accepting would ask of her.

She wore the dark blue gown from her first evening at Ashcombe. He had seen her at the foot of the stairs and been unable to find a single word to say. Mary had dressed her hair high, with a thin band of sapphires he had never seen, and her bare shoulders shone white in the lantern light. When she took his arm on the steps, a fine tremor ran through her fingers, though her face showed nothing.

The footman announced them. The Duke and Duchess of Ashcombe. The words went down the ballroom like a stone into a pond, and he watched the ripples spread: heads turning near the door, a conversation stopping by the windows, a woman at the card table lowering her hand without playing it. Everyone in the room knew they belonged alone at Ashcombe. Everyone now wanted to know why they had come.

Lydia’s fingers tightened on his sleeve.

“They are staring,” she said quietly.

“They expected us to decline. Now they wonder why we did not.”

“You need not look as if you agree with them.”

“I was wondering whether you regretted coming.”

“Not yet.” Her chin came up. “Ask me again after supper.”

The edge of her sleeve had caught beneath his cuff. He freed it, and saw a stitch working loose beside the fastening at her wrist, a tiny flaw in all that composure, and something in his chest turned over. “Shall I stay by you?”

He watched her consider whether to be proud, and decide against it. “I should be obliged.”