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“We had a fine journey, though poor Simon is off again this morning. He’s riding on to Galecroft.”

“Oh!” She hadn’t expected that, having all but talked herself into the notion that he would be returning to his London house.

So he wouldn’t be calling. He would be far away.

Which was fine. But it also meant she wouldn’t know why he wasn’t calling. Would he be absent simply because he was at Galecroft, or was he at Galecroft because he was avoiding her?

“He had some business to attend to with his mother,” Lord Harcourt said.

Of course. He had intimated as much. And he had told her his mother spent most of her time at their country estate—the place where she had the shrine to his brothers.

It made sense. Diantha just … hadn’t been ready for him to be so far away.

Even if he hadn’t been going to call regardless. It was better knowing he was nearby.

“I wonder if he will stay on with his mother or return to Town,” she mused.

Lord Harcourt set down his teacup and eyed her.

She was doing it again, trying to fish for information about Simon. She was acting like a lovestruck girl.

She was—

Oh. Oh no.

She wasn’t acting like a lovestruck girl. She was one.

She was in love with Simon.

She started coughing. It was as if her body was rejecting the very notion.

If only it could.

“Miss Brown, are you all right?”

She got hold of herself. “Yes, thank you. A sip of tea gone wrong.”

Though Lord Harcourt had been watching her closely enough before the coughing fit that he had to have noticed she hadn’t drunk any tea. “But if you will excuse me for a moment?”

“Of course.”

She fled to her room.

Whereupon the dread that had taken up residence yesternight began blooming, a dark flower watered by the realization that she was in love with Simon Courteney, the Earl of Marsden.

Dread was becoming panic.

She sat on her bed with a thud and told herself to breathe. To pretend she was in the icy water at Gurglewood and to bear up under the onslaught of sensations.

She relaxed her shoulders and blew out a long, slow breath, as she would have done were she immersed.

After a few moments, she was composed enough to rise, walk to her nightstand, and extract the letter from Mr. Baldwin.

Inside she found a mere handful of sentences.

3 December. My mother will host a ball. She will call in the coming weeks and invite Lady Harcourt personally. Please send the bank draft to the below address.

December was too soon.