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A house tour? What a strange thing for Lord Marsden to offer. In general, but also after all that had passed between them.

Diantha had no idea what to say. What to do. She had indeed made a mistake coming here, a grave one, and she wanted nothing more than to flee. Well, that wasn’t true. Her greatest desire at the moment was the ability to unravel the weave of time. To go back several hours to when she’d hatched this inane plan, and … unhatch it.

Honestly, she was as embarrassed to have Lord Marsden think her unintelligent as she was that he should think her impolite, or even brazen. Of course an honorable man like Lord Marsden wouldn’t want to risk his own reputation.

She needed a less honorable honorable man. She smiled despite herself.

But … perhaps that was exactly what she needed.

She resolved to consider the matter later. For now, she still had to contend with Lord Marsden. He had taken his hand off her arm, but he was standing at the door, his expression expectant, bordering on impatient.

Because she had no idea what to say, she fell back on the comportment training of her girlhood. “A house tour would be lovely.”

The library was in the back of the house. She followed him out to the foyer, the centerpiece of which was an enormous mahogany staircase. She tilted her head up to admire the high ceiling with its elaborate cornices. There was a large medallion in the center, set into which was a painting. It depicted a pair of angels, each one holding … Were those rifles? How odd.

“Ahem.”

She transferred her attention from the house to the householder. He was poised at the bottom of the staircase, clearly waiting for her. She would have thought a house tour might start with one of the rooms off the foyer—she could see through one door to an opulently upholstered settee—if not the impressive, if peculiar, foyer itself. But this was his house tour.

He mounted the stairs, and she followed. “This is my father,” he said, stopping abruptly at an enormous painting of a severe looking man dressed in black. He climbed a few more steps. “And this is my brother, James.” James was fairer than Lord Marsden and wearing a wide smile. Another two steps. “And this is my other brother, Michael.” Michael was smiling, too, and holding a fishing rod.

“They look like twins,” Diantha remarked.

“They were twins.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“My lord? May I help with anything?”

The housekeeper, peering up at them from the foyer.

“No,” Lord Marsden said tersely. And then, more gently, “Thank you. Miss Brown will be leaving shortly. I’ll see her out myself.”

The housekeeper nodded, bobbed a curtsy, and retreated, but not before darting her gaze to Diantha. Oh, dear. Diantha truly hadn’t thought this through. Perhaps she did not need to arrange for ruination; perhaps it would happen anyway, depending on how loyal Lord Marsden’s staff were. She considered the rifle-wielding angels. Perhaps Lord Marsden was, secretly, an eccentric. Perhaps his servants were accustomed to behavior others might deem improper.

She could only hope.

“The twins.” Lord Marsden gave a sharp rap on the frame of a portrait depicting the brothers astride matched horses. “They did everything together, including dying.”

She waited for him to say more. She’d known Lord Marsden inherited his title when his brothers died in a fire—everyone did; it had been the talk of the ton. They’d gone together to look at some horses in Yorkshire, and the inn they’d been staying in burned down. She thought perhaps Lord Marsden would fill in some details, given that he was the one who brought up their deaths.

He did not. He merely continued his ascent, gesturing at paintings as he went. “This is them together when they were about ten. And here is my mother with them when they were twenty.” In the latter, a woman who looked like a feminine version of Lord Marsden’s brothers sat on a settee as her sons stood behind her. Each young man rested a hand on one of her shoulders, and she looked content, almost smugly so.

“I know your brothers died tragically,” Diantha offered. “I am sor—”

“And here is my grandfather, the thirteenth earl.”

For Lord Marsden to interrupt her was unprecedented. He was ordinarily so attentive and polite. When they spoke about books, which they’d been doing recently since he had taken to visiting Lady Harcourt with some frequency, he always seemed genuinely interested in what Diantha had to say.

He kept pointing at paintings as he climbed, his speech and his gait alike becoming more insistent. The thudding of his boots on the stairs grew louder. “My grandfather again, with his wife, my grandmother, and their children—my father and his brother and two sisters. And here’s the twelfth earl. He waved an arm. “And so on. I can name them all—I was drilled in family history as a boy—but you would find that unbearably dull.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t.”

He had reached the top of the stairs. He turned and looked down at her—she was still half a dozen steps behind him. He was a tall man to begin with, but from this angle and in such close proximity to the portraits, he appeared almost like a painting come to life. A very forbidding painting. He wore dark brown breeches. His hair was also brown, and cropped unfashionably short. Though it was too dim to make out his eyes, she knew them to be brown as well. The only break in all the brown was his white shirt. She had never seen him without a coat before.

He didn’t have the easy countenance of his brothers. Still, there was something … compelling in his sternness, his unstinting regard.

“Don’t lie, Miss Brown. It doesn’t suit you.”