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“I haven’t seen you for ages,” she said as she offered her cheek for him to kiss.

He heard censure in her tone, though probably there was none. Frances wasn’t the kind of person who communicated through subtle signals and undercurrents of sentiment. He was accustomed to being communicated to thusly, especially by women, but that didn’t mean everyone was guilty of it.

He had to check himself: That wasn’t true anymore, was it? He didn’t communicate a great deal with women generally, but these days, most of the women in his life were generous of spirit, easy with their conversation and, he liked to think, their friendship. He was thinking, of course, of the wives of his friends: Clementine and Julianna.

He was thinking of Miss Brown.

Miss Brown, whom he had treated terribly last night, marching her around the house and shouting at her.

By the sober light of morning, his behavior seemed incomprehensible. It was as if some other man had taken over.

In his defense, perhaps that was because another lady seemed to have taken over Miss Brown. The Miss Brown he knew would never have come to him—to anyone—asking him to ruin her. He took some comfort in their mutual incomprehensibility.

“I am sorry I haven’t called in so long,” he said to Frances.

She pulled him to sit next to her on a settee. “I am sorry I haven’t called on you in so long.”

He smiled. This was exactly what he meant about generosity of spirit. Frances had been kind to him from the first day they met. Simon had been a mere boy, but her kindness hadn’t been false. It had been accompanied by genuine interest in him as a person, something his younger self had found novel and compelling.

“I’ve been terribly busy,” Frances added, wagging her eyebrows in a fashion that suggested he was meant to ask why.

“What has you so occupied, if I may know?”

“I shan’t tell you.” He was about to demur when she added, “I shall show you.” She rang a bell, and a footman appeared. “Could you have Wallace join us, please?”

Simon sat up straighter. He hadn’t expected they’d be joined by anyone else. He didn’t want to be joined by anyone else. Even though he didn’t know why he was here.

And who was this gentleman Frances was calling by his Christian name?

“My lady.” The footman opened the door and seemed to be holding it for an invisible guest.

Oh! Wallace was a cocker spaniel. There wasn’t much that made Simon laugh out loud, but the appearance of Wallace did.

“Simon,” Frances said with exaggerated solemnity, “I’ll thank you to temper your amusement and meet Wallace.”

“He’s very handsome.”

Wallace had black ears and a white face and big brown eyes.

“In fact, he rather matches your own countenance.”

Frances also had dark hair and pale skin and big brown eyes.

“Are you calling me handsome?”

Oh, dear. Implying that a lady was handsome instead of pretty or fetching or what have you was probably a mistake. Simon winced. He wasn’t good at people.

But it didn’t matter, for Frances understood him. “Wallace is indeed very handsome, as am I. Unlike me, though, Wallace is very young. Four months to be exact, and he is a terrible handful. He is why I haven’t called. I’ve been up at all hours with him.”

Simon refrained from pointing out that a servant could train Wallace. That wasn’t how Frances lived her life. When you were hers, you were hers. His brother had been very lucky. Until he hadn’t.

“I have to say,” he remarked as Frances picked up Wallace and settled him on her lap, “I never took you for a dog person.”

James had kept hunting dogs, and Simon had never seen Frances pay them any mind, much less dote on them to such an extent that she cleared her social calendar.

“I’m not. Or I wasn’t. But the dreadful neighbors had a litter, and Wallace was the runt. And, well, now I’m a dog person.”

“Were they set to put him down?”