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He took off his glasses. He really did look handsome with them on. Well, he looked handsome with them off, too, but there was something about the juxtaposition of the circular wire frames and the square lines of his jaw that was … unexpectedly pleasing.

“Lord Marsden,” she said, dipping into an abbreviated curtsy. “Good morning.”

He got to his feet. “Lady Harcourt. Miss Brown. You ladies are up early.”

“As are you,” she said, guiding the dowager to the table.

“I don’t like to waste the best part of the day,” Lady Harcourt said. “I find that whatever one’s pursuit, it is generally more enjoyable—and productive—in the mornings. My main pursuit these days is …” She trailed off, as she tended to do when she lost her train of thought.

“You do enjoy spending time in your garden, among your flowers,” Diantha supplied. “And morning is certainly a lovely time for that.” She turned to Lord Marsden. “If we are up early enough, the gardens at Mollybrook echo with birdsong. It is quite extraordinary.”

She experienced a sudden pang. She would miss those birds.

She had been thinking about how much she would miss the family, but she would miss their homes, too.

“I share your outlook, my lady,” Simon said to Lady Harcourt. “I am at my sharpest in the mornings.”

“What pursuit to you undertake in the mornings?” Lady Harcourt asked.

“Reading, generally, though not usually novels.” He placed a marker in his book and closed it. It was hers. He was reading her book, the one she’d left behind last night. She wasn’t sure if she was affronted or flattered.

“I will fix you a plate, my lady,” she said to cover her discomposure as she crossed over to the sideboard.

“What pursuit do you undertake in the mornings?” Lady Harcourt called, directing the question to Diantha.

“Your morning pursuits are my morning pursuits,” she called back, grateful for the meaningless conversation.

Back at the table, she set a plate in front of the dowager. “I must confess that although I understand with my intellect the logic of your preference for mornings, I am a natural night owl.”

“Are you indeed?” Lady Harcourt asked.

“I am.” She returned to the sideboard and helped herself to a slice of toast. She wasn’t one for a large morning meal. She wasn’t one for mornings, period. “Left to my own devices, I would be prowling about the house until the wee hours, and in the mornings, I would be late to rise.”

The confession amused Lady Harcourt. “We are on holiday, are we not?”

“We are!”

“Then you ought to go back to bed. Isn’t that part of the joy of a holiday, shirking one’s responsibilities?”

“I suppose it is, but I am already up and content to stay where I am.” To punctuate her statement, she sat next to Lady Harcourt. She left unsaid that she hadn’t any choice about being content where she was—this morning in particular, but also in a more generalized sense. Lady Harcourt was an early riser; therefore Diantha was, too.

Lady Harcourt turned toward Lord Marsden. “I used to holiday on the shore, near Lydd-on-Sea. Have you ever been, sir?”

Oh no. Lady Harcourt often had flashes of true memories, but of all the occasions for her to suddenly remember! Diantha turned to Lord Marsden and, attempting to imitate the jolly tone Miss Morgan sometimes deployed, said, “I see you have helped yourself to my book, my lord!”

If the observation was awkward, or overloud, Lord Marsden did not remark on it. He merely grinned and said, “Yes, and it contains the most remarkable story about a Dutchman in America who slept for twenty years and awakened to find he had missed the revolution, among other things.”

Diantha had to smile. “Rip Van Winkle” was a departure from the parlor politics of the Austen novels he had been reading. “Yes, and if I recall, his initial character flaw was that he was always trying to avoid work—and his wife.”

“You say ‘initial’ as if he is cured of his laziness by his extraordinary experience. But at the end, he is as idle as ever.”

It was Diantha’s turn to smile. “You are quite right. And his wife is dead, and he doesn’t miss her at all.”

“That sounds like a daft story,” the dowager declared.

Diantha and Lord Marsden shared an amused look as he slid the book across the table to her. “I am sorry I kept it. I ought to have asked one of the servants to deliver it to you yesterday evening, but I made a selfish decision. When you departed, I was a mere few pages from the end of Frankenstein. I thought to merely read a few pages of your book, but …” He shrugged sheepishly. “I found myself irrevocably engrossed.”

“I can hardly scold you, my lord. I know this feeling.”