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“I am beginning to think not. All I have to go on is what Miss Morgan told me.”

“I mean no disrespect to Miss Morgan, but it does seem odd that she would know of the approach of a comet and you, who read the papers and know the stories of the constellations, would not.”

“Mm.” He leaned back in his chair. He was more dressed than last night. Although he was in his shirtsleeves, they weren’t rolled up, and he wore a loosely tied cravat around his neck.

That was … disappointing.

Still, there was something about his attitude, his posture, that was different. He was fully relaxed, limbs sprawled, gazing at her with a knowing look. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he was the very picture of a rake. And that wink earlier.

She recalled that trip through his family portraits. She’d been feigning interest, and later, she’d been the one protesting the impropriety of being escorted into his mother’s bedchamber. She remembered exactly what he’d said.

I am, at my core, profoundly uninterested in adhering to social mores I consider nonsensical, and so many of them are. I recognize the obligation to do so in company, but I don’t see the need to in my own home.

Everyone thought Lord Marsden so respectable and proper. Straitlaced, even, possibly bordering on humorless.

Everyone was wrong.

“I have more questions,” he said.

“All right.” Somewhat to her surprise, she didn’t mind the prospect of a renewed interrogation. Perhaps she even relished it. She had always been so careful, so circumspect, and she would have to continue to guard her big secret, but beyond that, she found she wanted to submit to his questioning. It was a bit like going in the pool: initially painful yet ultimately invigorating.

And the end of the holiday was looming. They had tonight, and tomorrow night, and then they would depart. Diantha would return to her life. Her problems. Her loneliness.

She sat in the chair next to him.

“I want you to tell me about this rage you have spoken of a few times.”

Oh. That was not what she had expected. But had she thought he would inquire about the weather? Simon didn’t do meaningless chatter. He was more What is the lesson of Frankenstein? and What are your thoughts on marriage?

When she didn’t answer right away, he said, “You said two evenings ago that it probably started when your father gambled your sister away. How does it manifest now, all these years later?”

“Well, I am not about to go stalking across the Arctic with murder in my heart if that is your concern.”

“It is not.”

“I suppose …” She had never thought about it. It wasn’t as if she walked through life seething with anger. Just that sometimes it … flared. She tried to think what those instances had in common. “I think it manifests when it feels like I can’t get anything I want. And I don’t mean my silly retirement fantasy. I mean little things. Daily things.”

“Such as?”

He was relentless. She didn’t mind. And it was easy to talk to him, relatively speaking, when they were both looking at the fire instead of each other.

“All right. Here is an example. Sometimes I just want to go out.”

“Out. What does that mean?”

“In the beginning, when I first entered the employ of Lady Harcourt, we used to go out rather a lot. To visit her friends, to parties, to the shops, or merely to promenade in the park. Sometimes, she used to say, ‘Diantha, my girl, my legs need to move.’ That was her way of saying we needed to manufacture an errand to get us out of the house.

“I didn’t realize it as it was happening, but our world shrank. In fact, at first, I think I enjoyed the respite of fewer social obligations. I am someone who grows somewhat agitated when I don’t have sufficient doses of solitude. It is difficult to explain.”

“I understand. Being with people is depleting. One needs to prepare oneself for it, and arrange time to recover from it.”

“Yes! That is well said. But even for me, the world can only recede so far and for so long before I begin to miss its charms. What I wouldn’t give to go out for an ice, when we are in London, or to attend a dance in the local assembly rooms when we are at Mollybrook.”

“You could ask Archie. I am certain he would accommodate you.”

“He would let me out of my cage.”

“I … yes.”