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Harriet smiled at her with sympathy. "Then it is as well you love him so dearly."

"I do," Sara said, her eyes twinkling. "And I am quite sure I shall talk him round to leaving again. A honeymoon renewed would be the very best thing for us both." She touched Harriet's arm. "But you, my dear — you are bold indeed, to come to a ball alone. I congratulate you on your courage."

Harriet's smile flattened. "I would rather not be here at all."

"No?"

She shook her head. "These last days have had a strangeness about them that has unsettled me terribly," she admitted. "And besides that, my brother-in-law is set on scrubbing every last trace of me from his house, and from his memory, I think. He has grudgingly let me keep the townhouse a while, but only until he comes to town himself."

Sara's brows rose. "Then you shall come and live with us, should he go on so," she said, firm as anything. "Now. You must tell me all of it." Seeing a footman drawing near, she took two glasses of ratafia and pressed one into Harriet's hand. "Why are you so unsettled? Leave nothing out."

Harriet did as she was bid, and held nothing back. She told of Lady Warrington's endowment, left to her by a lady she had never once met, and the delays no one would explain. She spoke of the strange involvement of the Duke of Blackwood, and last, in a lower voice, of the unnerving certainty of being watched.

Sara listened without once interrupting, her face thoughtful rather than alarmed, though her brows did climb when Harriet came to the man in the shadows.

"Little wonder you are so troubled," she exclaimed when Harriet had finished. "Goodness. That is a great deal for anyone to carry."

"You do not think me foolish, then — for feeling as I do?"

"Not in the least," Sara said stoutly. "If a thing is wrong, or in this case feels wrong, then it is worth the weighing. And I will say this Duke of yours ought to take it a good deal more seriously than to wave it off."

Harriet was on the point of answering when a familiar voice spoke behind her.

"Lady Colbourne?"

With a glance at Sara, she turned, keeping her face as composed as she could manage. "Your Grace." The Duke of Blackwood bowed low, his fair hair falling smoothly back into place as he straightened, and there was no smile on his face. To Harriet it seemed the tension of the afternoon still hung between them, a slight and awkward thing that drew her brows together in spite of herself.

"It is an unexpected pleasure to find you here this evening," he said, with a glance toward Sara.

"I thank you." She turned to her friend. "Might I present Lady Hawkley? Sara — the Duke of Blackwood."

"Your Grace." Sara dipped into a curtsy. "A pleasure." And then, with the tact of an old friend, she discovered an acquaintance across the room in urgent want of greeting, and drifted a few steps away.

He inclined his head after her, then looked back to Harriet, and for a moment said nothing at all, as though he were setting his words in order before he spent them. "Lady Colbourne. Before we speak of anything else — I owe you an apology, and I would rather make it plainly than let it wait."

She had not expected that, and it stopped her. "An apology, Your Grace?"

"Indeed." His jaw set, and she saw that he disliked the doing of this, and did it anyway. "This afternoon you told me of a thing that frightened you, and I answered it by pretending there was nothing in it to fear. I did not take your concern with the seriousness it was owed. I spoke too quickly, and gave far too little weight to your judgment and your own two eyes." He held her gaze without flinching from it. "If you believe you are being watched, Lady Colbourne — then I believe it. I should have said so at once. I say it now."

A small, hard knot in Harriet's chest loosened by a degree. She had come to this ball braced to be careful of him, to be cool. And here he had unmade her caution in a dozen sentences, and looked as though he would rather have faced anything than say them. It was not what she had thought a duke would do. Men of his rank did not, in her experience, trouble to be wrong out loud.

"I am grateful, Your Grace," she said, and found that she was.

"You must have been deeply unsettled, to see a man watch you so." Something eased in his face now the worst of it was said. "I do not wish you to be afraid."

She looked up at him — and when the corner of his mouth curved, at last, she felt a sudden odd kick of awareness low in her. She was scarcely acquainted with this gentleman. There ought to be no such thrill, however small, in nothing greater than a smile.

She was spared the making of any reply. A voice broke across them, hearty and unknown to her.

"Blackwood!" The Duke turned, and Harriet saw two gentlemen approaching, both smiling broadly, both bright-eyed with curiosity. "Will you not introduce us? We are forever eager for new acquaintances."

Harriet caught Sara's eye across the little distance and beckoned, and her friend was beside her again in a moment.

A faint warmth rose in Harriet's chest, unbidden, as the Duke cleared his throat. "Yes — of course." He gestured to her. "Lady Colbourne, Lady Hawkley — might I present the Earl of Woodley and Viscount Ashcroft. Woodley, Ashcroft: Lady Colbourne, and her friend Lady Hawkley."

Harriet sank into a curtsy, thinking both gentlemen very handsome indeed. Lord Ashcroft had dark hair, carefully ordered, light green eyes, and a warm smile that seemed wholly without guile. Lord Woodley's eyes, by contrast, glinted with something she took for mischief, though she could not have said what put it there.

"Lady Colbourne." Lord Ashcroft laid a hand to his heart. "I had the very great pleasure of an acquaintance with your late husband."