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Beatrice had regretted telling Stephen what she had felt in those early days when all the papers seemed to be laughing at her and her absent husband. It was just her luck that he’d remembered it so clearly.

“That’s not necessary,” she responded crisply, hoping she sounded bored and nonchalant.

“I think it is. It is your birthday, after all. Look, we are nearly home. Go on in and get dressed, and we’ll go out. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

She eyed him uncertainly. The simplest thing to do would be to tell him no, tell him that she was tired and had things to do, and that she would take herself back to her room to rest.

His room, actually,she reminded herself uneasily.

It had been silly to take Stephen’s room, but somehow that place just seemed comfortable, and it had much more light than the one Mouse had showed her to.

Why did he have to come back? I was doing just fine without him.

But really, what else will I do but sit around and nurse a headache all day?

“Oh, very well,” she heard herself say, with a very bad grace.

“Excellent,” Stephen responded, fidgeting with the tips of his gloves. “Since I doubt our reputations will recover from arriving in a hired cab, I shall chase down one of our carriages, and possibly a coachman to go with it.”

She eyed him uneasily.

Why is my heart pounding? Why is that awful fluttering in my chest again? Oh, dash the man!

I really was doing fine. And now here he is, come to steal my peace of mind and ruin everything again.

As if reading her thoughts, Stephen glanced her way, his eyes piercing and mesmerizing. Beatrice found herself trapped for an instant, breathless and yearning for something she could not even properly name.

The kiss replayed in her head, again and again. The last one, when he’d kissed her without a warning, without an explanation, without anapologyfor how he’d made her feel, for how he’d dredged up emotions like hot coals in her chest.

Giving her head a tight little shake, Beatrice tried desperately to think about something else,anythingelse, to ease the tight ache in her gut, the pulsing between her legs.

With impeccable timing, the coach rattled to a halt outside their home, allowing Beatrice to fling open the door and stumble out, suddenly keen to escape the too-warm interior.

“We leave in one hour!” Stephen called after her as she hurried towards the house. “Don’t be late! And wear something pretty—we’re going to give Society something else to talk about, mark my words!”

Beatrice eyed her reflection in the mirror critically.

It seemed that after they had left for Anna and Theo’s home, Mouse had galvanized the remaining servants into a semblance of order, getting the house cleaned up.

A flash of irritation pulsed through her.

I gave them the day off.Who is he to come home and countermand my orders?

Perhaps shehadbeen reckless, and it would have been better to get the servants to clean the housebeforetaking a day off so that they didn’t have to spend the entire day stepping around piles of broken glass and spreading stains of spilled drinks. Beatrice closed her eyes momentarily, trying not to think about Stephen’s horror and shock when he first stepped into the house.

She had chosen one of her new gowns—she had plenty of money to commission new clothes, after all—and hoped it would be suitable for wherever they were going.

The gown was a deep, vivid green, a rather daring color for today’s fashions, made of velvet and tightly fitted around the waist and bust. The neckline skimmed her shoulders, and her neck was highlighted by a simple silver necklace. Matching silver flowers glittered in her hair, and there was a silver bracelet onher wrist. The skirts of the gown were simply cut, without any of the ruches that were so fashionable at the moment.

The gown had been relatively inexpensive, due to its cut, even with the fine velvet fabric. Beatrice couldn’t decide what had drawn her to that style, but it certainly suited her, and there was a little thrill of delight in knowing that few women, if any, would be wearing a gown like hers.

Outside, the day was creeping towards night. The evening was resolutely here. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had slept after breakfast, but after the business of seeing Anna and then dressing, it seemed that the time had flown by in a blink. It would be dark soon, and a cold night, too.

She shot her reflection one last inquisitive stare as the clock chimed the hour behind her.

Enough dilly-dallying.Time to go.

Heart thudding, she left her room.