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And then, as the three ladies watched in silence, the painting of John Cavendish moved past the open doorway, two footmen struggling to keep it upright and balanced.

“Who was that?” Amelia asked once the portrait had gone by.

“The dowager’s middle son,” Grace murmured. “He died twenty-nine years ago.”

“Why are they moving the portrait?”

“The dowager wants it upstairs,” Grace replied, thinking that ought to be answer enough. Who knew why the dowager did anything?

Amelia was apparently satisfied with this explanation, because she did not question her further. Or it could have been that Thomas chose that moment to reappear in the doorway.

“Ladies,” he said.

They all three bobbed curtsies.

He nodded in that way of his, when he was clearly being nothing but polite. “Pardon.” And then he left.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, and Grace wasn’t certain whether she was trying to express outrage at his rudeness or simply fill the silence. If it was the latter, it didn’t work, because no one said anything more until Elizabeth finally added, “Perhaps we should leave.”

“No, you can’t,” Grace replied, feeling dreadful for having to be the bearer of such bad news. “Not yet. The dowager wants to see Amelia.”

Amelia groaned.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. And meant it.

Amelia sat down, looked at the tea tray and announced, “I’m eating the last biscuit.”

Grace nodded. Amelia would need sustenance for the ordeal ahead. “Perhaps I should order more?”

But then Thomas returned again. “We nearly lost it on the stairs,” he said to Grace, shaking his head. “The whole thing swung to the right and nearly impaled itself on the railing.”

“Oh, my.”

“It would have been a stake through the heart,” he said with grim humor. “It would have been worth it just to see her face.”

Grace prepared to rise and make her way upstairs. If the dowager was awake, that meant her visit with the Willoughby sisters was over. “Your grandmother rose from bed, then?”

“Only to oversee the transfer. You’re safe for now.” He shook his head, rolling his eyes as he did so. “I cannot believe she had the temerity to demand that you fetch it for her last night. Or,” he added quite pointedly, “that you actually thought you could do it.”

Grace thought she ought to explain. “The dowager requested that I bring her the painting last night,” she told Elizabeth and Amelia.

“But it was huge!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“My grandmother always favored her middle son,” Thomas said, with a twist of his lips that Grace would not have called a smile. He glanced across the room, and then, as if suddenly realizing his future bride was present, said, “Lady Amelia.”

“Your grace,” she responded.

But he couldn’t possibly have heard her. He was already back to Grace, saying, “You will of course support me if I lock her up?”

“Thom—” Grace began, cutting herself off at the last moment. She supposed that Elizabeth and Amelia knew that he had given her leave to use his given name while at Belgrave, but still, it seemed disrespectful to do so when others were present.

“Your grace,” she said, enunciating each word with careful resolve. “You must grant her extra patience this day. She is distraught.”

Grace sent up a prayer for forgiveness as she let everyone think the dowager had been upset by nothing more than an ordinary robbery. She wasn’t precisely lying to Thomas, but she suspected that in this case the sin of omission could prove equally dangerous.

She made herself smile. It felt forced.

“Amelia? Are you unwell?”