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E velyn did not know what everyone was getting so upset about. She wasn’t hurting anyone, was she? She wasn’t in the way—not now that she had moved three inches to the left. She wasn’t making any great demands on anyone, she had been quiet… What more did they want?

“Evelyn, get up,” Lucy said with a sigh.

“Absolutely not,” Evelyn replied calmly. There was no point in getting upset. Getting upset hurt, and she didn’t want to hurt anymore. Besides, why should she get up?

“You need to get up. You can’t just lie there.”

“Until you offer me a reasonable statement as to why I should move,” Evelyn said, eyes fixed upward, “I don’t see why I should.”

Lucy sighed. Then she suddenly appeared in Evelyn’s view, glaring down at her older sister with a most malevolent look. “Because ladies do not lie on the drawing room floor and refuse to get up.”

“Nonsense,” retorted Evelyn. “I am, and I’m a lady.”

It was, apparently, a problem for everyone, despite the fact that everyone save her sister and herself and the servants were out of the house.

Laurent had appeared there yesterday not too long after Evelyn, and when she had asked what had transpired to make Evelyn leave without her—without, even, her bonnet and parasol—Evelyn had refused to explain.

What had she cared if she had been spotted without a chaperone on the streets of London?

Who cared about anything?

Their parents had taken Percy to a dinner, poor thing, and Lucy and Evelyn had been told to entertain themselves.

And so she was. She didn’t know why Lucy had to care so much.

“I’m not in your way,” Evelyn said from the drawing room floor. Really, the ceiling was most impressive from this angle. “You can easily step around me, or spend the evening in any other part of the house.”

“Evelyn—”

“In truth, I presumed you would spend the evening in the library. I chose the drawing room purposefully to remain out of your way,” Evelyn continued doggedly.

All she had to do was keep talking, explaining herself, and she would not have to think about the agony. The weight of it. The way that her world had come crashing down because of a stupid man.

Oh, she was such a fool.

“If anything, I think I should be congratulated for dealing with this so well,” Evelyn said aloud.

Lucy tapped her foot as she glared down at her sister. “So I see.”

Evelyn sighed. It really was very simple, as she had explained to her family over the breakfast table that very morning.

“Firstly, I am not speaking to you, Father,” she said severely.

Her father’s mouth had fallen open. “What have I done to deserve that?”

“Secondly, I am not speaking to you, Mother,” Evelyn continued.

The Countess of Lindow thrust out her chin. “Now, your father, I can understand, as he wasn’t able to stop himself from hinting we knew you might be hiding some news the other day, but as for myself, I was waiting patiently for you to speak up.”

“You didn’t stop him from offering me out like a plate of canapes,” said Evelyn sharply. “Percy—”

“I have no idea what everyone is so upset about, and I would rather keep it that way,” said her brother, raising his hands in a sort of surrender and rising from the table. “I have an early morning appointment, anyway.”

“So that leaves Lucy as the only person to whom I am speaking at the moment,” Evelyn said heavily.

There was a delicate cough behind her.

“And you, Cawthorne,” she added. “Obviously.”

“Evelyn,” said her mother firmly. “I cannot claim to understand precisely what has happened, but—”

“The end of my life as we know it, I’m afraid,” said Evelyn.

She knew she was being dramatic, but there was nothing she appeared to be able to do about it; the pain etched into her ribcage was painful, pouring through her, infecting every inch of her.

“And are you going to be like this all day?” asked Lucy calmly, pouring herself a cup of tea.

“Yes,” said Evelyn.

“Right,” said her sister.

That had been that morning. Evelyn had spent the rest of the day mostly lying on the drawing room floor, staring at the ceiling, and crying.

They were not the most entertaining amusements, but they were all she could manage for now.

Lucy was still staring down at her. “This is a tad much, even for you.”

“I have an artist’s temperament,” Evelyn said with mock hysteria.

It sounded far more impressive in her head than out loud. She did not blame her sister for frowning, although it did look amusing from this angle.

“Hmm,” said Lucy slowly. “Did you not once say that ‘an artist’s temperament’ is just a man’s excuse not to do anything properly?”

Evelyn opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. Then she frowned. “How very disobliging of you to remember that I said that.”

“Hmm,” repeated her sister, her frown not disappearing. “Are you going to get up now?”

“No.” Try as she might, Evelyn could not prevent tears from prickling in the corners of her eyes.

Damned tears. Blast them! Her eyes were sore, the skin around them itching, thanks to the copious tears she had shed after she had run from Richard’s house.

From the house of the Viscount Sempill, that was.

“I love you!”

“A man who loved me would not lie to me—a man who loved me would not barter for me with my father behind my back.”

It was a betrayal, that was what it was. One of the worst kind. After all the nonsense Percy had put them through, she would have thought Richard would understand. Would realize that her desire for mystery and excitement could not trump her need for honesty.

“You do look awful, you know.”

Evelyn sighed and sat up, her head spinning slightly at the sudden movement. “You are not much of a comforter.”

“I don’t actually know what has happened,” Lucy pointed out blithely as she stepped away from her sister and settled herself in an armchair.

“It makes sympathy rather a challenge. Besides, I’ve used up quite a bit for a man wrongly accused of murder who is about to be hanged by the neck until dead. ”

That’s the trouble with my sister , Evelyn thought darkly as she clambered up and dropped onto the nearest sofa. She always manages to make you feel ridiculous.

“It’s very simple,” she said aloud.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “It’s never simple with us Chances, is it?”

Evelyn sighed. “No, not really.”

The fireplace was empty, the hot days making it senseless to light fires, but she could not help but feel cold.

Everything that she knew—or that was, the delightful ignorance she had enjoyed—was over. In the center of it all was a man who had seemed so exciting… only to discover that he was nothing like what he’d seemed.

“Are you going to tell me?” Lucy asked quietly.

Evelyn looked up. That was the thing with her sister; she appeared to have unlimited compassion. She had never known anyone quite like Lucy for always seeing the best in people, always making it absolutely clear that there was something to be admired in someone.

“It’s very simple,” she said shortly. “I hired a man to be my model.”

“Oh, yes, I met him.” Lucy nodded. “He seemed pleasant enough.”

“Oh, he was. Very pleasant.” Perhaps too pleasant . “But he lied, Lucy. He lied.”

Her sister’s eyebrows were raised now. “Goodness. What did he say that was untrue?”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? For try as she might, Evelyn found it a challenge to pinpoint precisely the point where he had lied.

That Richard had been untruthful was obvious.

He had not told her that he was Viscount Sempill, information she would have liked to know.

He had misled her, made her think he was nothing but a common man, no gentleman at all.

He had almost certainly been laughing at her when she’d attempted to talk to him about art, and paintings.

The man had a Rembrandt!

But when one attempted to explain that, it all felt… foolish.

“He did not tell me who he was,” was all that she could manage aloud.

Lucy nodded. “That must have been painful, you having asked him outright.”

Evelyn bit her lip. This was the problem; it sounded foolish now. She sounded foolish. “Actually I… I never asked him outright.”

“Oh.” Her sister cocked her head. “But it must have come up in conversation, surely. One’s name generally does.”

Squirming in her seat did not appear to make any difference to her internal discomfort. “Actually, I… Oh, Lucy. I told him not to tell me.”

Her sister hesitated. “Ah.”

Ah, indeed. Evelyn could not square the circle. She knew that she had been betrayed, been lied to—she could feel it in her gut. All the hackles that Percy had raised with his ridiculous lying were heightened. She knew what it felt like to be lied to, and it felt like this.

And yet… and yet…

“I wish to keep you as a blank canvas—a blank slate, if you will. The less I know about you, the better.”

“It sounds to me as though you have created your own problem,” said her sister helpfully.

Evelyn scowled. “That’s very helpful, thank you.”

“Well, let me try something that I think will be helpful.”

Lucy rose and stepped over to the wall paneling by the window. Precisely what she was doing there, Evelyn did not know.

Her sister pressed at a seemingly inconsequential part of the paneling. It most definitely was not inconsequential, however, because a small door sprang open and revealed—

“How on earth did you know that was there?” Evelyn stared as Lucy pulled a bottle of brandy from the secret cupboard along with two glasses.

Lucy shrugged. “It turns out that when you’re the middle child, you can sit very quietly and think about prison reform for so long that your brother, who thinks he is very clever, barely notices you.”

Evelyn stifled a grin. It was the first smile since the revelation of Richard’s true identity, and it was something she was in sore need of.

But brandy? Perhaps her sister was even more of a dark horse than she let on.

Evelyn felt the need to confess. Perhaps if Lucy understood the severity of what the man had been hiding, she’d stop making such sense. “He’s a viscount. Viscount Sempill.”