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Jasper had stayed awake all night, ruminating over the events.

The strategist in him was certain that neither Lady Broadbent nor her charge would speak of their encounter for fear of jeopardizing

Miss Hartley’s reputation. Which should have put his mind at ease.

It hadn’t.

There was still the mystery of how Miss Hartley had heard her tale about the highwayman. The details that she’d revealed about

the thick fog and full moon, however, gave him an approximate timespan, and narrowed it down to one of two different gentlemen.

Yet, no matter what she’d claimed, there had been no other carriages on the road that might have spotted him. Which made him

wonder... what else did she know?

If that weren’t enough to keep his thoughts constantly churning, his conscience was also niggling at him.

Last night, she’d been brave when staring danger in the face. But he knew that, for someone who hadn’t dined on daily doses

of peril, the aftereffects could leave her shaken. Of course, having her fearful was in his best interest. And yet, he couldn’t

stomach the thought of being a source of disquiet for her.

He was being a fool, he told himself, as he rapped soundly on Lady Broadbent’s townhouse door. He should leave well enough

alone.

After all, hadn’t he sent his driver, Mr. Pitt, to covertly accompany Abernathy’s carriage to ensure that Miss Hartley and her chaperone were delivered home without harm? And hadn’t Pitt assured him that neither woman had seemed frail?

But it wasn’t enough. Jasper had to see it for himself.

When the door opened, a bejowled butler’s eyes widened in either alarm or surprise. But the instant Jasper adjusted his spectacles

and lisped his request to have an audience with Miss Hartley, the manservant recovered.

That was another thing his disguise was good for—putting people at ease when face-to-face with a man of his size.

Asked to wait in the foyer, Jasper took note of his pristine surroundings. Everything was dainty lace and delicate porcelain,

gleaming white glazed trim and polished wood. There wasn’t a dust mote in sight, let alone a tooth-marked chair leg or tattered

draperies. Not that he’d expected anything different. It was just disconcerting to see the quantity of fragile bric-a-brac

he could destroy with a single misstep.

As the butler escorted him to the breakfast room, Jasper inwardly recited his pretty apology for the punch debacle, along

with the few innocuous queries that would answer his questions without raising suspicion.

Then he saw Miss Hartley, and every single thought that had brought him here disappeared. Simply tumbled out of his head like

stones over a cliff, one after the other.

She was standing at the buffet in a wedge of morning light, her hair in an artless topknot with rich mahogany tendrils snaking

down to rest against the side of her face. Her cheeks held a rosy glow that seemed to make her eyes brighter in their nest

of dark, sooty lashes. The word beautiful would have to bow down to her because she was something infinitely more. He’d always thought so, even before he’d felt her

body pressed against his... her surprisingly strong limbs... her soft, supple—

“We do not usually have callers at this hour, St. James,” Countess Broadbent regally intoned from her chair at the head of an oval rosewood table. “Though, if we did, I’m certain they would not linger in doorways.”

Jasper had to blink to remember where he was.

Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and stepped into the room.

“Forgive me, my lady. I clearly owe you more than one apology this morning,” he said in the soft-spoken fashion he donned

for society. “In fact, that is the reason I am here—to apologize to Miss Hartley for ruining her gown. And to give her these.”

Withdrawing the bouquet from behind his back, he took a step forward and thrust them at Althea, as if he’d never given a woman

flowers before. Which, come to think of it, he hadn’t. His encounters with the fairer sex had been of a less romantic variety.

But when she startled on an “ Oh! ” and her plate dropped onto the buffet with a clatter, he wanted to sink into the floor.

Maintaining his disguise of the lisping lout was more painful than usual, given his audience. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford

to do otherwise. Even so, he felt like an utter nodcock, and mostly because not all of his awkwardness was an act.

Carefully, she took the offering. “These are quite... interesting.”

“They’re paper flowers,” he said inanely. “My father used to make them for my mother because every flower, except for roses,

made her sneeze and I thought you’d already have several rooms filled with hothouse...”

With a belated glance around the breakfast room, he noted an array of fancy hothouse bouquets on the buffet.

There were others in the center of the table, a few spilling over the mantel.

And some were even tucked into the window nook as if she received so many that she had to cram them into every room on any available space. But, of course, she did.

And he had given her paper.

Any other woman would have laughed in his face by now.

He reached out. “I see now that you clearly would have preferred—”

“No,” she interrupted, pulling the offering close to her bosom. “I like these very much. Thank you.”

His gaze strayed to the way her delicate hands shielded the intricately folded silver paper that he had worked on long into

the night, thinking of her.

When her fingertip traced the outer edge of a petal that he’d rubbed smooth with his own, his flesh tingled. It was as though

they were touching it together, fingers brushing, tangling. He didn’t know why such a mundane thought made his pulse quicken.

Or why his hands suddenly ached to splay over her back again, to pull her close. To feel her cling to him in the bright light

of morning without any disguises between them.

A jolt of alarm sprinted through him.

What was he thinking? That was the worst idea ever, and not remotely part of his plan. He had a prepared speech, damn it all.

Strategy, man! Strategy!

“As for last night...” he began, collecting himself.

At the same time, she met his gaze and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“...I hope that you were not too—” He stopped. There she was with that direct eye contact again. No one ever looked at

him the way she did. And that blue was so clear and bright it was like looking at a midday summer sky. He blinked. Glanced

at her mouth because—bloody hell—she was smiling at him. And he started to feel his mind fuzzing around the edges. “Am I...

hungry?”

When she giggled, he was gone. Utterly gone.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Sleep deprivation. That’s what it was. It had to be.

“Yes,” she said, biting down on her lower lip in a way that sent an unbidden surge of heat through his blood. “Would you like

to break your fast with us? That way you can be assured I hold no grudge against you. It was an accident. And anyone who’d

sampled that punch would have agreed that it was better used as a fabric dye.”

Absently, he hooked a finger in his shirt collar and cleared his throat. “Thank you, but I will tarry on your time no longer.

Good day, my lady. Miss Hartley.”

***

Thea stared at St. James’s retreating form, her brow knitting in perplexity. “That was rather...”

“Charming,” the countess said, bemused.

“Curious,” she finished. But yes, she thought as she carefully placed her flowers in an empty glass, he’d been charming as

well. And sweet. “After all, he’d apologized last evening. Profusely.”

“Perhaps your formidable glower as you’d assessed the damage to your skirts had left him unconvinced of his absolution. Or

perhaps...”

Thea glanced over at Lady Broadbent, sipping her tea, a pair of dove gray eyebrows arched with intrigue. “Or perhaps...

what?”

The countess set down her cup, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I believe you have another admirer. It would explain why he

was so clumsy in your presence. Your mother had men falling at her feet, as well, and you have the look of her but with your

father’s pale eyes. The combination is rather striking. Of course, the arrangement of your features leans more toward intensity

than welcome, which likely accounts for the fact that we are in this third Season.”

“As your ladyship is clearly fond of reminding me,” Thea muttered as she picked up her plate again and lifted a cloche.

Her chaperone issued an imperious sniff. “Your parents left you in my charge. I merely aim to direct you. You do wish to find

a husband, do you not?”

What Thea wished was to go back to when she felt like herself. To when she felt like she belonged somewhere.

Ever since last Season when she’d returned to her family’s home in Addlewick, she’d felt adrift, set apart from all the people

and the home that used to provide a sense of comfort and solace.

Everything had changed. There were no more boisterous discussions or sharing of gossip at the breakfast table with her sisters.

There had been no more afternoon play rehearsals on the dais in the corner of the drawing room.

Her sisters had both married. They had lives of their own, which was to be expected, she knew. But then her mother and father

had changed as well.

Oh, they were still embarrassingly amorous toward each other, always holding hands or giving each other lingering glances

across the room. They were still producing and performing plays with the villagers. And Father still recited Shakespeare and

jested that Mother was trying to poison him at dinner.

But it wasn’t the same.

Perhaps it was because the house had changed, too. There were paintings on the walls that Mother had brought down from the

attic. Paintings of a brother and the grandparents that Thea had never known. She’d been born after they’d died. And for almost

the entirety of her life, no one had ever spoken of them, as though the pain were too raw.