Perhaps it would be best if the whole affair were forgotten now.
Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew he did not want to forget it. And he certainly did not want to forget Miss Finch.
***
Owen was in his study the next morning. It was a sober room, fitted up for consequence rather than for comfort, though comfort had not been neglected. Shelves of well-bound volumes lined the walls, while a large mahogany writing table stoodnear the window. The fire burned low upon the hearth, lending warmth to the leather chairs and the Axminster carpet, and the faint scents of paper, smoke and polished wood gave the place an air of privacy in which serious conversation could easily become something dangerous.
He was seated at his writing table with a dispatch open before him and no idea what it said. He had read the same line three times and retained none of it. Each time he looked at the page, another image rose in its place: Miss Finch’s face as she had spoken of the scandal and Charlotte Langley’s careless malice.
A knock on the door brought him back to the present moment.
He muttered for whoever it was to enter, expecting one of the maids with tea or his mother with some fresh campaign of domestic persecution. Instead, Thomas strolled in without waiting for ceremony, with his hat in hand and an ease about him that made the room feel suddenly over-serious by comparison.
“You look,” Thomas said pausing just inside, “like a man who has either lost a battle or been asked to attend a musicale.”
Owen leaned back in his chair. “The latter would be the greater hardship.”
“Glad to hear you have some perspective.”
Thomas crossed the room and glanced at the neglected papers on the desk. “You do not have your coat on.”
Owen lifted an eyebrow. “I had not realized I was expected anywhere.”
Thomas gave him a look of exaggerated patience. “You are expected precisely where I told Miss Blackmore you would be.”
Owen frowned. “You told Miss Blackmore I would be somewhere?”
“Yes, with me, calling upon her and her cousin before the walk.”
Owen stared at him.
Thomas seemed wholly untroubled. “I promised I would pay a visit this morning. It would be poor form to arrive alone when I have spent half the week praising my closest friend. Besides, Miss Blackmore expects you.”
“And why,” Owen said slowly, “should Miss Blackmore expect me?”
“Because,” Thomas pointed out, “she is seventeen and in love, and has therefore decided the world ought to arrange itself into pleasing pairs.”
Owen shut his eyes briefly.
Thomas laughed and dropped into the chair opposite. “Come, Westbridge. Do not look so hunted. We are only paying a call, not storming a French position.”
“That,” Owen pointed out, “depends entirely upon the household.”
“It is two ladies in a respectable drawing room.”
“One of whom asks disquieting questions.”
“The other,” Thomas returned, “looks at me as if I have invented spring.”
Owen could not help the faint pull at one corner of his mouth. Thomas saw it at once and pointed triumphantly.
“There, you are not dead after all.”
“I never claimed to be.”
“No, only determined to behave as though the entire business of human feeling were an administrative inconvenience.”
Owen gave him a cool look. “You seem very cheerful for a man in danger.”
