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She pulled a deep blue silk forward and held it against herself. The fabric caught the light and threw it back in cool, rippling waves. Setting it back, she pulled out the emerald—too bold. She pulled out the ivory—too pale. She pulled out a bronze silk with delicate lace at the sleeves and stared at it without seeing it.

What does a duchess wear to her first ball?

The door opened behind her.

"Adelaide, I have had a remarkable idea regarding the manuscript, and I need your counsel immediately." Julian strode into the dressing room with the energy of a man struck by sudden inspiration. He carried a leather-bound notebook under one arm, his quill tucked behind his ear and ink staining his right cuff.

"We have been organizing the expedition journals by chronology and region, which is serviceable but uninspired. What if we expanded the collection to include a curated volume of personal correspondence? Letters sent to and from the field—my dispatches to the Royal Society, Thomas's notes to his mentors, our observations written in real time rather than retroactively cataloged."

He stopped, his eyes moving from her face to the row of dresses behind her, then back.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"I am attempting to select a dress for Lady Calliwell's ball."

"And how is that proceeding?"

"Disastrously."

Julian set his notebook on the small dressing table and turned to survey the wardrobe. His gaze moved along the row of dresses with the same critical attention he brought to specimen classification, studying the fabrics, cuts, and trimmings as though evaluating them for scientific merit.

"These were all commissioned from Madame Lisette on Bond Street," he said. "She is considered the finest dressmaker in London. The Duchess of Devonshire herself wears her dresses."

"That is very informative, Julian. It does not help me choose one."

"You need only choose one?"

"I need only choose one that will not make me appear as though I have wandered into the wrong house and accidentally borrowed someone else's clothing."

He turned to face her. "You are genuinely distressed about this."

Adelaide released the bronze silk and let it fall back into place among its companions. "I have no notion of what a duchess ought to wear to a ball. I have not attended a proper London function in nearly a decade. The last assembly I went to was in Kent, and the highlight of the evening was a spirited debate about crop rotation."

"Crop rotation is a vital subject."

"It is not, however, preparation for Lady Calliwell's drawing room."

Julian looked at her, then looked at the dresses again—eleven of them hanging in their perfect row, each a masterpiece of London couture that she had not asked for and did not feel worthy of wearing.

"Adelaide." He stepped forward—close, closer than he had been in days, since the stream, since the library, since every moment he had reached for her and then pulled away. Moving behind her, she felt the warmth of his presence at her back before he touched her.

His hands settled on her shoulders—light and gentle. His thumbs rested against the fabric of her morning dress, just above the collarbone, and the weight of his palms felt warm and steady through the cotton.

"You would look breathtaking in whichever dress you choose."

The words were quiet, spoken close to her ear, close enough that she felt the warmth of his breath against her temple. She stood very still as the dresses hung before her in their row of silk and velvet, his hands resting on her shoulders while the dressing room remained silent save for the clock on the mantel in the adjoining bedchamber.

She did not move or draw breath, standing in the circle of his warmth as the words settled against her skin.

Julian's hands tightened—a subtle fraction of pressure, as though he had been about to pull her back against him before catching himself.

He cleared his throat—a rough, abrupt sound of a man startling himself out of an impulse he had not intended to follow. His hands lifted from her shoulders, the sudden absence of his touch leaving a cool draft across her back.

"You agree with incorporating the letters into the publication?" He stepped back—one pace, then two—retrieving his notebook from the dressing table and holding it between them like a shield. "The personal correspondence would add a dimension the journals lack—the immediacy of observation, the human element."

Adelaide turned to face him. His expression had shifted; the tenderness of a moment ago had been replaced by a brisk, professional composure—the scholarly mask he wore whenever he needed to retreat from his own warmth.

"I agree entirely," she said. "The letters would bring the collection to life in a way that cataloged specimens cannot. Readers would experience the expeditions as you and Thomas lived them."