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“Good morning, Miss Hilversham.” A smile lit up his normally austere face. That morning, he’d shaved, revealing a smooth, chiselled jaw and firm chin. His long hair was tamed, combed back neatly, showing off a strong, prominent forehead and proud nose.

She caught her breath and stumbled over her own feet.

“Phoebe has decided to take the day off from learning today and is visiting a friend in the neighbouring estate. Have a seat.” He pointed at the chair to his right. “Please.” He was evidently in high spirits.

After a moment’s hesitation, Anna stepped into the room and sat. Marks served her breakfast, a bowl of gruel followed by tea and toast with egg, which she always enjoyed eating. The earl, however, dug into a full plate filled with meat, potatoes and vegetables with a hearty appetite and downed a glass of red wine.

“I heard that Jem is better and that you paid off the mill owner,” Anna said, twisting the napkin in her lap.

“Yes. The fellow was quarrelsome. He insisted on taking the boy with him, and when I would not have it, he became unpleasant. But nothing that couldn’t be solved with the right amount of cash.” He took a sip of wine and wiped his lips. She looked away hastily, a flush covering her cheeks, as she remembered the dream kiss from the previous night. She was vehemently determined not to think about it.

“You are not only very generous, but you also have a big heart.” She regretted her choice of words immediately. Talking about hearts wasn’t any safer, either. Her own heart thumped so loudly, she was certain he must hear it.

But he shrugged. “I am not a particularly political person and do not care about what other people are doing. It is none of my business. I can’t save the world.” He set down his cutlery with a clank. “But when people apply to me for help, I help.”

“That is already more than what many other people would do,” Anna said softly.

“Is it, now?” He looked at her curiously. “You seem to speak from experience.”

Anna’s hands froze in the air for one moment as she buttered a piece of toast. Then she continued as though his comment hadn’t shaken her in the least.

He leaned his elbows on the table. “You are a very odd sort of woman, Miss Hilversham. Sometimes you appear to be older and wiser than the average young lady of your age. And then there are times when you appear to be innocent, almost naïve. You believe in the good of all people in a way that not even Phoebe does. She seems more worldly-wise and cynical in that respect. And definitely more mischievous.”

Anna wet her lips. “I don’t quite understand your meaning.”

He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. “My meaning, Miss Hilversham, is that I can’t quite make you out.”

She held her breath. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock, and the crackling of the wood in the fireplace. Was he saying that he was seeing through her mask of deception? That he knew that she wasn’t really Miss Hilversham? She had been dropping her guard too often, through her attraction to him. She had become careless. She drew herself up and lifted her chin.

“Well, then there are two of us, my lord. For I find you rather difficult to understand, as well.”

His laughter was a rumble, low and pleasant. “Did you wait for me last night in the solar? I returned past midnight. The miller’s wife gave birth to a pair of strapping twins, but she took her time. Mother and children are well. When I returned, I found you sitting in front of the fireplace, with a fire that had gone out, in the complete dark, shivering.”

“I was reading,” Anna said, her nose still in the air, trying her best to ignore the warmth that was creeping up her neck and, no doubt, into her cheeks. Under no circumstances would she reveal that she had, indeed, been waiting for him.

The look with which he regarded her was warm. “No one has ever waited for me before. It was a novelty.”

She looked away hastily and drank her tea too quickly, burning her tongue. She coughed and spluttered. “As I said,” she said when she’d recovered, “I was not waiting for you in the least.”

They were not about to discuss the kiss. She was not going to even think about it. It never happened.

He smirked.

He smirked!

If he now went as far as mentioning that he had carried her to her room and tucked her into her bed—“I had to carry you to your room and tuck you into your bed. Do you always sleep like the dead? An entire orchestra of trumpets could have blared into your ears, and you wouldn’t have woken up.”

Confound it. He was going to talk about it!

She stared intently into her tea, watching specks of little herbs swim in the tepid light brown liquid. “Yes. I do.” She drew a deep breath. “I always sleep like the dead and nothing, absolutely nothing, can awaken me. I sleep so soundly, you could have the entirety of King George’s army march through my bedroom and I wouldn’t notice. Nor would I remember any of it in the morning. Not at all. I don’t even remember my dreams.”

Let that be a warning to him not to mention the kiss.

His sudden crestfallen face seemed to imply he was disappointed. “Indeed? You remember nothing at all?”

She set down her teacup with vehemence. “Nothing at all.”

“Shame,” he murmured.