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He cleared his throat. “Octavia, I must ask you a serious question.”

“Serious?”

“Quite. Have you corresponded with Gresham from London?”

“Gresham?” She said blankly. “I have forgot that name. You think anything could induce me to write to a man who—”

“Who what?” Charles asked, striving for an even tone. It was the first direct hint Octavia had given that anything was amiss between her and her childhood companion.

“Never mind. Have you been looking at my post?” Her eyes flashed. “I’m sure I’ve had no occasion to write to anyone except as politeness requires.”

“I have not touched your post.”

“What then?”

He hesitated, looking at the abandoned eggs on his plate, searching for the right words.

“Have you been spying on me?” she asked. Her eyes declared her outrage. “Surely, I may write to a cousin, to Miss Swanley or the dear marchioness.”

“I’ve not spied on you. Quite by accident I saw a letter addressed to Gresham in a hand so very much like your own that my duty as a brother compels me to put the question to you.”

“Your duty? I am a duty to you? That’s why you fobbed me off on Miss Swanley, isn’t it? So you could go about London in your ridiculous waistcoats flirting with women like the marchioness without the burden of a troublesome sister.”

“You know you are not a burden and much more than a duty, but I...” He could not mistake the wounded look in her eyes, but its cause eluded him. “I must protect you. I will always protect you.”

“But not trust me, apparently. You didn’t want me to come to London. You never invited me before. Now I understand why. Thank you, Charles, for making it so clear to me how I am regarded in your eyes.”

“I thought you safer and happier at home. You enjoy country ways. You and Gresham—”

Octavia stood abruptly. “You are selfish and old and...you don’t understand anything.” She left the room. The door closed sharply, rattling his coffee cup in its saucer.

* * * *

Charles was grateful for the confusion of the Luxboroughs’ departure. Removing a family of seven, their servants, and at least a fraction of their possessions from London to a country home in Hampshire nearly ninety miles away required a coordinated effort on the part of the lady of the house and her staff. Under low pewter clouds, two large coaches, their doors open, steps down, waited to receive passengers while three footmen milled about disposing of cases and boxes under the direction of the Luxborough butler. A groom walked the horses of Lord Luxborough’s sporting vehicle, and in the noise of orders and farewells, horses and one barking dog, no one noticed the silence between Charles and Octavia.

The dog was not helping the proceedings. Cat was the first to see Charles and bounded his way, nearly knocking over a footman straining to secure a box to the roof of the second carriage.

“Jasper,” cried Lady Luxborough, turning from Harriet Swanley, “see to your dog.”

“I can’t hold him, Mama,” the boy replied. Cat sat expectantly at Charles’s feet, a large stick in his mouth, a hopeful look in the deep brown eyes. “Drop it,” Charles said.

Lady Luxborough shot him a grateful glance. “Jasper, put that dog in the yellow room until we are absolutely ready to leave,” she ordered.

“Yes, Mama. Come on, Cat.” The boy led the dog into the house.

Charles turned to see that Octavia had joined her friends on the steps and was studiously avoiding him. Miss Swanley appeared equally oblivious of his arrival, standing in the midst of the commotion, receiving last-minute instructions from Lady Luxborough.

Lady Luxborough, a tall, stately beauty with an air of affectionate command and a keen eye for the flurry of movement around her, appeared to be offering motherly advice to her governess. Charles guessed from the look in Harriet’s eyes that the advice was being met with some resistance until Lady Luxborough said something that made Miss Swanley laugh.

He had come to appreciate the warmth of that playful ripple of sound. Playing the ghost game she’d invented, he had heard it often. He had not thought her free to share a laugh with her employer. He now saw a bond of affection between them. He had been thinking Miss Swanley an unhappy outsider in the Luxborough clan. He knew that in asking her to dance he was asking her to step out of the role she’d played among them for so long. Perhaps it was only his vanity, the vanity of an eligible gentleman, that whispered she was attracted to him.

The leisurely bustle of leave-taking changed in an instant when Lord Luxborough strode from the house with Ned and Jasper in his wake. Luxborough, in his caped greatcoat, whip in hand, paused to greet Charles, gave an assessing glance to the state of preparations, and caught his wife’s eye.

She turned to him at once. Some unspoken understanding passed between them.

“You wanted a timely departure, wife?” Luxborough asked, signaling his groom.

A lift of his wife’s fair brows was the answer.