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“Are you? Again? When I meet your duke, I will be sure to tell him that he is a most lax employer.” She accepted her cloak and bonnet from Haxton.

“That he is! Where are we off to today? Your publisher?”

She settled the bonnet in place, noting the familiar evasion at the mention of his work. She took a minute to hide a slight disappointment as she donned her gloves. She had no business feeling disappointed that he hid something of himself from her almost effortlessly. Her plan was to end their pretense of a betrothal. “Lady Melforth wants me to check the time and distance on one of our early walks through the Green Park.”

“Your carriage awaits,” he said.

At that, she did look up. She hadn’t ordered it. “Do we need a carriage? It’s a perfect spring day.”

“Which, we’ll enjoy in the park. You’ll have a more accurate account of how fatiguing the walk is if you haven’t walked a mile or more first.”

“Miss.” Haxton opened the door, and they passed through into the bright cool day.

Taking the carriage made perfect sense, but again Viv sensed that his preference for taking the carriage concealed something. She cast a quick glance around her as she climbed into the coach. Henrietta Street looked ordinary. Nothing in the air, the sunshine, or the sky suggested cause for alarm. It was a rare spring day.

When they sat facing each other and he signaled the coachman to go, she noted a passing expression of satisfaction in his eyes. “What are you not telling me?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “You want to return to Lady Melforth in good time, don’t you?”

“I do,” she agreed, still trying to name the thing that bothered her and wanting to protest that she could easily walk three miles or four in London and hardly needed to be carried to her destination. But the protest never made it to her lips. With the motion of the carriage, she yawned, prodigiously, helplessly, a long shaky exhalation. She clapped her gloved hands over her gaping mouth.

Across from her, he grinned. “Her ladyship running you ragged?”

“It’s not as bad as that.”

“I can see that you are worried about her,” he said, sobering at once.

“She’s restless at night, so I read to her, her own books mainly. That’s what’s so heartbreaking. I think she fears that she’ll never write again. And…”

“And…” he said gently.

“And that would be like losing her voice, losing who she is.” Viv straightened on the velvet seat. “That’s why it’s important that we get our book finished. More than any doctor or medicine, having the proof copy in her hands is bound to do Lady Melforth a world of good.”

“Well, then. Let’s get to it.”

The carriage let them down in Piccadilly near the entrance to the park. Viv and Lady Melforth had chosen the smaller park as a walking destination without the bridle paths and carriage ways of the larger, more popular Hyde Park. The route they’d planned was about a mile along the Queen’s Walk, past great houses like Spencer House, and humble lanes like the old passage for milkmaids to the milk stalls in St. James’s Park, down to Buckingham House, and on down Constitution Hill to the tip of the park across from the Duke of Wellington’s Apsley House. The whole leisurely excursion was meant to take an hour, allowing time to admire the different prospects, and offering women the freedom of a stroll in the country in the heart of the city. Queen Caroline, George II’s wife, had envisioned just such outings when she’d designed it.

The carriage rolled away, and they entered the park. A clump of Narcissus nodded their white heads at them. There would be no other flowers in the park itself, just a rolling expanse of green with the tracery of faintly green-tipped branches overhead. Viv reached for her notebook and pencil.

“I’ll watch the time if you like,” he offered.

“Thank you.” She set off briskly, and almost at once, moderated her pace because he was with her, his presence a reminder to allow for observation and for enjoying the freshness of the air and greenness of landscape and the freedom of easy motion. It was a scene into which Lark fit perfectly, every inch the gentleman.

At each stop, Lark gave her the time to jot in her notebook. And she considered their surroundings. No spot seemed quite right for announcing the end of their engagement. There were too many people about. The sun was too bright, or the shade too deep. He was being too helpful. She wanted to keep to their schedule. By the time they reached the little shrub-surrounded lake below the front of Buckingham House, she had resolved that the best place to end their betrothal was in Lady Melforth’s green drawing room where it had begun. In a few days, Viv would have a handsome copy of the book to give him and could inscribe a brief message expressing her gratitude for the ways he had helped in making it. That would be a perfectly fitting way to end things between them.

Swans glided on the lake and ladies in white gowns echoed their movements on the surrounding path. Children and small dogs ran this way and that, chasing sticks and balls. Looking toward Buckingham House itself one saw columns upon columns and a view obstructed by the great marble arch in the forecourt. The arch had been built to memorialize England’s great victory over Napoleon. Viv consulted her notebook. One couldn’t exactly commend the house as an inspiration to women.

“Are you wondering what to say about it?” Lark asked.

She nodded, turning to look toward the east. “The arch is too near the house, and obstructs the view. Of course, the king doesn’t live there, so I suppose it’s no inconvenience to him. At least the arch is not blocking traffic.”

“The king probably doesn’t want to live with a monumental arch to another man’s achievement on his doorstep.”

She frowned. “You think the king is offended by the monument?”

“He tried to give the house away to Parliament,” he said. “But the members apparently refused to take it over as a meeting place. You could simply omit it from your guide.”

“But how could a monument to a national achievement offend the king? He’s the head of the nation, isn’t he?”