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“Shall we go elsewhere to find something different?” Miss Caldwell called over, holding the back of her bonnet to her head as a small breeze swept by, nipping at Nell’s cheeks.

“Yes, let us,” Nell agreed, wanting to embrace Miss Caldwell for her timely suggestion.

Lord Dalmeer sent Nell the most subtle of accusatory expressions as though he had hoped she would suggest they return to Bellthorne.

“Where shall we go, my lord?” Miss Caldwell asked the earl, taking his arm with both of her gloved hands.

“I know a place up ahead,” he said.

They trudged through the shallow but crisp snow, avoiding the muddy spots as best they could, until Lord Dalmeer announced that they had arrived.

They faced a line of holly bushes, red berries brightening the mass of pointy, green leaves and looking very festive.

“How beautiful,” Miss Caldwell exclaimed. “These will look very well in the passage.”

Mr. Fowell began to walk along the bushes, examining them, and Nell crouched on the pretense of retying the lace of her boot to put a bit of space between them.

A pair of glistening black boots came up beside her, and Nell’s heart jumped.

But a glance up informed her that it was Lord Dalmeer’s boots, not Mr. Fowell’s. The earl began clipping a holly branch. “Are you enjoying your time with Mr. Fowell?” He kept his voice low, as though he did not wish either Mr. Fowell or Miss Caldwell to hear.

Nell hesitated, glancing at the former, who watched from a dozen feet away. She returned her focus to her boot. “He is…very attentive.”

Lord Dalmeer chuckled softly as he clipped another bough. “He is certainly that.”

“And are you enjoying your time with Miss Caldwell?”

“Oh, immensely. She, too, is very…attentive. If these boots had laces, I would be pretending to tie them too.”

Nell’s cheeks filled with heat, but he shot her a smile, then returned to clipping the holly bough.

Nell stood and arranged her skirts.

“You know,” Lord Dalmeer said conversationally, “I think you look a bit unwell, Miss Prescott.”

Nell’s brows pinched together. “I beg your pardon?”

He tilted his head to regard her, his eyes twinkling. “You look as though you have a touch of the headache.”

Her hand stole to the hair beneath her bonnet, as she wondered just how disheveled she looked that he should say such a thing. “I find you quite uncivil, my lord.”

Lord Dalmeer smiled. “Do you? And here, I thought I was helping you.”

“By telling me I look unwell?”

He leaned toward her, speaking at a lower volume. “Believe me, Miss Prescott, you look very well.”

Her stomach swooped as he pulled back and met her gaze, his own full of meaning.

Suddenly, she understood. He was trying to find a reason for them to return to the house.

“Very well,” he conceded after her silence continued. “Not the headache. But are you not prone to take a chill?”

She failed to suppress a smile. “What a poor creature you think me, my lord.”

“Only today. But if you also refuse to take a chill, you might pretend an injury. A gruesome one, even, if your pride prefers it.”

“Must all rely upon me? You might pretend an injury just as easily as I.”