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“Would you like a dish of kippers, Mr. Holland?” Leke inquired.

“No, thank you, Leke. Merely a cup of coffee and some toast, please.” He couldn’t bring himself to ask about Lina. “Has my brother eaten yet?”

“Lord Godwin is still in bed,” Leke responded. “He was working at the piano quite late at night.” After fussing for a moment with the dishes on the side table, Leke left, closing the door behind him.

Tom sat down and found himself wondering what Lina looked like in the morning, all sleepy and rumpled. Before he realized it, he was struggling with the impulse to run up the stairs and knock on Lina’s door. In the general run of things, Tom didn’t find himself faced with much temptation of the ungodly sort. His parish was small and such nobility as there were in Beverley attended the much larger and more majestic Minster Church. That didn’t mean he was ignored by the local gentry: the younger son of an earl, with a good private living, would never be ignored. But the temptations offered by local damsels had not, so far, been much of a struggle.

Lina was another story.

I want her, Tom thought to himself. I want her more than I’ve wanted any woman in my life. And it’s not just lust (although he was uneasily unaware that he was possessed by a feverish variety of that emotion, such as he’d never experienced before). But I want all of her, he reassured himself: that silly chuckle, her odd knowledge of the Bible, even those horrible jokes she keeps offering to tell me.

Very precisely he cut his toast into small squares. He’d spent a great deal of his life respecting his instinct. An unmanly thing to do, perhaps, but it had worked for him. Instinct had led him to take the healthy inheritance his mother left him and more than triple it with shrewd investments. Instinct had told him to return to London and patch things together with his brother. Instinct told him…

Lina was the one for him. She was wildly unsuitable for a vicar’s wife. Marrying her would likely ruin the possibility of his ever being transferred to a larger parish. Moreover, if his local Bishop found out that he had married his brother’s mistress, he’d be thrown out of his parish entirely. Marrying her would…marrying her was his only option, so why should he worry about the consequences? He finished his toast. If only he could just throw her over a horse and flee back to the North Country.

He didn’t see Lina until afternoon. She didn’t come to luncheon, and neither did Rees. And neither did Helene for that matter, although Tom could hardly blame her for taking meals in her room. He was surprised his brother’s wife emerged at all. Finally, he was so tired of waiting around downstairs that he decided to visit Meggin in the nursery.

The moment he walked down the hallway, he heard laughter. Lina laughed with the clear, belly-rocking enjoyment of a child, not with the practiced thrills of a courtesan. Because she was not a courtesan, Tom thought to himself, pushing open the door. Her clear eyes could not lie to him. His brother—his own rotgut brother—had made her a kept woman, a mistress. Tom hated the truth of it. It made him feel as if a piece of steel was lodged in his chest.

Lina was sitting on a low stool next to the window and Meggin was standing behind her, drawing a brush through her long hair. Neither of them saw him for a moment. Meggin was utterly concentrated on watching the gleaming river of Lina’s hair run by her brush, and Lina was saying, “so you see, Meggin, the miller didn’t have any choice other than to send his three sons out to seek their fortune.”

“Why couldn’t they stay home with him?” Tom said, walking toward them. Lina looked up quickly, and there was a welcome in her eyes. “Good afternoon, Miss McKenna,” he said, with a bow, and, “Hello, Miss Meggin.” Meggin didn’t even look up, just kept watching as if mesmerized, as her brush swirled through the silk of Lina’s hair.

“Meggin, darling,” Lina said, twisting about. “I think my hair is sufficiently groomed. May I ask you to brush my hair again later, please?”

A flash of real anger crossed the little girl’s face and she reached out to grab Lina’s hair and keep it in place.

“This afternoon,” Lina said calmly, standing up and handing Meggin the swansdown muff.

Meggin blinked and began to brush the muff carefully.

“If you would ring that bell, Mr. Holland,” Lina said, “Rosy will return to the nursery to take charge of Meggin.”

Tom rang the bell. “Meggin,” he said, turning back to the little girl, “would you like to go for a ride in the park this afternoon?”

She didn’t look up or reply in any way.

“I thought perhaps you might like to see the lions in the Tower of London?” he tried again.

She still didn’t look up, but she said something.

“What?” he asked.

“Izzat near the Pewter Inn?”

“No,” he said.

Her mouth trembled for a moment and she went back to brushing the muff without a word.

At that moment, Rosy bounced into the room and so they left.

“Meggin is not happy,” Lina said without preamble, after Tom closed the door behind them. “She speaks only in order to ask when she will see Mrs. Fishpole.”

“I could take her back there, but only for a visit,” Tom said rather helplessly. “Meggin was sleeping on a pile of rags in the corner, and Mrs. Fishpole’s circumstances were not such that she could take Meggin in herself.”

Lina walked down the hall. “So you rescued her? Just like that? Took her away without a second thought?”

“I had no choice,” Tom said, feeling oddly defensive.