“I am dreadfully sorry to disturb you, my lord,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“I am not ‘my lord’,” he responded with as much patience as he could muster. “Merely ‘sir’. Let me know how I may assist you.”

“You are very good.” The young lady surveyed the room with wide eyes, and upon spotting a gory painting of a hunting scene covering the entire back wall, shuddered and turned her back on it, the root of which gesture appeared to be more from artifice than delicacy.

Lucius waited, his irritation tinged with ready amusement. “But how came you to be here, Miss—?”

“Miss Woodsley. The stagecoach set me down on the knoll, and I mistook the location. I believed it to be the road leading to the Craigsons’.”

“The stagecoach already? It must be the first time ever it has arrived early.” When she didn’t respond, he inquired, “And who are these Craigsons?”

The girl bit her plump lower lip and looked fully into his eyes. She was quite pretty and, with a jolt, Lucius realized there was also something familiar about her. London Society? A local family? He could not place her.

“The Craigsons are a large family from Hertfordshire,” she said. “I was invited by their daughter Constance to visit.”

Lucius frowned. “I thought I knew every family in the neighborhood. Unless they have rented the Burnham Estate?” He looked at her. “In what village are they located?”

“They reside at Coddicot, my lord—sir.”

“Coddicot! Good heavens, child. You are quite a distance from there. The stagecoach splits south of here at Welwyn, and you are now east of where you want to be in Woolmer Green.”

Any potential humor he might have felt over her studied innocence vanished at the fix he now found himself in. He would be honor-bound to escort her to the home of these Craigsons’ without delay. And in this weather, too! It spoke a rapid end to his peace. “How came you to travel alone with no one to see to your safety?”

Miss Woodsley cast her eyes upward before answering. “The head mistress at Paisley Seminary said a maid could not be spared to accompany me, sir, and that I would do very well on the stagecoach.”

“Indeed. What an odd notion for a head mistress to have, as one who should be concerned for your well-being. A delicately nurtured—and young—female such as yourself left to make her own way? I cannot comprehend it.” I cannot credit it either.

Miss Woodsley ducked her head and studied the melting snow on the sides of her boots. Lucius felt the burden of her presence. How he’d needed this evening of solitude and calm, and how little he relished taking the carriage out in such weather.

He paused. His sister was likely still at St. Albans and therefore of no use, but perhaps Lady Harrowden would take her in. It would be deuced awkward to see his old neighbor again after having neglected her for the past two years, but surely she would see he was in a fix?