“Why do I feel that, if I actually went to your country, I would discover you have not been entirely truthful about it?”

“You shall have to visit it and find out. And to visit it, you shall have to stay with me, so that I may escort you there and introduce you to my family as my beloved.”

I roll my eyes. We are approaching the far side of the dance floor, and with one final whirl, we are there.

“The door is straight ahead,” he whispers. “I will pretend I am taking you outside for some air.”

He lifts my hand again, a courtly and proper escort guiding me through the crowd.

“Miranda?” a voice says behind us.

I do not turn. I recognize that voice, and my heart squeezes with the pain of what feels like betrayal, but I pretend I do not hear her, and Nicolas does the same. Then Emily is in front of us, frowning.

“Miranda, wherever—?”

She sees Nicolas and gives a sharp inhale. “Oh.”

“We are stepping out for air,” I say as calmly as I can. “We will return in a—”

“Nicolas,” she says, and my heart jumps into my throat.

I’m about to deny it, pretend she has mistaken my escort for another.

“Oui, Miss Emily,” Nicolas murmurs.

Her gaze turns to me then. I brace for anger, for outrage, but the look in her eyes is worse. It isn’t even disappointment. It’s acceptance. Sad acceptance, as if thinking this is the obvious answer. I had been so friendly and so kind, and of course I had an ulterior motive. Of course I betrayed her.

I try to remind myself that she may have betrayed Nicolas first. But that hurt in her eyes says she did not. Whatever happened, she was her uncle’s dupe, as her grandfather said.

“We must go,” I say, my voice low. “I’m sorry, Emily. So very sorry. It was important.”

“I know,” she says, her gaze dropping. “If you are helping Dr. Dupuis, then you are doing God’s work for the people of the bay. Thank you.”

Those last two words, spoken without a spark of sarcasm, cut straight through me.

I reach to squeeze her arm. “I am sorry. I will apologize better later, if I can.”

“No need.” Her gaze goes from Nicolas to me, and her lips twist. “Of course, he would be with someone like . . .” She inhales sharply again. “You must leave.”

“We truly must. We were caught and fled to the dance floor.”

“And now you’re running out the front door?” She shakes her head. “Follow me. There is another way.”

“No,” says a voice behind us. I glance back to see Lord Thomas’s ghost. I’d lost sight of him when we fled, and now he’s there, as agitated as ever. “The foreyard is clear. They think you ran out the back.”

He says more, but I don’t hear it. Nicolas tightens his hand on mine as he tugs me in Emily’s wake. I glance at him, my gaze asking whether he trusts her, and he only makes a gesture that is half headshake and half shrug. He isn’t sure of her intentions, only that he agrees we ought not to flee through the front door.