And the thing of it was, it had been a bloody lie. He’d not regretted a single, precious moment spent with her. Nay, stolen time.

But he’d allowed her to believe he hadn’t. He’d suggested that he’d never wanted her around, and that had been his greatest crime of all. He might have betrayed Rhys, but his intentions had been honest, as Lettie had pointed out.

Where she was concerned, however, he’d been a deuced liar.

“Are you going to continue to scowl at me the whole breakfast?” Eloise drawled, and he blinked slowly before lowering his gaze slightly to where she was seated directly opposite him.

He grunted. “I’m not scowling at you,” he said, reaching for his cup of coffee. “I’m just…scowling.”

That was entirely different.

“I’d be a terrible sister if I didn’t ask just why you are scowling,” she said as she lathered an obscene amount of jelly upon her toast, just as she’d done since she was old enough to hold her own knife.

If he’d been capable of smiling, he would have at the memory. But he rather suspected he was never going to smile again.

“Well?”

“I didn’t think you were asking, so much as making a statement,” he said, taking a sip.

“Does this have anything to do with Lady Lettie?” she asked curiously, and he choked on his swallow.

How in hell did she know that?

A little glimmer sparkled in his sister’s eyes. “Ah, so it is. Almost a fortnight ago, when I was in the drawing room with my callers that morning, I happened to look outside and saw you running through puddles.”

He resisted the urge to squirm. “I wasn’t…running through puddles,” he mumbled.

“Very well, we shall be specific, then. You happened to be running through puddles as you gave chase to her bonnet.”

“Did you expect I should have just let it go?” he gritted.

“If she is a lady who means something to you, of course not. If, however, she is not a woman whom you feel any romantic feelings for, then I would expect you would let Stewart or Michael or any of the other footmen close at hand see to the task themselves.”

He’d always appreciated that his sister was clever and not like some of the ladies who were more consumed with a Season and themselves than the world around them. Until this moment. This moment, he’d have appreciated if this were one of those times when she was absorbed in the attention of those fawns falling over her and not in Anthony’s business.

“Is Lady Lettie also the reason you’ve given up your morning horse rides?”

This was really enough.

Anthony met this latest line of questioning with a stony silence.