“Never having had a lady friend before—in the sense you intend—I cannot answer that query. Sit down and let me know how I can help.”

“Stop telling me what to do.” Outside the snow had gone from pretty to purposeful. For the first time, the prospect of a snowy Sunday on the morrow struck Ellie as dreary rather than cozy. She sank into the chair by the fire and forced her mind to focus.

Lord Stephen was right: She was without allies and she was balanced over a flaming pit of scandal. He had no reason to blackmail anybody—he was wealthy in his own right and his brother’s heir.

“Shall I get the wine?” he asked.

“Please.” She began arranging the story in her head, which details to include, in what order to present them. “You can do nothing to help, by the way. Matters as they stand are quite acceptable. I’m gainfully employed and respected by those whose opinions matter.”

He retrieved the wine bottle from the window and two glasses from the sideboard, putting the lot in his lap so he could use both hands to wheel his chair about.

“Respect can be lost in an instant,” he said, “as can employment. Friends, I’m told, are more durable.”

Ellie accepted a glass of wine rather than point out that he’d apparently not spoken from experience. Maybe she wasn’t the only person to regard the first snowfall bleakly.

“My grandfather never set out to be a forger,” she said. “Circumstances not of his making controlled his fate, but once ruined, an artist cannot be un-ruined.” That much was true. That was the old scandal. Ellie sipped her wine and promised herself the Naylor family’s more recent tribulations could remain private, at least until she’d finished repairing Elsmore’s accounting.

*  *  *

Rex enjoyed the Sabbath in part because Sunday socializing was limited to the churchyard and those friends who merited an invitation to supper. The churchyard had been filling with yet more snow, which curtailed that penance.

For the Sunday meal, Lord Jeremy Bledsoe and the Honorable Phineas Hornby graced the table. Rex’s sisters kept the conversational shuttlecock aloft, leaving Rex free to smile graciously while he brooded over one luscious, ill-advised kiss.

Eleanora Hatfield kissed with her whole body. She’d wrapped Rex in her arms and in her rosy scent and plundered his every asset, from his reason to his restraint, until he’d been roaringly aware of the bed and of the manly humors he’d been neglecting for too long.

“Elsmore, haven’t you anything to add to this discussion?” Lord Jeremy inquired.

Rachel, who was wearing a blue walking dress sprigged with gold embroidered fleur-de-lis, sent his lordship a toothy smile. “Elsmore is being diplomatically silent, as a good brother will be when the topic of ladies wearing trousers is aired on the Sabbath.”