“William, it’s sufficiently obvious that even you will have noticed it, and I assure you the other women have. Women of the first type dislike women of the second type, particularly if the woman of the second type is young, beautiful, and possessed of either charm or money.” He ran a hand through his hair, still thick and blond, though showing traces of white near his face. “I suppose I could beg Mrs. Holmes or Lady Prévost to ask Amaranthus to a hen party of some sort, but I very much doubt that she’d go.”

“And even knowing what you do,” William said, quite gently, “you like her and worry that she’s lonely. After all, the situation’s not her fault.”

His father sighed heavily. He was looking rather disheveled, and a faint smell of spoilt milk hung about him, likely connected to the imperfectly cleaned whitish stain on his charcoal-colored sleeve. Trevor had been weaned but had not yet mastered the mysteries of drinking from a cup.

“You need a nursemaid,” William said.

“Yes, I do,” his father said promptly. “You.”

HE COULDN’T SAY he was sorry to be back in Oglethorpe Street. Bachelor living with John Cinnamon had been pleasant enough, and it was good to have a friend always at hand, to share whatever came along. But he was happy—if a little anxious—for Cinnamon. The small house they’d shared on the edge of the marsh seemed damp and desolate, and his spirits sank when the sun went down, leaving him alone in the shadows with the smell of mud and dead fish. It was good now, to wake in the morning to sunlight and the noises of people in the house below.

And then there was the food. Whatever Moira’s intransigence with regard to grilled tomatoes, the woman was a phoenix with fish, shellfish, and roasted alligator with apricot sauce. She had even—with a little persuasion and the gift of a bottle of good brandy—allowed Lord John to teach her how to make Potatoes Dauphinoise.

And then there was Amaranthus.

He saw at once what Lord John had meant: she was subdued, picking away at her needlework with eyes downcast, only speaking when someone spoke to her. Polite, always—but always distant, as though her thoughts were elsewhere.

Probably in New Jersey, he thought, and was surprised to feel a sort of sympathy for her. It truly wasn’t her fault.

William set himself to bring her back into cordial society and, in the process, found that some parts of his own character that he had set aside over the last year were not in fact dead. He was beginning to dream at night—about England.

They played games in the evening. Chess, draughts, backgammon, dominoes … if Hal or someone else was there for supper, they played whist or brag, and all three men smiled to see Amaranthus light up in the fire of competition; she was a cutthroat cardplayer and played chess like a cat, her changeable eyes fixed on the board as though the chessmen were mice, an imaginary tail gently waving to and fro behind her shoulder, until she pounced and showed her white teeth.