“Is that what you call this? It sounded to me like a drawing room matron’s idle curiosity. Leave the inquiries to me, Cousin. You lack finesse.” He strode out, not at all contented anymore.

* * *

“Are you feeling well?” Elise asked. “You appear sad and have been silent since we left the estate.”

Minerva had been dwelling on the night before, fixing the memories securely in her mind. She was not sad, so much as wistful. She gathered her emotions so she might not show them so much. “Let us pass the time discussing what we learned at that house. You can tell me what you saw and heard.”

“I’d rather talk about the house itself. Such space and luxury. I don’t think I’ll ever see the likes of it again.”

She indulged Elise for an hour, then they retreated into their own thoughts.

She rarely spoke again, all the way back to London over the next three days. She accepted by the first evening that it might take a while to overcome her feelings about Chase, and what she had briefly known and now rejected.

As soon as the coach stopped in front of her home, she sought out her own chamber.

“Are you ill?”

The question pulled her out of a reverie in which her time at Melton Park repeated over and over. She looked behind her to see Beth closing the door. The image proved filmy. She had not even realized she’d been weeping.

“Elise said you have not been yourself.”

The emotions started rising in her body, almost taking her breath away. “I have been very foolish, Beth.”

“That man? Did you let him kiss you?”

To admit it had been more than kisses would only upset Beth. “Do not blame him.”

Beth sat beside her on the edge of the bed. “Not the best choice on your part, under the circumstances. Not the right man to try that with.”

“I know that.”

“Not a man to get sweet on, I told you.”

“You did at that.”

An arm came around her. “Well, there’s no sense to these things, is there?”

That embrace, so familiar and caring, broke her. Soft arms enclosed her while she wept onto Beth’s shoulder.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chase remained at Melton Park two more days. One night he left after dinner, then pretended to be a person entering the house without anyone’s awareness. He left his horse down the lane in the trees, and approached on foot. Even with the servants up and about, he managed to get all the way to the parapet without being seen.

He had long conversations with the land steward and the grooms. Minerva had pursued the other servants for information. He would have to find out what she learned.