I appreciate your looking out for her. It was a great deal to ask, and I know I did not give you much choice, asking as I did on the eve of my departure. I shall assume the responsibility when I return, and you shall be free to leave London, which I know you detest.

And that was how Daniel ended his letter. Setting Marcus free of the dreadful burden that was, apparently, her.

She set the pages down, then rearranged them so that they would appear as they had been when she had picked them up.

Daniel had asked Marcus to watch over her? Why hadn’t Marcus said anything? And how stupid was she, really, that she had not figured it out? It made such perfect sense. All those parties when she’d caught Marcus glowering in her direction—he hadn’t been glowering at her because he disapproved of her behavior; he’d been in a bad mood because he was stuck in London until she received a good marriage proposal. No wonder he had seemed so miserable all the time.

And all those suitors who had mysteriously dropped her—he’d scared them off. He’d decided they were not what Daniel would want for her, and he’d gone behind her back and scared them off.

She should be furious.

But she wasn’t. Not about that.

All she could think about was what he’d said the night before. “I wasn’t looking at Sarah.”

Of bloody course he hadn’t been looking at Sarah. He’d been looking at her because he’d been forced to do so. He’d been looking at her because his best friend had made him promise.

He’d been looking at her because she was an obligation.

And now she was in love with him.

A horrified spurt of laughter burst from her throat. She had to get out of his room. The only thing that could make her mortification more complete would be his catching her reading his correspondence.

But she couldn’t go without leaving a note. That would be completely out of character; he’d know for sure that something was amiss.

So she found paper, and she found a pen, and she scrawled a perfectly ordinary, perfectly boring farewell.

And then she left.

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The following week

The recently aired-out music room

Winstead House, London

“Mozart this year!” Daisy Smythe-Smith announced. She held her new violin aloft with such vigor that her blond curls nearly bounced out of her coiffure. “Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s a Ruggieri. Father bought it for my sixteenth birthday.”

“It’s a beautiful instrument,” Honoria agreed, “but we did Mozart last year.”

“We do Mozart every year,” Sarah drawled from the piano.