“You made it sound so appealing in your letter,” he remarked.

“Well, I knew you would hate it.”

“I might have found it amusing,” he said, even though they both knew that wasn’t true.

She gave him another one of those looks. “It would have been four unmarried young ladies, four young gentlemen from the university, Mr. and Mrs. Royle, and you.” And while she waited for that to sink in she added, “And possibly a dog.”

He gave her a dry smile. “I like dogs.”

That earned him a chuckle. She picked up a twig that lay near her hip and began to draw circles in the dirt. She looked utterly forlorn, bits of her hair falling poker-straight from its chignon. Her eyes looked tired, too. Tired and . . . something else. Something he didn’t like.

She looked defeated.

That was just wrong. Honoria Smythe-Smith should never look like that.

“Honoria,” he began.

But she looked up sharply at the sound of his voice. “I’m twenty-one, Marcus.”

He paused, trying to calculate. “That can’t be possible.”

Her lips pressed together peevishly. “I assure you, it is. There were a few gentlemen last year I thought might be interested, but none came up to scratch.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

Marcus cleared his throat, then found he needed to adjust his cravat.

“I suppose it was all for the best,” she went on. “I didn’t adore any of them. And one of them was—well, I once saw him kick a dog.” She frowned. “So I couldn’t possibly consider—well, you know.”

He nodded.

She straightened and smiled, looking quite resolutely cheerful. Perhaps too resolutely cheerful. “But this year I am determined to do better.”

“I am sure you will,” he said.

She looked up at him suspiciously.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing. But you needn’t be so condescending.”

What the devil was she talking about? “I wasn’t.”

“Oh, please, Marcus. You are always condescending.”

“Explain yourself,” he said sharply.

She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he didn’t see it. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean.”

She let out a snort as she clambered to her feet again. “You are always looking at people like this.” And then she made a face, one he couldn’t possibly begin to describe.

“If I ever look like that,” he said dryly, “precisely like that, to be more precise, I give you leave to shoot me.”

“There,” she said triumphantly. “Like that.”

He began to wonder if they were speaking the same language. “Like what?”

“That! What you just said.”

He crossed his arms. It seemed the only acceptable reply. If she couldn’t speak in complete sentences, he saw no reason why he had to speak at all.

“You spent all of last season glowering at me. Every time I saw you, you looked so disapproving.”

“I assure you that was not my intention.” At least not about her. He disapproved of the men who courted her favor, but never Honoria.