Another girl might have tossed her hair and said, You can’t order me about! Another, slightly less prideful girl might have thought it, even if she’d lacked the courage to say it aloud. But Honoria was cold, and she valued her comfort more than her pride, and more to the point, this was Marcus Holroyd, and she’d known him since she was in pinafores.

Since the age of six, to be precise.

That was also probably the last time she’d managed to show herself to advantage, she thought with a grimace. At seven she’d made such a pest of herself that he and her brother Daniel had taken to calling her Mosquito. When she’d claimed to be complimented, that she’d loved how exotic and dangerous it had sounded, they’d smirked and changed it to Bug.

Bug she’d been, ever since.

He’d seen her wetter than this, too. He’d seen her completely soaked, back when she was eight and she’d thought she’d been completely hidden in the boughs of the old oak tree at Whipple Hill. Marcus and Daniel had built a fort at its base, no girls allowed. They had pelted her with pebbles until she’d lost her grip and tumbled down.

In retrospect, she really shouldn’t have chosen the branch that hung over the lake.

Marcus had fished her out of the dunk, though, which was more than she could say for her own brother.

Marcus Holroyd, she thought ruefully. He’d been in her life almost as long as she could remember. Since before he was Lord Chatteris, since before Daniel was Lord Winstead. Since before Charlotte, her closest-in-age sister, had married and left home.

Since before Daniel, too, had left.

“Honoria.”

She looked up. Marcus’s voice was impatient, but his face held a hint of concern. “Get in,” he repeated.

She nodded and did as he said, taking his large hand in hers and accepting his help into his carriage. “Marcus,” she said, trying to settle herself into her seat with all the grace and nonchalance she might exhibit in a fine drawing room, never mind the puddles at her feet. “What a lovely surprise to see you.”

He just stared at her, his dark brows coming ever-so-slightly together. He was trying to decide the most effective way to scold her, she was sure.

“I am staying here in town. With the Royles,” she told him, even though he hadn’t yet asked. “We are here for five days—Cecily Royle, my cousins Sarah and Iris, and I.” She waited for a moment, for some sort of flash of recognition in his eyes, then said, “You don’t remember who they are, do you?”

“You have a great many cousins,” he pointed out.

“Sarah is the one with the thick, dark hair and eyes.”

“Thick eyes?” he murmured, cracking a tiny smile.

“Marcus.”

He chuckled. “Very well. Thick hair. Dark eyes.”

“Iris is very pale. Strawberry blond hair?” she prompted. “You still don’t recall.”

“She comes from that family of flowers.”