“‘Please pass the salt’ isn’t complicated,” Matilda replied. “I’m also making progress with those who can’t read. Your men are quick-witted and determined—like you.”

Never in his entire existence had Tremont considered himself quick-witted, though the determination part rang true enough.

“When I’m in Shropshire, I miss them,” Tremont said as they waited for the queue to file into the library. “When I’m in London…”

“You don’t miss Shropshire?”

“Not as I once did. It’s home, and I will delight in showing it to you, but Mama has the place quite in hand. I feel more useful here in London, haranguing Parliament, wheedling the parsons to spruce up their churchyards, and teaching Tommie to skip rocks. I will be content to dwell wherever you please to make our home, but London does have its attractions.”

Matilda gave his hand a surreptitious squeeze.

The rest of the company had shuffled into the library. Tremont remained in the corridor with his intended.

“I did not say this before…” Matilda still had him by the hand, and she had lowered her voice.

“Matilda?” Tremont steeled himself for any announcement—conditions of the betrothal, a change of heart, a request for more time. Matilda had been gracious but distracted all through supper, and Tremont hoped it was his lovemaking on her mind.

She was doubtless fretting over that damned key and that narrow house on the tired lane.

“I am all ears,” he said, taking her free hand. “Though in about one minute, the staff will thunder up the steps, and we will have no privacy whatsoever.”

Matilda leaned near. “I love you.”

Tremont waited, for the but… For the nonetheless… For the however. Delivering good news or compliments first was a rhetorical strategy for ensuring the hearer was paying attention to the subsequent bad news. Good news first also ensured the hearer regarded the speaker benignly when the inevitable reservations or criticisms came along. No fellow tasked with managing subordinates ignored the tactic of delivering the good news first.

“And…?”

“And I cannot wait to be your wife. I love you. I want you to know that. I think, ‘Now, I will tell him. Now when I am overcome with his tenderness or his consideration for others,’ and then you say something brisk and self-possessed, and the moment passes. But I love you, Marcus. You value my son, you value these men. You know your mother enjoys running the family seat, and you give her the latitude to do that even if you’re homesick. I wanted you to know. I say the words to Tommie, but I haven’t given them to anybody else.”

Tremont could not have surrendered his hold on Matilda’s hands for all the rhetorical devices in antiquity, and thus when Mrs. Winklebleck and her maids trundled past along with Cook—the maids bearing tea trays—he remained right where he was.

Which occasioned more smirking.