“Tommie is in the attic, chaperoning Jensen while she and Tucker argue over furniture.”

“He’s making a fort with Holland covers, old barrels, and discarded rugs and having the time of his life. Come have tea with me, and we can spat and scrap over the ledgers, shall we?”

“I don’t want to spat and scrap,” Matilda began, and Tremont smiled at her. Not the smug, self-satisfied smiles Harry used to toss her way when he’d argued her into a corner, but a purely understanding, good-humored smile of commiseration.

“What do you want?” he asked.

What Matilda wanted astonished her. A hug—from Tremont. A little embrace in the middle of the day to fortify her against petty vexations. Some affection to remind her that life was full of small pleasures and that a moment could turn sweet without warning.

She’d learned with Harry not to initiate such moments, lest they turn unsweet—for her.

“I want to gobble your tea cakes, my lord. Let me fetch my ledgers, and I’ll meet you by the front door.”

“I will retrieve the ledgers from the library. You might want to look in on Tommie and tell him you’re going out. Remind him that spies like to come and go through the postern gate.”

“How do you do that?” Matilda asked, starting for the stairs to the first floor. “You are the epitome of organization and self-possession, but then you offer proof that your imagination is capable of flights, even as you look all dapper and adult.”

Tremont followed her up the steps, as a gentleman was supposed to. “I am sadly lacking in imagination, or happily unbothered by fancies, but I do recall my childhood. Like Tommie, I had few playmates, and like Tommie, I dwelled in a sizable domicile full of people larger than I. A boy finds ways to pass the time.”

His lordship had conceived of this house, of the landscaping venture, of a means of earning a living in the slums, and yet, he considered himself lacking in imagination.

Matilda paused at the top of the steps. “What spies came in through your postern gate, my lord?”

He gave the same smile—all sweet reason—but a little sadder. “Responsibility, duty, familial obligations, patriotism, and myriad dull pursuits attendant to adulthood. To the parapets with you, Mrs. Merridew, and I will meet you by the front door.”

Tommie informed Matilda from beneath a construction of blankets that pirates were swarming up the beach, and she’d best get to safety as soon as she could. As she came back down the steps, she realized that even a short exchange with Tremont had improved her spirits.

That he would drape her cloak about her shoulders, hand her her gloves, and hold the door for her made the day inexplicably better.