To learn to be a man.

He set the miniature down and moved to the nearby window, leaning both hands against the sill. He was tired. And restless. It was a noxious combination.

He wanted this done.

He wanted to move forward, to find out—no, to know who he was.

And who he wasn’t.

He stood there for several minutes, staring out over the tidy lawn. There was nothing to see, not in the dead of night, and yet he could not seem to make himself move. And then—

His eyes caught a flash of movement, and he drew closer to the glass. Someone was outside.

Amelia.

It couldn’t be, and yet it indisputably was she. No one else had hair of that color.

What the devil was she doing? She wasn’t running off; she was far too sensible for that, and besides, she was not carrying a bag. No, she seemed to have decided to take a stroll.

At four in the morning.

Which was decidedly not sensible.

“Daft woman,” he muttered, grabbing a robe to throw over his thin shirt as he dashed out of his room. Was this what his life might have been, had he managed to marry her? Chasing her down in the middle of the night?

Less than a minute later he exited through the front door, which he noted had been left an inch ajar. He strode across the drive and onto the lawn where he’d seen her last, but nothing.

She was gone.

Oh, for the love of—he did not want to yell out her name. He’d wake the entire household.

He moved forward. Where the devil was she? She couldn’t have gone far. More than that, she wouldn’t have gone far. Not Amelia.

“Amelia?” he whispered.

Nothing.

“Amelia?” It was as loud as he dared.

And then suddenly there she was, sitting up in the grass. “Thomas?”

“Were you lying down?”

Her hair was down, hanging down her back in a simple braid. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen her this way. He couldn’t imagine when he could have done. “I was looking at the stars,” she said.

He looked up. He couldn’t not, after such a statement.

“I was waiting for the clouds to pass,” she explained.

“Why?”

“Why?” she echoed, looking at him as if he was the one who’d just made an incomprehensible statement.

“It is the middle of the night.”

“Yes, I know.” She tucked her feet under her, then pushed down against the ground with her hands and stood. “But it’s my last chance.”

“For what?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”

He started to say something, to scold her, shake his head at her foolishness. But then she smiled.

She looked so beautiful he almost felt struck.