Now her expression turned incredulous. “Mother will be beyond delighted, but no one else will believe it.”

Thomas was not quite certain why that stung, but it did, and it turned his own voice to ice. “Would you care to explain that comment?”

She let out a laugh, and then, when he did not say anything, jerked to attention and said, “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Did I give you some indication that I was not?”

Her lips pressed together and for a moment she almost looked humble. “Of course not, your grace.”

He did not bother to remind her to call him Thomas.

“But surely you must see my point,” she continued, just when he thought she was through. “Do I ever visit with you at Belgrave?”

“You visit all the time.”

“And see you for the prescribed ten minutes, fifteen if you are feeling generous.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “You were far more amenable when you thought I was drunk.”

“You were drunk.”

“Regardless.” He bowed his head for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. Blast it all, what was he going to do about this?

“Is your head bothering you?” she asked.

He looked up.

“You do that”—she imitated his gesture—“when your head is bothering you.

He’d been doing it so much during the past twenty-four hours, it was a wonder the spot wasn’t as bruised as his eye. “Any number of things are bothering me,” he said curtly, but she looked so stricken he was compelled to add, “I do not refer to you.”

Her lips parted but she did not comment.

He did not speak, either, and a full minute passed before she said, her voice careful, and indeed almost rueful, “I think we shall have to go. To Belgrave,” she clarified, when his gaze caught hers.

“I am sure you were thinking as I was,” she continued, “that we could simply take the carriage out to the country and while away an hour or two before returning me home.”

He was, actually. It would be hell on her reputation, were they discovered, but somehow that seemed the least of his concerns.

“But you don’t know my mother,” she added. “Not as I do. She will send someone to Belgrave. Or perhaps come herself, under some guise or another. Probably something about borrowing more books from your grandmother. If she arrives, and I am not there, it will be a disaster.”

He almost laughed. The only reason he did not was that it would be the height of insult, and there were certain gentlemanly traits he could not abandon, even when the world was falling down around him.