“Ireland, Lady Amelia, a bit north of Dublin.”

“Ireland! My goodness, you are far afield.”

He merely smiled.

The two ladies found themselves back at their original seating area, and so Amelia disconnected her arm from Grace’s and sat down. “How are you enjoying Lincolnshire, Mr. Audley?”

“I find it most surprising.”

“Surprising?” Amelia glanced at Grace to see if she, too, found that answer curious, but Grace was now standing near the door, nervously looking out.

“My visit here has not been what I expected.”

“Really? What did you expect? I assure you, we are quite civilized in this corner of England.”

“Very much so,” he agreed. “More so than is my preference, as a matter of fact.”

“Why, Mr. Audley, whatever can that mean?”

He smiled enigmatically but did not say more, which Amelia found quite out of character. Then it occurred to her that she’d known him but fifteen minutes; how odd that she would find anything out of character.

“Oh,” she heard Grace say, and then: “Excuse me.”

Grace hurried from the room.

Amelia and Mr. Audley looked at each other, and then in unison both turned to the doorway.

Chapter 12

Aside from Harry Gladdish, the man who knew Thomas best was his valet, Grimsby, who had been with the duke since the day he left for university. Unlike most valets, Grimsby was of an exceedingly strong constitution. (Not that one would know this to look at him; he was quite slender, with pale skin that always worried the housekeeper, who kept trying to get him to eat more beef.)

When Thomas returned from a hell-for-leather gallop in the rain, his clothes soaked and muddied, Grimsby merely inquired after the horse.

When Thomas spent a day in the field, doing manual labor alongside his tenants, returning with any number of layers of grime on his skin, in his hair, and under his nails, Grimsby asked him if he preferred his bathwater warm, hot, or steaming.

But when Thomas staggered into his bedchamber, presumably still reeking of alcohol (he’d long since stopped noticing the odor), his cravat completely missing, and his eye a most remarkable shade of purple, Grimsby dropped his shoe brush.

It was possibly the only outward show of alarm he had ever displayed.

“Your eye,” Grimsby said.

Oh, right. He hadn’t seen Grimsby since his tussle with his lovely new cousin. Thomas gave him a flip sort of smile. “Perhaps we can choose a waistcoat to match.”

“I don’t believe we have one, your grace.”

“Is that so?” Thomas crossed to the basin. As usual, Grimsby had made sure it was filled with water. Lukewarm by this point, but he was in no position to complain. He splashed a bit on his face, rubbed himself with a hand towel, then repeated the entire process after a quick glance in the mirror revealed that he’d barely scratched the surface of his disrepair.