Satisfied with that, Atalanta scrambled into the second carriage like a child. Pollux, who should've known better, aided her with a shove instead of a gentlemanly hand.

Mr. Lysander Worthington was up on the fine thoroughbred Icarus, standing like a centaur statue out in the lane, waiting for the carriages to roll.

Gemma did not wave to him, nor did he do other than gaze back toward the house with his hat shading his eyes.

There was really nothing more to be said, was there?

IN THE SECOND LUXURIOUS carriage that rattled south down the river road, Button mused over Lysander Worthington's decision.

"Mrs. Oakes is such a sincere person, and with such perfect posture! I wish I could dress her again. And those eyes!" He sighed. "I am ever seduced by a gentle gaze." He chewed his lower lip for a moment. "How could he leave such a creature behind?"

Cabot picked nonexistent lint from a perfect cuff. "Lysander left because she asked him to." Then his sharp gaze rose to pin Button back to the velvet seatback cushion with the intensity of it. "Just as I did."

Button drew in a shocked breath. "I never asked you to leave!"

"You never ask for your tea either, but I always know precisely when to bring it to you." Cabot did not back down, nor glance casually away as he usually did when the conversation became a touch too personal. "I know you, Joshua Samuel Button, better than you know yourself."

Button lifted his chin. "No one calls me Joshua. I left him behind when I walked beaten and bloodied from my father's tailor shop." Only Cabot knew that tale, offered up a decade ago to comfort a furious and bewildered young man.

Cabot nodded. "And you created Lementeur, The Liar, master of fashionable artistry and subterfuge. You are a virtuoso, creating a new man, with attentiveness to every last detail. Except for one."

Button opened his mouth to protest but Cabot stayed him with an upraised palm.

"I have something to say and you will hear it, Joshua. That young man's heart could not be made over, for hearts never can be. So you buried it under charming generosity, expending yourself upon every broken spirit, every unfortunate figure, every searching heart. I count the romances you assisted by the hundreds. You are ever driven, my Joshua, my dearest beloved Button, my much admired Lementeur, to give the world the one thing of which you have deprived yourself. Love."

Button couldn't speak. His chest ached and his hands turned to ice.

Relentlessly, Cabot went on. "If Lysander Worthington can batter through his tragic silence to speak of his love, how can I keep hiding my own behind the wall formed of nothing but your illogical resistance?"

He gazed at Button, his cool urbane façade fallen away. In his clever clouded-sky eyes there blazed only his heart, unshielded and unafraid.

Button suddenly, desperately longed for such freedom from fear.