Edward Forsythe was well aware that the young woman who had, by all accounts, saved his sister’s life, would not take too kindly to him turning up on her doorstep when she was expecting Clarissa’s chauffeur to call for her. There had been a finality to her goodbye on Monday evening that had stated quite clearly she wished him gone, and thinking back over their conversation when he had driven her home he had come to the conclusion that he hadn’t acquitted himself particularly well. He had said as much to Clarissa when he had returned to the house and his sister, with her gift for cutting through all the flannel and getting right to the bone of something, had raised her eyebrows and said, ‘And that matters to you?’

He had brooded on it all evening through the endless dinner at Lord Rochdale’s before finally admitting to himself that yes, it mattered. It mattered a great deal. For some reason he wanted Miss Ruby Morgan to like him. It was as simple as that. And it was because of this that he had stated casually over breakfast the morning after the dinner that he thought he might stay in the country for a few days rather than returning straight to town, if Clarissa was happy to have him? Clarissa had been happy, as he’d known she would be. His had been a lonely childhood – his parents had had little to do with any of their offspring, preferring to leave them in the care of their nanny and the other servants, and his two older brothers had been more like twins with only fifteen months between them – but when he had returned home for the summer hols from his prep school one day when he was eight years old and found a small gurgling baby sister installed in the nursery, he’d been enchanted.

He smiled to himself as he drove, remembering how Clarissa had changed his times at home from that point. She had been a demanding baby and a stubborn toddler who had grown into a wilful and determined little girl and then an indefatigable young woman with a mind of her own, but she was also warm and generous and loving, and he had adored her, and she in her turn had adored him right back. Their parents had been nonplussed by this cuckoo in the nest who wouldn’t be put in her place of being seen but not heard, and who defied them in a way he and his brothers wouldn’t have dreamed of doing. They had attempted to marry her off to an earl when she was eighteen years old and had been upset at her adamant refusal of what they considered an excellent match, and when she had rebuffed the attentions of another gentleman with excellent connections the following year had been beside themselves, especially considering her interest in suffrage. And then she had met her brigadier.