Campion was not at his post, so the second housemaid, a rather timid girl who had only recently been promoted to an upper housemaid, opened the door instead. She was no match for a real earl demanding to see Lady Charlotte. She curtsied so deeply that her knees knocked together, and fled upstairs.

“Lady Charlotte,” she stammered. “He’s here, now, here, downstairs, here, in the Green Room, here.”

Charlotte looked up, startled. She was sitting in front of her dressing table while Marie put a few deft finishing touches to her hair. She was wearing a walking dress of rosy silk. It left her slender arms bare; Marie was threading a ribbon of the same color through her curls.

Charlotte had a good sense of who the Earl of Sheffield and Downes must be. Her heart was beating fast. Part of her yearned to race out to his carriage. But she had an engagement with Lord Holland, and ladies do not break appointments on a whim. Marie’s hands were trembling with excitement. The gossip columns were full of information about the handsome earl and his recent return from Italy.

Meanwhile Campion took the flummoxed housemaid’s arm in a strong grip that promised retribution for her garbled message. Servants were never to be disturbed by anything that might happen in the household, as he himself had lectured the downstairs staff just a week or so ago.

Of course, in Calverstill House nothing really happened to disturb a servant, but Campion rigorously lectured those under his command anyway. You never knew about underservants. They might quit at any moment and join a household full of unsteady characters or drunkards. His training was intended to prepare them to behave impeccably no matter where they found themselves.

With the steadying influence of Campion’s hand on her arm, the second housemaid (whose name was Lily), pulled herself together and curtsied to Lady Charlotte. “The earl is downstairs and I put him in the Green Room,” she said, fairly clearly. “And he’s not alone. He has a small child with him.”

Charlotte rose. Her heart was beating like a triphammer. “Thank you, Lily,” she said. “I shall see him myself.” She descended the stairs, her mind whirling. He couldn’t be married, could he? Her heart felt painfully large in her chest.

Charlotte paused in the door of the Green Room. It was he. He had his back turned to her, but she would recognize his broad shoulders anywhere. Her eyes swept down his back. He was wearing an elegant gray jacket, molded to his large body, and skintight pantaloons in dove gray, with high boots. Her eyes stopped at his feet.

Sitting between his feet was one of the plumpest, most enchanting children she had ever seen. The little face peering between the earl’s boots had round cheeks and three or four dimples, and unmistakably, her father’s flyaway eyebrows.