Jane was so taken aback by this query that they walked on for some feet before she felt herself equal to answering. “I hardly know what answer to give, sir. My sister has not confessed her heart to me, and if she did, I would feel obligated to preserve her trust.”

He nodded. “But you told me when you thought she had developed an attachment for Mr. Dunkirk, did you not? Does this query represent any less of a concern for your sister’s well-being? I will not require you to answer, only think: does keeping your silence help your sister, or will it ultimately harm her?”

“I cannot think that you believe Captain Livingston capable of harming my sister.” But Jane wondered if her own motive in exposing her sister’s regard for Mr. Dunkirk had been less a concern for her sister’s reputation and more from a wish to separate and halt a relationship which she had no reason to desire. “Is there some reason you ask me this?”

“Only that I notice that he calls more frequently and that in their excitement to be ready for the dinner, Melody and your mother spoke only of Captain Livingston.” He paused in his walk and fingered the branch of a shrubbery as if it were an aid to his thoughts. “You do not speak of Captain Livingston.”

His emphasis left little doubt of his meaning, and his next words removed all uncertainty. “Is there one of whom you do speak, or wish to speak?”

Jane thought of Mr. Dunkirk and of the happy hours in Beth’s company, which had afforded Jane time to closely judge his character and to find it in every way as good and honest as it had appeared from a distance. She had not hitherto allowed herself to hope, but if Melody’s affections had truly transferred to Captain Livingston, that would remove the most immediate obstacle to Mr. Dunkirk. It left her plainness and her awkward carriage, but to a man such as him, might these things be overlooked in favour of her talent?

But these were idle fancies, not suitable for voicing even to herself, much less to her father, howsoever much she honoured him for his concern on her behalf. Jane said merely, “There is no one to speak of.”

Her father broke off his study of the shrubbery and turned to her. Jane kept her composure under his gaze, knowing that she had told nothing but the truth.

The small hope in her heart was nothing of which she could speak.

The night of Lady FitzCameron’s dinner party, Mr. Ellsworth presented each of his daughters and his wife with a posy which he had picked with his own hands from the rose garden in the middle of the maze. Though he had needed Nancy’s aid in turning them into something other than an odd assortment of flowers which he had wrested from the rosebushes, the final effect was so pleasing that the Misses Ellsworths and Mrs. Ellsworth lost no time adding the corsages to their toilette for the evening.