Harrison inserted the meat into his mouth, chewing. “Would it help you to…” he paused, gesturing with his fork, “to speak of the cause of your great peeving?”

“Yes.” She straightened, tossing her fair, golden hair in the candlelight of the room, the sheen of ribbons within catching the light particularly well. “I received a letter this morning from Anna. My cousin.”

“Ah.” He nodded and began to work at the potatoes on his plate. “The one you colluded with to confuse me on our first meeting. How is she?”

“Full of gossip,” Adelaide spat.

Harrison shrugged a shoulder. “Most young ladies of her age are. I am sure it can be cured.”

A child’s imitation of thunder rolling met his ears, and it was all he could do not to smile. “That she gossips is not the issue! It is what she gossips about that is!”

“Tell her to be more prudent, then, if it irks you so.”

“Shut up!”

He gestured with his cutlery for her to continue, chewing pointedly. He’d have to double-lock the door to his chambers tonight if he wished to see the dawn. Or sleep elsewhere.

Adelaide huffed loudly, shaking her head. “Anna tells me that Phillip is courting Eloise Markham now that I am gone.”

If Harrison was supposed to gasp in horror or groan in sympathetic distress, he was unaware of it.

He blinked. “Who is Phillip?”

She grumbled incoherently. “Mr. Phillip Evans. Surely you must have seen him about in London. He resembles Adonis in every possible way.”

The whimsical note in her description was grating, but he heard the sharp undertones well enough to know he was being baited.

“I never met Adonis, so I cannot have met his likeness,” Harrison told her with some apology. “Friend of yours?”

“You might say that.” Adelaide smiled with smugness, looking more arrogant than he had seen her yet. “He wanted to marry me.”

Harrison paused the chewing of his potato, his tongue pressing against his teeth briefly. “Not badly enough, it would seem, considering…” He flicked his fork tip toward the ceiling to indicate Trevadden.

Her smile hardened. “He did not have your fortune, nor my father’s approval.”

“That would be his problem, I believe.”

“I wanted to marry him, Basset.”

“And yet…”

She slammed a hand on the table with surprising force. “Have you no sympathy?” she cried. “I am breaking my heart over this!”

“I suggest you cease doing so,” he said calmly. He swallowed his potato and gave her as direct a look as he dared, his amusement at provoking her fading fast. “What did you expect, my lady? That he would continue to pine over you for the rest of his days while you were married to me? That life as you knew it would freeze in place, ready for you to pluck it up again when you return to London from time to time?”