As if she’d heard the thought and feared it, Myrtle disentangled her fingers from the dark-haired gentleman’s. “This is my brother Dallin.”

One of the brothers.

One of the ones who’d forgotten her had gotten to her.

He and the other man eyed one another up and down.

A lifetime ago, Val would have cared about proper introductions being made. Now, he looked away, dismissing the gentleman and putting his attention where he wanted.

Myrtle, safe. She had her family. Everything was all confused in his mind. She wasn’t supposed to be with them. She was supposed to be alone. They were supposed to be alone.

But this . . . It was as if reality had returned and he’d been presented with a reminder that she was a young lady who’d not had a London Season and would. And . . .

“Is there . . . something else you want?” she asked.

Did he imagine the hopefulness in the uptilt of her question?

“I . . .” You. I want every tomorrow unto my last tomorrow with you. And then a million tomorrows after that.

Tell her.

Alas, her brother hadn’t been so jaded as to care so very little for formalities. The gentleman took a step forward. They’d never met, and he didn’t imagine the gentleman was home enough to clearly recognize him. “And just who, may I ask, is this?” the other man asked, confirming as much while also turning Val’s own words back on him.

In the end, it was Myrtle who made the formal introductions.

“Dallin, this is His Grace, the Duke of Aragon; Val, this is my brother Dallin, the Viscount Crichton.”

Suddenly, the gentleman’s eyebrows drew up as he placed Val. And Val remembered what the world knew him to be—a recluse, shut away from the world, icy cold and miserable. And because of it, certainly not the manner of man ever worthy of a woman as good and joyous as Myrtle McQuoid.

The other man found himself first. He sketched a bow. “Your Grace.”

Incapable of a returned greeting, Val managed only to incline his head.

He looked to Myrtle, floundering, because when he’d imagined finding her, he’d seen playing out in his mind first the offer of marriage he’d make her. And then there’d been all the worst possible scenarios—ones that, by the state of the mail coach, had nearly come true. But he’d not imagined . . . her family with her.