“What?” the duchess exclaimed. “Oh, she can’t leave yet. We’ve a dinner party tomorrow and I’ve invited my friend, Mrs. Prentiss, and her charming son specifically for our Nora.”

Constantine looked at the lady sharply, his gut clenching for some reason. Why specifically for Nora?

“You cannot mean to entertain tomorrow night, my dear. You are not well—”

“Rubbish! I am quite recovered and just fine now.”

“Maude, I forbid—”

It was the lady’s turn to laugh now. “Oh, Victor, that is amusing. You’ve never forbidden me from anything. What makes you think you can start now and that I will listen?”

The duke opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly at a loss.

“Now.” The duchess fixed her gaze on the maid standing nearby. “Please fetch Miss Langley, Polly, and inform her that I should like some of that splendid tea again. Quite restorative.” She nodded brusquely and then turned to look at her husband. “I’ll see the housekeeper now as well, to make sure all is in order for tomorrow evening. There is much to go over.”

The duke’s shoulders slumped. “Very well, m’dear.”

Nora carefully carried the tray of steaming willow bark tea to the duchess’s bedchamber. The cook had (again) glared at her the entire time she had prepared it, clearly resenting Nora’s presence in her domain.

Yesterday the glare had felt more tolerant, but it seemed the cook’s tolerance for outsiders in her kitchen was waning. Today Nora felt the full, relentless blast of that glare. Apparently one day was to be tolerated, but a second day? Just barely.

Who knew what a third day of Nora invading her kitchen would bring? Fortunately, Nora would not have to find out Cook’s reaction. She had reached her decision. Her things were packed and ready to go.

As soon as she delivered this tea to the duchess and visited for a spell, she would be on her way to the train station with Bea, and that much sooner to forgetting all about Constantine Sinclair and how she had briefly shared his world and did things with him—to him. Intimate and wondrous things that she did not imagine happening again. Not with any other man. She would not feel the same craving for another man. It could not be duplicated. This much she knew.

She winced. It was all terribly complicated, compounded by his proposal. As lacking as she had found that proposal . . . there was a part of her that wished it had been real—that it had been different.

A footman held open the door for her and she entered the spacious bedchamber. The drapes were pulled back and the morning sunlight poured into the room.

The lady of the house was not alone. She had visitors.