When it came to relieving the duchess of her malaise, he’d known instantly the man to see. There was only one person who could help the duchess. Dr. Langley, the man he’d corresponded with for years whilst abroad. Pain alleviation was his specialty. Or rather, it had been. Because the man was apparently dead now.

The knots in his stomach squeezed tighter.

The good doctor been dead for some time, which didn’t make sense. Not one little bit.

Con had first heard of Langley when he read an article on pain mitigation in a medical journal. He’d found the topic fascinating so he had written to the author: a Dr. Langley of Brambledon, England. That one letter had spawned a long-standing communication. A fascinating string of communication, mostly discussing matters of medicine and treatment for the ill or injured.

Strange as it seemed, he had come to look forward to those letters, appreciating the man’s wit and anecdotes. He’d even referred others with medical concerns to Dr. Langley . . . to a dead man, evidently, as he had been deceased for the last five years.

“How is it the man is dead, but I have been communicating with him long after his death? Am I to believe I have been corresponding with a ghost?”

The girl winced and stared at him in mute misery. Her fire was gone. The fire he had witnessed burning so brightly at the pond—in the pond—was gone. Her color ran high then, her cheeks bright as apples, doubtlessly fed by her outrage. Although he did not think her temper alone had caused her flushed cheeks.

He suspected she was the sort of female who eschewed bonnets when she traipsed about the countryside. Bold lasses who climbed trees for no explainable reason and dropped into ponds undoubtedly spent a great deal of time traipsing and exposing their faces to the reticent English sun.

Presently, regret was writ all over her expressive face. It was extraordinary, really. He doubted there was ever an emotion she did not flaunt; hot words she did not bite back, an impulse she did not reject. Unlike himself.

All his life he had kept everything carefully tucked away. Emotion was not to be displayed. Reserve was the order of his life, taught to him first living with the Birchwoods, and then in the army.

Her sudden pallor mystified him. “Do my questions distress you?” he asked at her continued silence.

She moistened her lips. “I—”

The drawing room doors opened then. A well-heeled gentleman and lady entered the room arm in arm, both looking mildly intrigued as they glanced back and forth between Constantine and the girl.

He instantly knew the girl was related to the lady. They both possessed the same fine eyes and fair hair. The girl, however, was younger . . . shorter and curvier. She would fill a man’s hands.