“I must believe it. What other reason is there?” She might have banished that first renegade tear, but now more stung her eyes, and she had to blink furiously to keep them where they belonged. “I suppose I’ve never been anything to her but an employer. An unusual one, which is probably why she’s lasted this long with me when it’s clearly not what she ever meant to do for any length of time. But still. In her eyes, I’ve never been anything but the reason for her position. An outsider when it came to anything that mattered to her. A—what is it you call tourists? In-something?”

“Incomers.” She could hear the smile in his voice, and the sorrow, without looking at him. “What makes you think she thinks of you that way, my . . .”

My lady, he was going to say, as he always did. The familiarity forgotten already. Two words to prove again that she wasn’t one of them, didn’t belong here, where the only gentry or nobility were tourists, or else a Dorrien-Smith.

“. . . Libby?”

A balm. A bandage. And even something that made her lips want to smile. My Libby. If only. But that could never be either. She shook her head. “She told me, the other night. After Beth came. She told me the truth. That she’s your cousin. That she knew all along something was wrong and that’s why she convinced me to come here. After Beth’s letters stopped.”

She’d assumed he’d known it all, since obviously he knew they were cousins. But his hiss of breath said otherwise and brought her gaze around, danger of tears be hanged. “You didn’t know?”

“Suspected.” Even in the moonlight she could see his eyes snapping. “But she swore to me it was only that you needed to get away.”

And so she had spilled Libby’s secrets rather than her own. Strange how it chafed in one direction and yet soothed in another. At least Libby wasn’t the only one she’d lied to.

“As for the relationship.” He pulled her to a halt and turned to face her, angling them both so they could see each other’s faces in the silver light. His gaze sought hers and held it as gently as his fingers did her elbow. “I didn’t know why she wanted it kept secret. Not from you. But I didn’t think it mine to tell. I’m sorry for that, if it’s hurt you in the slightest. That’s the last thing I meant to do.”

She could appreciate that, even as she doubted it. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her more than he wanted to hurt anyone, but facts were still facts. “You’ve known me only three weeks, Oliver. She’s your cousin. Your loyalty belongs first to her.”