Oliver frowned. Shouldn’t she have instead been assuring him that Mrs. Dawe would return momentarily to chaperone?

Mrs. Dawe apparently thought so, given the baffled look she shot him. “Perhaps you ought to walk Lady Elizabeth back to the Abbey Gardens, sir, so Mabena can find her.”

“Of course.”

Mamm-wynn waved a hand at him as if she thought he should sit again. “Let them have their time, Margie. Don’t you remember what it’s like to be a newlywed?”

He’d never thought himself given to embarrassment, but Oliver’s face felt alive with flames. As did his neck. And his ears. And—he spun, eyes wide and an apology ready to trip off his lips.

Lady Elizabeth was blushing too, but she was still smiling at his grandmother. “Have a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Tremayne. I hope to see you again soon.”

His grandmother gave her a pointed look. He didn’t know what it was for, but it seemed Lady Elizabeth did. “I mean, Mamm-wynn.”

Mamm-wynn nodded. “Better. And I should think so. I won’t nap that long.”

Lady Elizabeth closed her notebook and stood as Mrs. Dawe ushered his grandmother out. He waited until they’d cleared the room, then faced her again. Spread his hands. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what’s come over her. She’s . . .”

He couldn’t say it. Could only spin his hands, searching for some other word.

Her fingers caught his, stilled them. “She’s the most delightful person I think I’ve ever met. There’s no need to apologize, sir.”

Wasn’t there? When his grandmother was acting as though they were married? He shook his head and let her lower his hands. “She is. But lately—I don’t know where she gets some of her ideas. I certainly didn’t . . . I mean, I hadn’t said anything . . .”

She let go of his hands, though her smile didn’t dim any. “I don’t know where she got the idea either, but it does explain a few things she said to me in the garden. I thought she’d confused me with someone else?”

Was it a question of whether he was involved with someone—or, more likely, a question of what in the world Mamm-wynn had meant? Either way, he had to shake his head. “I can’t think who. You bear a passing resemblance to my sister, but not so much that she’d mistake you. And even if she did, she wouldn’t have then made those comments.”

He motioned, as he spoke, to a photograph, framed and hanging on the wall, that they’d had taken a few years before. Their last summer with Morgan, though they hadn’t known it at the time.

Feared it. But hadn’t known it.

The four of them, all that remained of the family within these walls. The three siblings and their father’s mother.