Then it dawned upon her that she was closer to a reason than she could have imagined. What if both young ladies had sought the attention of the same man? It was difficult for Henrietta, looking at two women over twice her age, and gentlemen as old as Papa, to imagine them young, let alone passionate and in the throes of love. She tried to be logical. Lord Pirbright was the older man, and had a weariness about him, as far as Henrietta could judge on having seen him but on three occasions. He looked in no way the type of man to have maidens swooning over him, even when his hair was not greying, and his face falling into lines of permanent stoicism. Then she remembered that in the book room was a portrait that might well be of Lord Elstead as a young man. She had entered the room but once, on her second day, being a little lost, and seen it, or at least a portrait of a young man in the fashions of thirty years ago. She abandoned the book whose pages she had been turning idly, and went to the book room, knocking in case her uncle was within. She had not thought far enough ahead to imagine what she would do if he were, and so when he called ‘Come in’ she was a little at a loss. She entered, blushing.

‘Henrietta. To what do I owe the pleasure?’ He smiled, in suitably avuncular fashion. ‘Do not say you have overspent your pin money on boot laces.’

‘Oh no, sir. I do not find myself in reduced circumstances. My allowance is generous, even though silk stockings are a terrible price, and wear to holes faster than one could possibly imagine.’

‘Er, well, I am glad to say I do not imagine them at all. So, if it is not a pecuniary paucity, how can I help you?’

‘Actually, I came to see the room, and not you.’ Henrietta’s cheeks reddened fully.

‘How lowering. I trust you find it to your taste.’ He was still smiling, but a crease of interested enquiry sat between his brows.

‘You are roasting me, sir, and that I am sure is not fair. Nieces ought not to be roasted by uncles.’

‘I shall remember that in future.’ He watched her. ‘Why this room?’

‘Well, I … I am used to being with just Papa, you see, and there is a certain masculinity to libraries and book rooms, less feminine frippery if you will, and I was suddenly missing Papa very much. This seemed a place I might feel closer to him, surrounded by books and leather and no Meissen shepherdesses or embroidered drapery.’ As she said it, the excuse became real, and she did indeed feel it brought her closer to ‘home’.