Lord Henfield had been more interested in the conversation at luncheon than the patent antipathy between two women he did not know. He was vaguely buoyed by Henry’s missing her home so much, although part of him did fear it was her father and the house that she missed, rather than himself, and since he was currently before her, assessing if she had previously missed him was difficult in the extreme.

Meeting Martley had also been ‘useful’, and he could neither ignore the youthful viscount as inconsequential, nor yet see him as a dangerous rival for Henry’s affections. He was pleasant in manner, possessed of good looks, and might just count as not being ‘a pup’. Felbridge most certainly fell into that category, and Lord Henfield could see just why Henry would find the slightly earnest and bumbling devotion of the young man, who needed four or five years to mature, beneath taking seriously.

What was most worrying was Henry herself. At times the girl he had known all his life was there before him, but at others she had developed into a creature he could barely recognise, and not just from her modish appearance. In six short weeks she seemed to have developed an assurance that was more than her frankness at home, and a flirtatiousness he had never encountered before. She had never flirted with him, or at least it had not felt like flirting, just the friendly banter of … he sighed, brother and sister. How could he become the suitor now? Would she be horrified, or would she think it funny? She expected certain behaviour from him, and he did not want to slip into that, because it would reinforce her seeing him in a fraternal light. She might even want to tell him how her heart lay with regard to her beaux, and that would tear him apart, hearing her describe her love for another man.

It was a pensive and serious-looking Lord Henfield who presented himself at Lady Cowper’s that evening, brought along in her son’s stead by Lady Vernham. Lord Gorleston had regarded this as an escape, and actually thanked Henfield for freeing him to dine convivially with three friends.

‘But you need not think that I will expect you at my elbow all evening, young man, I assure you.’ Lady Vernham smiled at him. ‘I am not slow-witted, and playing poodle for a lady old enough to be your mama would not make for entertainment. You make sure you go and dance with all the pretty young girls.’