‘Ah.’ It was a percipient ‘ah’. ‘Now I think I understand, except, dash it, you have only been in Town a few days. You cannot have fallen under the spell of …’ Lord Gorleston stopped, his fork still impaling a morsel of ham on his plate. ‘Oh. Like that, is it? Not considered a downy one. My mama is the one for intuition, but … Miss Gaydon, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, since you have not changed, as far as I can tell, since last we met, excepting this blue-devil you have today, and the chit was happy enough in your company in Shropshire, the situation cannot be hopeless.’

‘I have not changed, but she has.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I have known her from the cradle and …’

‘But she was a baby then.’

‘I know, I know but … Since she came to London she has not just changed her hair and her clothes, which I knew she must do, but she has become so …’

‘Grown-up?’

‘Yes, and yet no. She acts grown-up, she gives me set-downs like a grown-up, but … How can I explain that underneath she is still the girl I laughed at, and then with, the girl I … love, but she keeps her imprisoned behind the veneer.’

‘Well, that is certainly a bit deep for me, but I think I understand most of it.’ Lord Gorleston paused. ‘Your character has not changed so why should hers, the real one? If what you say is true, then she is giving in to the excitement of the Season, and it will pass with the Season.’

‘By the end of which Lady Elstead will expect to see her suitably betrothed.’ Lord Henfield’s gloom descended once more.

‘That is not a problem as long as she is betrothed to you, my friend.’

‘Which brings us full circle. Last night she would not even dance with me.’

‘Might have been her feet.’

‘What?’

‘Dancing slippers pinching her toes. Makes one dashed crotchety, I can tell you. Had a new pair of hessians once, and went for a saunter to the club, and by the time I was at the top of Piccadilly they were crushing my toes like the devil. Took ’em straight back. My father said it was my own fault for not going to Hoby, and I think he was right.’ Lord Gorleston frowned, possibly contemplating the wisdom of his parent.

‘It was not her slippers. I … she does not want me to be too formal with her, but when I tried to jest as we were wont to do, she cut up at me. It was irrational and …’

‘They are.’

‘Who are what, Gorleston?’