She then attempted sleep, but her pillow was damp, and her heart full, and her mind occupied with delicious fantasies.

Lord Henfield was perhaps less confused than Henrietta, having faced the ‘brother and sister’ problem, but he was certainly subject to conflicting emotions. Henry’s manner towards him tonight had been not just approachable, but as though she had seen a revelation. His instinct, for he had no experience upon which to build, was that she had looked at him, at last, as she did her beaux. Was he vain to think that she had liked what she saw? There had been a moment, transient but real, when her expression invited much more than he could give her, in public, and at Almack’s. Had she looked like that and they had been alone in the gardens at The Court he would not have been able to stop himself. He would have kissed her, and declared his passion for her. It was passion, it was ridiculous to deny it, and tonight it had been, if not let off its leash, permitted to come out of the shadows. It was liberating, and yet also dangerous. He tried to be calm. They had danced together, and she had, perhaps, cast the ‘fraternal’ from her mind. To assume anything more was to let dreams hold sway. Lady Vernham had described his course as a war, and if it was, then this was only a first battle won.

Supper had been a vague period involving foodstuffs, and making an attempt to be normal. From choice he would have left immediately thereafter, but to do so would have occasioned possible remark, and besides, he could sometimes watch Henry. She looked rather warm and disorientated, and had he not feared she would see it as a slight upon her constitution, and interfering, he would have suggested that she have Lady Elstead take her home. She danced, and she smiled, but the smiles were forced, and her steps not as light as usual. He did not see Mr Newbold fetch her lemonade but did catch a glimpse of them upon a sofa in an alcove. Newbold seemed very attentive, and Henry had looked at him with a kind expression, or was it tired? He hoped it was the latter. The way she interacted with Martley was light and friendly, a pale version of the badinage back home, but the more he had seen of them together the less he felt either had a tendre for the other. Netheravon he was unsure of, but Newbold was a threat.

It was thus in a mixture of hope, calm reason and lingering doubt that Lord Henfield sought his couch.