The wedding was now but three days away, and Whipple Hill was a flurry of activity. Marcus and Honoria (Lord and Lady Chatteris, Sarah reminded herself) had arrived from Fensmore looking flushed and giggly and deliriously happy. It would have been enough to make Sarah want to gag, except that she had been having a rather fine time herself, laughing and bantering with Lord Hugh.

It was the oddest thing, but his was the first face she thought of when she woke in the morning. She looked for him at breakfast, and she always seemed to find him there, his plate so nearly full as to indicate that he’d arrived mere moments before she had.

Every morning, they lingered. They told themselves it was because they could not partake in the many activities that had been planned for the day (although in truth Sarah’s ankle was much improved, and even if a walk to the village was still out of the question, there was no reason she could not manage bowls on the lawn).

They lingered, and she would pretend to sip at her tea, because if she actually drank as much as one normally might over the hours she sat at the table, she’d be forced to cut the conversation short.

She did not reflect upon the fact that a conversation truncated at the hour mark could not possibly be construed as short.

They lingered, and most people didn’t seem to notice. The other guests came and went, taking their food from the sideboard, drinking their coffee and tea, and leaving. Sometimes Sarah and Hugh were joined in conversation, sometimes not.

And then finally, when it became past obvious that it was time for the servants to clean the breakfast room, Sarah would rise and casually mention where she thought she might take her book for the afternoon.

He would never say that he planned to join her, but he always did.

They had become friends, and if occasionally she caught herself staring at his mouth, thinking that everyone had to have a first kiss, and wouldn’t it be lovely if hers was with him . . . Well, she kept such things to herself.

She was running out of novels, though. The Whipple Hill library was extensive, but it was sadly lacking in books of the kind Sarah liked to read. Miss Butterworth had been haphazardly shelved between The Divine Comedy and The Taming of the Shrew.

She looked back down. Miss Butterworth had not yet met her baron, and Sarah was eager for the plot to get moving.

Forsythia . . . forsythia . . .

“Did you think he looked handsome?”

Sarah let out an annoyed groan.

“Did you think Lord Hugh looked handsome?” Harriet prodded.

“I don’t know, he looked like himself.” The first part was a lie; Sarah did know, and she had found him heartbreakingly handsome. The second part was the truth, and was probably the reason she thought him so handsome to begin with.