“Alone is a state of being,” he explained, “whereas lonely is—”

“I know that,” she cut in.

He regarded her. “Then I’m afraid I do not understand your question.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I was just wondering if a person always knows when he is lonely.”

Budding little philosopher, she was. “How old are you?” he asked, deciding that he would not be surprised if she opened her mouth and said she was actually forty-two.

“Eleven.” She jabbed a fork into her cake, expertly picking the icing from between the layers. “But I’m very precocious.”

“Clearly.”

She didn’t say anything, but he saw her smiling around her fork as she took a bite.

“Do you like cake?” she asked, delicately dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

“Doesn’t everyone?” he murmured, not pointing out that he’d already said he did.

She glanced down at his untouched plate. “Then why haven’t you eaten any?”

“I’m thinking,” he said, his eyes sweeping across the room and settling on the laughing form of her eldest sister.

“You can’t eat and think at the same time?” Frances asked.

It was a dare if ever he’d heard one, so he hauled his attention back to the slab of cake in front of him, took a huge bite, chewed, swallowed, and said, “541 times 87 is 47,067.”

“You’re making that up,” Frances said instantly.

He shrugged. “Feel free to check the answer yourself.”

“I can’t very well do so here.”

“Then you’ll have to take my word for it, won’t you?”

“As long as you realize that I could check your answer if I had the proper supplies,” Frances said pertly. Then she frowned. “Did you truly figure that out in your head?”

“I did,” he confirmed. He took another bite of cake. It really was quite tasty. The icing seemed to have been flavored with actual lavender. Marcus had always liked sweets, he recalled.

“That’s brilliant. I wish I could do that.”

“It occasionally comes in handy.” He ate more cake. “And sometimes does not.”

“I’m very good at maths,” Frances said in a matter-of-fact voice, “but I can’t do it in my head. I need to write everything down.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, of course not. I’m much better than Elizabeth.” Frances gave a lofty smile. “She hates that I am, but she knows it’s true.”

“Which one is Elizabeth?” Hugh probably should have remembered which sister was which, but the memory that captured every word on a page was not always so dependable with names and faces.

“My next oldest sister. She is occasionally unpleasant, but for the most part we get on well.”

“Everyone is occasionally unpleasant,” he told her.

That stopped her short. “Even you?”

“Oh, especially me.”

She blinked a few times, then must have decided she preferred the earlier strain of conversation, because when she opened her mouth again it was to ask, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have one brother.”