“Don’t be ridiculous,” she assured him. “I would have fallen no matter what. Elizabeth was stepping on Frances’s hem, and Frances was tugging, and then Elizabeth moved her foot, and—” She waved her hand. “Well. Never you mind. Somehow Harriet was the one who came tumbling into me. If it had been only Frances, I daresay I might have been able to catch my balance.”

He did not say anything, and still she found herself unable to interpret his expression.

“It was on the step, you know,” she heard herself say. “That was when I injured my ankle. Not when I landed.” She had no idea why this might make a difference, but she’d never been talented at censoring her words when she was nervous.

“I owe you an apology as well,” she added haltingly.

He looked at her in question.

She swallowed. “I was very unkind to you in the carriage.”

He started to say something, probably, “Don’t be silly,” but she cut him off.

“I overreacted. It was very . . . embarrassing, Harriet’s play. And I just want you to know that I’m sure I would have acted the same way with anyone. So really, you shouldn’t feel insulted. At least, not personally.”

Good God, she was babbling. She’d never been good at apologies. Most of the time she simply refused to give them.

“Are you joining the gentlemen for the hunt?” she blurted out.

The corner of his mouth tightened and his brows rose into a wry expression as he said, “I cannot.”

“Oh. Oh.” Stupid fool, what had she been thinking? “I’m so sorry,” she said. “That was terribly insensitive of me.”

“You don’t need to dance around it, Lady Sarah. I am lame. It is a fact. And it is certainly not your fault.”

She nodded. “Still, I’m sorry.”

For the barest second he looked unsure of what to do, then, in a quiet voice, he said, “Apology accepted.”

“I don’t like that word, though,” she said.

His brows rose.

“Lame.” She scrunched her nose. “It makes you sound like a horse.”

“Have you an alternative?”

“No. But it’s not my job to solve the world’s problems, merely to state them.”

He stared at her.

“I jest.”

And then, finally, he smiled.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose I only jest a little. I don’t have a better word for it, and I probably cannot solve the world’s problems, although to be fair, no one has given me the opportunity to do so.” She looked up with slyly narrowed eyes, almost daring him to comment.

To her great surprise, he only laughed. “Tell me, Lady Sarah, what do you plan to do with yourself this morning? Somehow I doubt your intention is to sit in the hall all day.”