“People who dwell in the shadows have dreams,” he said. “We need them or we go truly mad. What is your real dream, Constance? The one you never allow to see the light of day?”

She paced away, taking a seat on the old wooden bench between the Cupid birdbaths. “I have spent years in London on the edges of ballrooms, at the backs of the theater boxes. I have watched polite society as one watches a pantomime and I have noticed something.”

She had doubtless noticed far more than anybody would ever realize. “What have you noticed?”

“Much of what happens in polite society is based on connections, on who is neighbors with whom back in Shropshire, whose auntie went to school with whose mama. The Wentworths have few such connections.”

Robert took the place beside her. “You want a connection with me?” The notion flattered, it did not please. “I have some influence through my mother, or I will if she ever returns from France. I am happy to exert—”

“No.” Constance sat up very straight and appeared to become fascinated with the rosebushes across the walkway. “I want a friend, Rothhaven. I want somebody who is truly my friend. Not a sibling, not a fellow wallflower, not another artist seeking to curry favor with my wealthy brother. I want a friend of my own.”

Her ladyship was clearly poised to flee, and for less provocation than the sound of approaching coach wheels. The wrong word, the wrong smile, and she’d withdraw as surely as if she’d removed across the water to Paris, never to be seen again.

Robert studied the roses, the jewel in this little floral crown, though they looked like so many angry weeds now. “How curious that you should harbor that aspiration, for as it happens, I am in need of a friend too. I am once again in need of a friend.”

He had embarked on that reply meaning to appease her worries, to assure her that her request was reasonable and welcome. He’d completed those few sentences wishing with all his heart that he could be the friend she longed for.

They sat side by side in a comfortable, introspective silence. When Nathaniel and Althea came laughing out onto the terrace from the library, Robert was still sitting beside Lady Constance—beside his friend—in the sunshine.

The ladies left shortly thereafter, electing to walk home with Nathaniel as their escort. Robert remained in the garden pondering, for he was certain that Lady Constance, for all her honesty, had not yet confided to him the dream of her heart.

“Rothhaven likes my sister.” Althea made that observation while watching Constance stride off down the path to Lynley Vale’s stables. “I am amazed.”

Nathaniel tugged Althea by the hand away from the front drive and around to the side of the house where the formal garden lay.

“Why amazed?” he asked. “Constance seems likeable, if a bit…”