“I am. I was waiting for you, but when you didn’t arrive by breakfast—”

“You went for a walk to clear your head?” His mouth curved in a tight smile. Taking her arm more firmly, he turned her back the way she’d come. “You don’t want to be walking here. Not unescorted.”

“I go everywhere unescorted. It’s perfectly unexceptionable for a lady in my position.”

“As if you were a servant.” He made a low sound of disapproval. “I must tell you, Clara, this isn’t at all the thing. You should have waited to hear from me. And yes, I know Mama ordered you to come. She threatened me with as much in her last letter. As if I were tied to her apron strings! I mean to say, how do you imagine it looks for my sister to be asking after me at my college of all places?”

“I have the notion that, had I continued waiting to hear from you, I’d be waiting until judgment day. Which doesn’t even begin to address the matter of my lessons.”

“You’ve still been receiving them, haven’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call those lessons. The past six months of them have been half-hearted at best. And the one I lately received—”

“Must we discuss our business in the street?” Simon steered her down one narrow lane, and then another.

“The Bell and Swan is that way,” she protested.

“We’re not going to the Bell and Swan. There’s a meeting of the Antiquary Society there today. You never met a rowdier bunch.” He stopped outside a small coffeehouse with a glazed sash window. “It will be quieter here. We can talk, and then I’m putting you on the train.”

Before she could object, he opened the door and urged her inside. The coffeehouse was empty save for two elderly gentlemen by the fire, drinking from steaming cups as they engaged in a game of chess.

Simon led her to one of the small green baize-covered tables. It was situated in the far corner on the opposite side of a decorative screen. “I know the owner. Sit down. I shall be right back.”

Clara removed her bonnet and cloak and hung them on a nearby coatrack, her eyes following Simon all the while. In his fashionable plaid trousers and double-breasted waistcoat, he looked almost a stranger. He was taller than the brother she remembered, and his face had lost its boyish softness and grown more angular with age.

She wondered what differences he observed in her. Did she look shabby to him? A faded, country creature, worn down by years of servitude? Void of the glow of her youth?

A depressing thought.

Sitting down at the table, she slowly stripped off her gloves. Simon joined her a moment later. He was accompanied by a serving boy who brought them two steaming mugs of coffee.