“I didn’t drive us to the door,” he said as he finished his task, leaving her feeling oddly disappointed. “It would look strange for us to have no coachman. Can you stand a walk?”

“I am well equipped for it,” Cecilia said, drawing up her hem to reveal her walking boots. “But what about the poor horses?”

“I’ll send someone down for them. My lady.” He offered his arm. Cecilia hesitated. “It’s only for the sake of appearances,” he explained, and so reluctantly she took it.

“There will be no Sissy-ing,” she said as they walked across the drive to a set of wide marble steps, trying not to notice the strength of the muscle beneath her gloved hand. “No shambolic poetry. And give me back my earrings.”

“Madam?” he said in an innocent tone.

She stopped walking, and after a moment he grinned and handed her the pearl drops. Cecilia replaced them in her ears, and they continued on up the steps.

“You need no such adornment,” Ned murmured. “You are beauty without—”

“I said no poetry.”

“But you are a poem, and so—”

She stopped again. “Do you want to sleep in the carriage, Mr. Lightbourne?”

“Captain.”

She merely raised an eyebrow and waited.

Eventually he bowed. “Prose it shall be, Miss Bassingthwaite.”

“Thank you.”

They finished the steps, crossed the upper driveway, and approached the entrance. The doorman, in a red frock coat, nodded respectfully as he opened the door.

“Good man,” Ned said in a lofty tone, “our coachman fell ill and is even now inspecting the contents of his stomach in the bushes beyond the lawn. Would you send someone to stable our carriage and tend the horses?” He slipped a coin to the doorman, who bowed.

“Consider it done, sir.”

They swept into the hotel foyer.

10

lord albert and lady victoria—free wine!—a fair-weather friend—cecilia is disarmed—flying fish, wayward spirits, bare arms, andother scandals—cecilia is disrobed—a bad idea

Cecilia never lacked common sense, not even when taken by surprise. So although she had not expected such a grand inn as the Knowle, she entered it complacently. After all, she had patronized many grand establishments during her life as ward of the wealthy Miss Darlington and was not overcome by the grandeur of the Knowle, its polished marble surfaces and polished ferns, its elegant furniture, and the stylish people who loitered ostentatiously in lamplit corners. She was tired, however, and hungry, and felt pleased to be in such an excellent place rather than the rustic tavern serving only beer and the hearty stew that, as a reader of novels, she had anticipated.

They did not approach the desk but proceeded directly, and with a calm air of belonging, through the foyer into the lounge, then the dining room beyond. “I’m famished,” Ned said. “Shall we eat before taking a room?”

“That would be sensible,” Cecilia replied.