“I got enough for both of us. Here.” He held up a strawberry, not to pass to her plate, but rather before her mouth, for her to take from his hand. She watched his eyes, and the teasing she’d seen there earlier shifted, first cooling then heating to a silent dare.

Holding his gaze, Leah leaned forward, touched her tongue to the succulent red berry, then took it between her teeth.

“My thanks.” She chewed slowly then swallowed. “Delicious.”

Nick, looking gratifyingly disconcerted for once, simply passed her his plate and surrendered the rest of his strawberries.

Thinking of you.

Blue salvia, Leah learned from a book her mother had given her as a child, meant “thinking of you.”

How interesting, and how odd that Ni—Leah caught herself—Lord Reston had included it in his bouquet and conveniently forgotten its significance. In the long-dormant part of her soul from which feminine intuition sprang, Leah suspected he’d known good and well what the flower meant, and he’d included it on purpose.

And forgotten its meaning with the same sense of purpose.

Reston had chosen his bouquet with care and an unerring sense for what was lacking in her life.

“Pretty,” Wilton remarked, eyeing the bouquet as he sauntered into the family parlor. “I have to commend the man for showing some strategy.”

“I beg your pardon?” Leah resisted the urge to get to her feet. Wilton might interpret it as a sign of respect, though more likely a sign of weakness.

“Reston is courting your sister,” Wilton said, touching the little white snowdrops. Why didn’t they wilt on contact? “He’s scouting the terrain, forming an ally, gathering information before he tips his hand.”

“No doubt.”

Wilton eyed her pensively. He was a good-looking man, tall, trim, with even features and a full head of white hair. His smile, when he produced one, gave Leah chills nonetheless.

“Perhaps he thinks to take you off my hands,” Wilton said. “I cannot credit his taste, but his coin will spend as easily as the next man’s. You’ll have him, if he offers.”

“He won’t offer for me.” Leah bent to her book, turning a page as if in idle perusal.

“You will do nothing to deter him from that possibility,” Wilton informed her icily. “Your sister can reach higher, but you will take what’s offered and be grateful.”

“Aren’t we being premature, my lord?” Leah strove for an indifferent tone. “One bouquet does not a courtship make.”

“One bouquet, a supper waltz, several meetings in the park,” Wilton shot back. “Don’t think you’re ever far from my sight, girl. Your brothers can’t hide your comings and goings, and neither will you, if you value their happiness.”

“I value their happiness,” Leah said, and thinking to offer a placatory display of submissiveness, she added, “and if Reston offers, I will accept him.”

“Of course you will. If he’s stupid enough to make that mistake, I will not preserve him from his folly.”

Having left the requisite ill feeling and discontent behind him, Wilton stalked out, calling for a footman. His footsteps had barely died away before Leah looked up to see the bouquet with its blue salvia directly in her line of sight. By the time Wilton had slammed out the front door, she felt the first tear sliding down her silly, foolish, wretched cheek.

Colonel Lord Harcourt Haddonfield, fourteenth Earl of Bellefonte, had not enjoyed a decent bowel movement in weeks, by which evidence he concluded that death was indeed stalking him. He had some time, maybe even weeks, before the filthy blighter actually took him down, but when a man couldn’t preside competently over the lowliest throne in the land, what dignity was there left in living?

Neither one of his deceased wives would have understood that sentiment or appreciated its vulgar utterance even in private, which thought provoked a faint smile. Good ladies they had been, but ladies through and through.

His heir shared his appreciation for the fairer sex, which was a bloody damned relief. George, the third boy, was a nancy piece. Beckman was deuced independent, and Adolphus, who aspired to professordom, would be unlikely to marry young.

“My lord,” Soames intoned, “a Mr. Ethan Grey to see you. He did not leave a card.”

Soames had been with the earl for only ten years and could be forgiven his ignorance. He could not be forgiven for sneaking up on his employer.

The earl turned a glacial blue eye on the hapless man. “Soames, if you have to pound the damned door to sawdust, you do not intrude on your betters unannounced, and you do not intimate I am going deaf, when I can hear every damned footman and boot boy sneaking about and pinching the maids.”

“Profuse apologies, my lord.” Soames bowed low, his expression betraying not a flicker of amusement or irritation. “Shall I show the gentleman in?”

“The gentleman is my firstborn,” the earl said more quietly. “Of course you show him in, but give me a minute first, and hustle the damned tea tray along, if you please.”

“Of course, my lord.” Soames bowed again and glided out.

The earl waited, wondering what one said to a wronged child grown into a wronged man. He’d kept track of Ethan, of course. He’d also paid his bills through university, managed his late mother’s little property, managed the modest sum he’d set aside for the boy, and was managing it still, as the cheeky bastard—well, no, probably not the wisest word choice—the cheeky devil wouldn’t touch a penny of it.

“My lord.” Soames had on his company face and used his company voice. “Mr. Ethan Grey, late of London.”

“Thank you, Soames.” The earl waved him off and took in Ethan’s appearance with poorly veiled gratification. He’d most recently caught a glimpse of Ethan three, maybe five years ago, and in the intervening years the last vestiges of the youth had been thoroughly matured out of the man. At thirty-some years old, Ethan was quite tall, like all the Haddonfield men, with golden-blond hair, arctic-blue eyes, and a damned good-looking bas—fellow to boot. He had a little of Nick’s aristocratic features, too, but more hauteur than Nick aspired to and a leaner frame.

“Ethan. I would rise, but lately I cannot even attempt that without assistance. I suppose your arrival confirms my impending death—you, and a lamentable lack of intestinal regularity.”

“My lord.” Ethan gave him the barest nod, his expression so disdainfully composed the earl wanted to laugh. Ah, youth… Except behind the boy’s monumental cool lurked a significant hurt, for which his father knew himself to be responsible.

The earl waved him over to the massive estate desk. “You can glare at me ever so much more effectively at close range, sir.” He waited until his son had prowled away from his post by the door. “One of the advantages of age is I no longer have to hear or see so much of this benighted world, but upon inspection, I must say you are looking well.”

“And you are not,” Ethan said, taking a seat across the desk from his father. Rude of him to appropriate a seat unbidden, but the earl was certain his own wretched appearance had sent his son to his figurative knees.

“I look like hell. The divine wisdom therein is that all will be relieved when I shuffle off this mortal coil, because if I get any uglier, my own daughters will be unable to stand the sight of me.”

Ethan smoothed a wrinkle on a perfectly tailored pair of riding breeches. “You don’t seem particularly perturbed at your approaching demise.”

“I’m not.” The earl’s lips curved in a faint smile. “I’ve lived my three score and ten, and eked out more besides. The earldom is in good condition, thanks largely to your brother, and my children are provided for. One grows tired, Ethan, and the indignities of great age are every bit as burdensome as you suppose they are. The alternative, however, ceases to loom as quite such a fearful option. Why are you here?”