"Henry, how do you find the people in these parts?" the earl asked abruptly, stepping into his pantaloons. "Find 'em… not sure what you mean, sir." Henry passed his lordship a starched square of snowy linen. "Will you be wanting the diamond stud, sir?"

"Thank you." Sylvester fastened the folds of his cravat with the diamond stud and peered critically at his reflection before turning for his coat. "Do you find them friendly?"

"In the taproom of the inn, sir, folks are friendly enough," Henry said, wondering where this was leading.

"And in the house?"

"A bit wary, like," Henry admitted, smoothing the coat over his lordship's shoulders with a pat and a twitch. "Weston has a good cut, m'lord. Better for you than Stultz."

Henry had been a gentleman's gentleman before joining the army and finding himself in a French prison with the sorely wounded, fever-racked Major Gilbraith. He was more than happy now to have resumed his previous profession and, after the long months of nursing the major back to health, was a more than competent nurse when the crippling headaches struck. Indeed, he was the only person Sylvester could bear to have around him, to witness the hideous degradation of that nauseating, intolerable agony.

"Do they say much about the new earl?" Sylvester asked with a wryly quirked eyebrow.

"Not too much… leastways not in my hearing, m'lord."

"No, I suppose they wouldn't. What about Lady Theo?"

"Oh, she's everyone's darlin', m'lord," Henry said. "Can't do a thing wrong. The apple of his late lordship's eye."

"Mmm." Sylvester picked up his hairbrushes and tidied his close-cropped curls. "Spoiled, to put it another way."

"As I understand it, sir, she's suffering something powerful over her grandfather's death," Henry said. "Leastways that's what folks say. She's not herself, they say."

"I sincerely hope not," Sylvester murmured, slipping a lacquered snuffbox into his coat pocket before going down to the drawing room, bracing himself for another strained evening with Theo.

Emily and Clarissa were standing at the open window when he entered the drawing room. They were gazing out intently across the lawn where the evening shadows were lengthening.

"I don't imagine she'd come back this way," Clarissa said, turning back to the room with a sigh. "Not from the stables."

"No sign of the truant, then?" Stoneridge asked, trying to sound cheerfully casual. He crossed to the pier table. "Sherry, ma'am? Or would you prefer madeira?"

"Sherry, thank you. No, Theo's not back yet." Elinor's smile was tight as she accepted the glass he brought her.

"Foster seemed convinced that if there'd been some mishap, one of the tenants would have brought news."

"Yes, that's true… but…" She bent to her embroidery. "The estate is very large and there are many areas that are off the beaten track."

"Perhaps we should send…" Emily's soft voice faded as Theo's energetic tones came from the hall.

"They're not already at dinner, are they, Foster? I can't believe how late it is… Oh, Mama, I'm so sorry…" The drawing room door flew open and Theo ran across the room, holding out her hands. "I had no idea how far I'd ridden. Were you dreadfully worried?" She bent to kiss her mother, seizing her hands in a fierce grip.

"I was about to become so," Elinor said calmly, but the relief in her eyes was clear as the tension left her shoulders.

"Well, I'm back, and absolutely starved." Theo threw her hat, gloves, and whip onto a side table. "And I'm truly, truly sorry for frightening you all." She offered her mother and sisters a conciliatory smile. "Am I forgiven?"

"I'd prefer it didn't happen again," Elinor said, sipping her sherry.

"It won't." Theo poured herself a glass of sherry, ignoring the earl, who was standing by the fireplace, resting one arm on the mantel shelf, his own glass in his other hand. "It must be dinnertime," she said hungrily. "The most wonderful smells are coming from the kitchen."

Her boots were mud splattered, the skirts of her riding habit white with dust, the collar of her shirt creased and limp, her hair escaping from its pins in a blue-black cloud around her face. She looked tired, but healthily so, and thoroughly disheveled.

Abruptly, Sylvester realized that he'd reached the end of his patience. He glanced at Lady Elinor, expecting her to say something about her daughter's unceremonious entrance and appearance. Elinor merely sipped her sherry. What had she said earlier that morning about having indulged Theo's unspoken grief long enough… that it was time to shock her out of her present frame of mind? Elinor had told him to follow his instincts, and right now his instincts told him it was time to make a stand.

"Forgive me, Cousin Theo," he said crisply, "but I don't consider riding dress to be appropriate at the dinner table."

Theo whirled on him, her eyes dark. "And what business is it of yours, pray?"

"It happens to be my dinner table, cousin; therefore, I consider it to be very much my business."

Theo went white beneath the gold of the sun's bronzing. "Yours?"

"Mine," he affirmed quietly. "And I don't accept riding dress at my dinner table." Stretching his arm, he pulled the bell rope hanging beside the fireplace.

Foster appeared immediately in the stunned silence. "Would you ask Cook to put dinner back for fifteen minutes?" the earl requested politely.

He turned back to Theo as Foster left. "You have fifteen minutes, cousin… unless, of course, you'd prefer to have a tray in your room."

"Mama?" Theo swung round on her mother, her eyes both enraged and appealing.

Elinor didn't look up from her embroidery. "Lord Stoneridge is entitled to set his own rules in his own house, Theo."

How could her mother betray her in this fashion? Stunned, Theo stared at Elinor's bent head.

Lord Stoneridge glanced pointedly at the clock.

Clarissa came swiftly across the room. "Come, Theo, I'll help you change. It won't take a minute."

Theo shook herself free of her numbed daze. Her eyes focused, flitting across the earl's impassive countenance before she turned to her sister. Her voice was distant but even. "No, it's all right, Clarry. I find I'm not in the least hungry." Turning on her heel, she left the drawing room, her skirts swishing with her long, impatient stride.

Hotheaded gypsy! He hadn't intended to deprive her of her dinner, but it damn well was his house. Sylvester refilled his glass as Elinor calmly instructed Clarissa to pull the bell for Foster again.

"Foster, you may serve dinner immediately," she said when the butler appeared. "Lady Theo won't be joining us."

"I hope she's not indisposed, my lady." Foster looked concerned.

"I don't believe so," Elinor said, laying down her embroidery. "Shall we go in, Lord Stoneridge?"

Sylvester offered his arm, following her lead.