“We shall make it our mission for the autumn,” Grace suddenly announced, her eyes sparkling with intent. “Amelia and Wyndham shall finally become acquainted.”

“Grace, don’t, please…” Amelia said, flushing. Good Lord, how mortifying. To be a project.

“You are going to have to get to know him eventually,” Elizabeth said.

“Not really,” was Amelia’s wry reply. “How many rooms are there at Belgrave? Two hundred?”

“Seventy-three,” Grace murmured.

“I could go weeks without seeing him,” Amelia responded. “Years.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” her sister said. “Why don’t you come with me to Belgrave tomorrow? I devised an excuse about Mama needing to return some of the dowager’s books so that I might visit with Grace.”

Grace turned to Elizabeth with mild surprise. “Did your mother borrow books from the dowager?”

“She did, actually,” Elizabeth replied, then added demurely, “at my request.”

Amelia raised her brows. “Mother is not much of a reader.”

“I couldn’t very well borrow a pianoforte,” Elizabeth retorted.

It was Amelia’s opinion that their mother wasn’t much of a musician, either, but there seemed little reason to point it out, and besides, the conversation had been brought to an abrupt halt.

He had arrived.

Amelia might have had her back to the door, but she knew precisely the moment Thomas Cavendish walked into the assembly hall, because, drat it all, she had done this before.

Now was the hush.

And now-she counted to five; she’d long since learned that dukes required more than the average three seconds of hush-were the whispers.