“Watching for the foxes?” he asked. “They should be active again this morning.” He handed her a cup as she turned.

But she hadn’t been watching for the foxes. He could see that in her face. Why was love so perceptive? It would be better off blind, he thought, pretending not to notice her guilt.

She was saying, “We ought to have a fine day. Just as well-I’ve a thousand things to do!” She smiled up at him, then reached out to lay her free hand against his cheek. “I do love you, Matthew,” she told him softly.

He covered her fingers with his own. “I’m glad,” he responded simply. “I don’t quite know how I managed to live so many years without you.”

She set down her cup and walked over to the blazing fire. “Shall I take the dogcart or the motorcar?”

“The motor, of course. It will be warmer.”

She nodded, thinking about her errands. Then she said, “Must you call on Miss Trining today? She’ll have something to say about you arriving in a dogcart. Far beneath your dignity.”

He laughed. “Yes, I know. I shall never live up to old Petrie’s standards. Queen Victoria herself couldn’t have found fault with him.”

“I should hope not. She knighted him,” Felicity answered, laughing with him. “But just think-the next important man who chooses to reside here will be held up to your standards.” She lowered her voice. “Not quite the man Matthew Hamilton was, you know,” she said gruffly in imitation of Miss Trining. “I don’t know what the Foreign Office is coming to these days!”

It was perfect mimicry.

“It would never do for you to attend a vestry meeting. I’d see your face down the table, know what you were thinking, and lose any reputation I ever had for being a sober, God-fearing civil servant. They’d chuck me out on the spot for unseemly levity.”

“Not you,” she said quickly. “God knows, they’re lucky to have someone under eighty willing to serve. I on the other hand would be burned at the stake, before sunrise. Like Guinevere.”