She pointed to a rise in the green nearby, where a large tree stump beckoned. “Perhaps we might sit for a bit.” She turned to look at her companions. “And talk?”

In moments, she was seated on the stump, the warm May sun beating down upon her as her companions encircled her, as though protecting her. Hardy came forward and set his head in her lap, and Angus arranged himself at her feet.

Realizing the strangeness of the situation, Lily felt more than a little guilty about forcing the earl to join them, and offered him a release. “My lord, you really have been more than kind. But I am loath to prey upon that kindness. I’m certain my friends will be willing to see me home.”

He smiled down at her. “Nonsense. This is certainly the most exciting day I’ve had in months, and might well continue to be. You have no idea how deadly dull parliamentary sessions can be.”

“Wait,” Seleste said.

“Are you—” Seline added.

“Courting?” Sesily finished the thought.

Lily blushed, as Stanhope smiled. “As a matter of fact, Miss Hargrove and I met not an hour ago. We were just taking a turn up the Row.”

“Oh!” the sisters said in unison, before sharing a look that indicated their collective understanding that a walk in the park was a precursor to something much more important.

“Well, we wouldn’t like to interrupt,” Seleste said.

Her sisters were already moving. “No!” Seline said. “That sounds very important.”

It was amazing how the presence of these three was somehow able to make one feel both exceedingly pleased and harrowingly embarrassed.

And then Sesily spoke, her blue gaze on Lily, seeming to see far more than Lily would like. “What was Warnick doing here, then?”

Being a hero.

Lily ignored the thought. “He thought he would play the chaperone.”

“He’s done a terrible job of that,” Seline blurted. “He left you in a ditch!”

He’d left her.

“It wasn’t a ditch, precisely,” the earl pointed out, his serious gaze on Lily.

“It might as well have been,” she said.

“No matter,” Sesily said. “We shall play the chaperone.”

Oh, dear. “That’s very kind, but—”

“It’s an excellent idea, don’t you think?”

She looked to Stanhope, who appeared to be taking the entire event in stride, but it occurred to Lily that if she had been asked to imagine a more disastrous first meeting with an eligible lord, she would be unable to do so.

The only way it would be more of a disaster was if she were interested in marrying him. Which she wasn’t. Not that he wasn’t a fine man. In every way. Indeed, he made her feel perfectly pleasant.

Shouldn’t pleasantness be the goal? Shouldn’t a marriage be based on kindness and good humor, and if one’s husband was handsome, all the better, no? Except it seemed that one should find one’s husband’s handsomeness tempting. Desirable. One should have trouble ignoring his square jaw and unruly hair and his fine knees.

Not knees, specifically.

Knees, for example.

She didn’t care about any particular pair of knees.

Particularly not about the pair that had just left her to the aristocratic wolves on Rotten Row. Alone.

Solitude was not unfamiliar to Lily, however. And she was more comfortable with it than most. Comfortable enough to speak the truth in a situation that had no need to be drawn out longer than necessary. One hand stroking Hardy’s ears, she returned her attention to the earl, and decided to speak what they both no doubt felt. “My lord, you needn’t pretend this was a successful afternoon. I appreciate your gentlemanliness, but I do not wish to keep you when I am certain you have an infinite number of other activities that might better entertain.”

The entire group grew silent in the wake of her honesty, until Lord Stanhope nodded and said, “You think we are not suited.”

“I think you require a woman far less troublesome than me.”

He smiled. “I think troublesome might be precisely what I require.”

She shook her head. “Not my kind of troublesome.”

He watched her for a long moment and said, “I don’t think you’re as troublesome as you think.”

She laughed, humorlessly. “On the contrary, my lord. I am exactly as troublesome as I think.”

The words were freeing, somehow, perhaps because the painting would be revealed soon enough—the scandalous truth would ruin her eventually. There was something powerful and relieving about taking ownership of it. If she was to be revealed, why not speak of it? It was her truth, was it not? Hers to share.

She looked into his handsome face and clarified. “The painting.”

Her companions went still as stone, and the only sound that followed her confession was the low din of chatter from the Row, two dozen yards away. It occurred to her that the silence might be worse than the whispers. Silence was so lonely.

She did not wish to be lonely any longer. Tears threatened, and she forced herself to take deep breaths, refusing to allow them access.

She would not cry.

Not ever in front of people. No one would ever see how much she ached with loneliness. With fear of it.

Just as she was about to stand, the earl crouched, making a show of petting Angus, but Lily had the sudden impression that he had assumed the position to be able to look directly into her eyes. “It’s none of their business, you know. Society’s.”

She laughed at the words, so honest and so thoroughly irrelevant. “I don’t think Society would agree with you, my lord. Indeed, I think they would say it’s very much their business. Very much yours as well, considering this afternoon.”

One side of his mouth rose in a small, knowing smile. “I am nearly forty years old, Miss Hargrove, and I am on the hunt for a wife with a fortune. I know about mistakes.”

She believed him, but still. “It’s easier for you to live with yours, Lord Stanhope.” She gently emphasized his title to prove her point.

He tilted his head. “Perhaps for Society. But I must look at myself in the mirror just as you do.”

She watched him for a long moment, then said, “You should not court me, my lord.”

One of the Talbot sisters gasped her surprise as Stanhope raised a brow. “And if I wish to?”