“And when you’re done replacing the flowers in the front hallway and the green parlor, then you can check on the bouquets in the library, conservatory, music room, and upstairs corridors.” Lady Morrisette smiled broadly and folded beringed fingers on the blotter of her escritoire. “I do hope you’re enjoying yourself, my dear. These little tasks taken from my shoulders are such a help, and your mama was most insistent that I add you to the guest list.”

Like blazes. Mama had consented to send Esther only because Michael had already been invited and Lady Pott’s maid was nominally available to tend to Esther’s clothing.

“The company is wonderful, my lady, and I have always enjoyed working with flowers.”

Particularly when it would mean Esther had a sharp pair of shears in her hand. Sir Jasper was proving persistent, and the house party had two more weeks yet to run. She curtsied and collected a footman to accompany her to the conservatory, only to encounter Michael lounging on a bench under the potted palms.

“Michael, are you hiding?”

He got to his feet and aimed a pointed look at the footman.

“If you’d start on the roses?” Esther asked, passing the fellow the shears. He bowed and withdrew, though first he perused Michael in a manner not quite respectful.

“I am enjoying a moment of solitude. I’ve never met such a pack of females for dancing and hiking and promenading until all hours.”

Esther regarded her cousin with a female relation’s pitiless scrutiny. “You’re up until all hours playing cards, Michael. The young ladies have complained to this effect. And you’re losing.”

He sank back down on the bench. “You can’t know that. A gentleman expects a few losses when he’s wagering socially.”

That he would admit that much was not good. Esther took the place beside him. “If you socialized more and wagered less, I would not have such cause to worry.”

“I always come right sooner or later, Esther.” He assayed a smile that would not have fooled their nearly blind grandmamma. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

She could lambaste him, she could lecture him, or she could accept the olive branch he was holding out. “I have found some interesting poetry in the Morrisette library, and Quimbey is a wonderfully down-to-earth fellow.”

“Also a confirmed bachelor.”

“One more thing to like about him. Promise me you won’t play too deeply, Michael. You cannot afford the losses, and I cannot afford the scandal.”

“We are not widely known as cousins by this august assemblage, so cease carping, Esther Louise.” He rose and extended a hand to her. “I’ve seen Lord Tony Windham on your arm from time to time. Any chance you could reel him in?”

Like a carp? “He’s friendly, nothing more.” And he’d appeared more than once when Jasper Layton had come sidling about, a coincidence Esther was not going to examine too closely.

“You could try being friendly, Cousin.”

This went beyond bad advice to something approaching interfamilial treason. Esther propped her fists on her hips and glared at her cousin. “As far as these people are concerned, I have no dowry, my come out was two years ago, and I’m too tall. Do you know what friendliness would merit me in this company?”

Michael’s handsome features shuttered as Esther’s meaning sank in.

A banging of the conservatory door spared Esther whatever protest Michael would have made.

“There you are!” Lord Tony Windham covered the length of the conservatory in double time. “Miss Himmelfarb, I have need of your company this instant. Sir, you will excuse the lady. She has promised to walk the gardens with me immediately.”

He nodded at Michael, who offered Esther the merest glance to ascertain her consent before stepping back. “Miss Himmelfarb, good day. Lord Anthony.”

“Right, good day, good afternoon, good morning.” Lord Anthony linked his arm through Esther’s and lowered his voice. “Time is of the essence, my lady. You must attend to the flowers in the rose salon immediately.”

This was not the affable, smiling Lord Tony whom Esther had come to know in recent days. This was a fellow with urgent business on his mind.

“I must?”

“Indeed. It is of utmost importance that you do.” He hustled her along, not stopping until they were outside the door of the parlor in question.

The closed door.

“Lord Anthony, what’s afoot here?”

He opened the door and gave Esther a gently muscular shove. “My thanks for your company.”

The tableau that greeted Esther spoke for itself. In a dress far too low cut for daylight hours, Charlotte Pankhurst reclined on a chaise, while Lord Percival stood over her, looking exasperated.

“Miss Himmelfarb.” He bowed to her very low, his expression one of banked relief. “A pleasure to see you. Miss Pankhurst is feeling unwell, and I was just about to—”

The door from the blue salon next door opened abruptly, revealing Lady Morrisette and several of the other older women in attendance.

“I knew I heard voices!” Lady Morrisette’s shrill observation rang out over the room while her cronies crowded in behind her.

“It’s well you’re here, my lady,” Esther said before Charlotte could open her fool mouth. “I came in to check on the flowers and found Miss Pankhurst feeling poorly. Lord Percival stopped by and offered his aid when he perceived the lady was in distress. Perhaps the physician should be summoned?”

The distressed lady—for she clearly was distressed now—bolted to a sitting position. “That will not be necessary.”

Lady Morrisette rose to the challenge after the merest blink of frustrated disbelief. “Perhaps it was the kippers at breakfast, my dear. They don’t always agree with one. How fortunate his lordship and Miss Himmelfarb were here to render you aid.”

Charlotte’s expression turned from mulish to murderous as Lord Tony came sauntering in. “Greetings, all. Percy, the horses are being saddled as we speak, and you’re not yet in riding attire. Miss Himmelfarb, I believe you were to join us?”

This was farce, but from the look in Charlotte’s eyes, deadly farce.

Esther turned a dazzling smile on Lord Tony. “Just let me change into my habit, your lordship. Miss Pankhurst, I wish you a swift recovery.”

She curtsied to all and sundry, spared a dozen wilted bouquets half a thought, and sidled past Lord Tony into the hallway.

“Oh, Miss Himmelfarb!” Lady Morrisette’s voice jerked Esther to a stop as effectively as if Esther were a spaniel upon whose leash the woman had tramped.

“My lady?”

Esther’s hostess approached, glancing to the left and right as she did. “Charlotte is my goddaughter, and one can’t blame her for trying. I’ll understand if you have to depart early.”

What was the woman saying? “Are you asking me to leave?”

“Oh, good Lord, no.” Lady Morrisette’s smile was feral. “What ensues now should be very interesting indeed. I’m simply saying if you do decide your mother has an ague, for example, or your younger sister should come down with lung fever, then I will be happy to make your excuses to the company. I know my goddaughter, and she does not deal well with disappointment.”

A warning, then. “I appreciate your understanding. If you’ll excuse me, I must change into my riding habit.”

Lady Morrisette gave Esther a little salute. “Go down fighting, I always say. Enjoy your ride.”

The innuendo was cheerful, vulgar, and snide. Contemplating that Parthian shot, Esther felt as if she’d been the one to consume a quantity of bad kippers—and in the next two weeks, the feeling could only get worse.

* * *

Percival Windham did not believe in shirking his responsibilities. He boosted Esther Himmelfarb into the saddle, arranged her skirts over her boots, and remained standing by her stirrup.

“I am in your never-ending, eternal, perpetual debt, Miss Himmelfarb. I cannot thank you enough for your timely appearance in that salon. I’d received a note, you see, ostensibly from Lady Morrisette.”

Several yards away, Tony was fussing with his horse’s girth, no doubt sensible that the moment called for groveling.

“You should thank your brother, my lord, though I cannot think why he didn’t simply intervene himself.”

The lady’s words bore a slight chill, something more than politesse but less than indignation. This did not bode well for a fellow who’d reached the inescapable conclusion that he’d met his one true love.

“Had Tony come upon us alone in that room, he would have been honor bound to relate what he saw to our mother, Her Grace, and she would have been delighted to accept Miss Pankhurst as a prospective daughter-in-law. You see before you a man in receipt of nothing less than a divine pardon, Miss Himmelfarb, and you the angel of its deliverance.”

“That’s laying it on a bit thick, your lordship.”

Had her lips quirked? Was humor alight in her lovely green eyes?

“It is the God’s honest truth, madam. You will consider what boon I might grant you in repayment.”

He left her with that offer to consider—a stroke of genius if he did say so himself—and swung up onto his bay gelding. Two grooms mounted up on cobs, while Tony climbed onto a leggy gray.

“Would you like to see Morelands, Miss Himmelfarb? It’s not five miles east cross-country.”

“Lead on, your lordship. Any hour out of doors on such a lovely day is time well spent.”

Esther Himmelfarb rode with the casual grace of one who’d been put in the saddle early and often, and while her habit was several years out of fashion, her sidesaddle was in excellent repair and superbly fitted to her seat.