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“I don’t think ladies go for height,” Ernest said quietly.

“—and you can probably drink more than him—”

“Again, I don’t think the ladies go for—”

“—and,” interrupted Michael, as though he were about to lay down a winning card, “she’s asked after you.”

Ernest perked up at that. “She has?”

His friend nodded impressively. “About you. Your estate. Where you come from, what you’re doing, that sort of thing.”

Miss Gwendoline Chance was currently laughing about something with her sister-in-law, and Ernest permitted himself another look.

She was remarkably pretty, and the thought that she had been asking after him… What did that mean? Was that mere politeness, or nosiness, perhaps, about the man who had been staying with her family all this time? Was it possible that it had been nothing more than passing conversation?

Ernest glanced at his friend with a considering eye. How much of this was Michael attempting to dissuade his sister from marrying a dullard, and how much of this was Gwendoline herself?

Miss Gwendoline. Blast.

“Mama said so herself: she’d rather Gwen marry someone poor and be happy than sell herself off to that marquess,” Michael muttered helpfully, as the family party halted by the park gate. “And she was one of the primary candidates to be the flourishing rose of her debut Season this year.”

Ernest had absolutely no idea what that meant, but he could take the hint. The hint painted in large letters.

So. The Chance family were unimpressed with the Marquess of Ravenshurst.

It was quite ridiculous that he should have been so delighted by that fact, but he was. Never having met the man, Ernest had managed to envision the most impressive, handsome, charming man imaginable.

Discovering that neither her parents nor her brother wished for Miss Gwendoline to go ahead with this ostensively advantageous marriage was quite heartening.

“Well, time to head home,” said Miss Gwendoline brightly. “Phylis, you simply must stay for luncheon. Cook is trying a new pudding.”

“We’re too energetic to go home yet, aren’t we, Phylis?” Michael said hastily, looking at his wife sharply in a way that made Ernest want to put his hands over his face.

Dear God, could the man be more obvious?

“We are?” The new Viscountess Pernrith did not look so convinced, and she placed a hand upon her stomach over her pelisse as she hissed, “I’d actually quite like—”

“Another turn about the park? I quite agree,” interrupted her husband with a wide grin. “I assume you would like to join us, Mama, Pa?”

“What?” grunted his father.

“Oh, yes,” trilled his mother, and Ernest felt a horrendous sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as some sort of hint of what was happening started to dawn on him. “Yes, I would like that. But as you’re so tired, Gwen—”

“I didn’t say that,” began her daughter.

Ernest could tell it was going to be no use.

“Why don’t you allow Lord Frasemere to escort you home?” said the dowager viscountess brightly. “It’s only a few streets away, and Teddy will be waiting for you.”

“But—”

“Capital idea, capital idea. Wish I’d thought of it myself. Well, then, you two,” said Michael hastily, pushing Ernest with a none-too-subtle shove in the direction of his sister. “Tell Cook to get luncheon going.”

Ernest looked desperately around the family, but Michael and his mother had somehow orchestrated this to perfection. Captain Seaton was already starting back along the path, and when Ernest caught the dowager viscount’s eye, he just shrugged.

“Look after her, Frasemere,” he said cheerfully as he took his wife’s arm in his.

“But…” started Miss Gwendoline hastily.