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A faint sound came through the connecting door: the rustle of sheets, the pad of bare feet. Then the door to her corridor opened and closed.

Sutton frowned at the canopy.

Where is she going at this hour?

He waited for her to return, counting to a hundred, then to two hundred. The house stayed silent, and slowly a cold, unwelcome thought crept in beside the ache in his side.

She has left.

It was absurd. She had come to his room just a few hours earlier, bade him good night, and promised to see him the next morning at breakfast. But he had once ridden through a November rain to find an empty bedchamber and a note on a pillow.

Three days, he decided, was quite enough bed rest.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, put on his dressing gown and slippers, and went to look for her.

He went down the grand staircase and checked the front door. It was locked from the inside. Relief flooded over him.

She hasn't left. At least, not through the front door.

Then, from somewhere at the back of the house, came a faint clinking sound.

The kitchen?

He followed it through the servants' passage and down the narrow back stair, and was nearly at the door when he heard another sound.

Not the mechanical sound of dishes clinking this time.

Humming.

It was soft and unhurried, barely more than a breath.

He stepped into the doorway.

A single branch of candles burned on the long worktable, its light forming a small gold island in the dark kitchen. Temperance stood in the middle of it in her nightgown and a shawl, her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder, stirring a copper pot while swaying and humming to herself.

She was barefoot, her toes curling against the flagstones—he found that detail oddly endearing.

"Temperance?"

"Oh!" She spun around, clutching the spoon to her chest. "I did not hear you. Apologies, was I being loud?"

"Not at all," he said.

"What are you doing up, then?" Her gaze went to his midsection. "The doctor said you should not be out of bed for a week."

"Dr. Grisham cannot know how dull it is to lie in bed for three days straight, much less a week."

"You know what is worse than lying in bed for a whole week?" she asked, waving her spoon.

"What?"

"Lying there even longer. I believe the doctor mentioned a hot iron."

Sutton waved the issue away and stepped inside.

"All right." Temperance tapped her spoon against the rim of the pot. "Let me see."

"Let you see what?"