The earl responded with a brief nod. “When will you depart?”

“Early in the morning.” Simon could not repress a long, taut sigh.

Westcliff smiled wryly. “The situation will untangle itself,” he said in a prosaic manner. “Go to London, and come back when your head is clear.”

Annabelle could not seem to shake the melancholy that clung to her like a mantle of ice. Sleep had been elusive, and she had hardly been able to eat a bite of the sumptuous breakfast that had been served downstairs. Lord Kendall had regarded her wan countenance and her quietness as lingering effects of her recent illness, and he had plied her with sympathy and solace until she had wanted to shove him away in irritation. Her friends, too, were being similarly annoying in their niceness, and for the first time Annabelle took no enjoyment in their cheerful banter. She tried to identify the moment when her spirits had turned so sour, and realized that it had been the moment when she had learned from Lady Olivia that Simon Hunt had left Stony Cross.

“Mr. Hunt has gone to London on business,” Lady Olivia had said lightly. “He never stays long at these parties—the wonder is that he didn’t leave sooner than this. No dust settles on that one, to be certain…”

When someone had questioned why Mr. Hunt’s departure had been so precipitate, Lady Olivia had smiled and shook her head. “Oh, Hunt comes and goes at will, rather like a tomcat. His departures are always abrupt, as he seems to dislike good-byes of any kind.”

Hunt had left without one word to Annabelle, and as a result, she was left feeling abandoned and anxious. Thoughts of the previous night—oh, hideous evening!—kept playing relentlessly in her mind. After the events in the music room, she had been disoriented, so thoroughly occupied with thoughts of Hunt that she couldn’t seem to focus on the here and now. She had kept her gaze down so that she wouldn’t catch an unexpected glimpse of him, and she had prayed silently that he wouldn’t approach her. Mercifully he had kept his distance, while Lord Kendall had planted himself firmly at her side. Kendall had spent the rest of the night talking to her about subjects she didn’t understand and couldn’t have cared less about. She had encouraged him with innocuous murmurs and halfhearted smiles, and had thought dimly that she should be ecstatic about the attention he was paying to her. Instead, she had only wished that he would go away.

Her subdued manner at breakfast seemed to attract Kendall all the more. Assuming that her docile facade was an act, Lillian Bowman had surreptitiously whispered near her ear, “Good job, Annabelle. He’s eating out of your hand.”

Excusing herself from the breakfast table on the pretext of needing to rest, Annabelle wandered alone through the manor, until she reached the blue parlor. The chess table lured her, and she approached it slowly, wondering if a housemaid had finally replaced the pieces in the box, or if someone had interfered with the game. No, it was exactly as she had left it…with one minor change. Simon Hunt had moved a pawn into a defensive position, which allowed her the opportunity either to shore up her own defense, or move aggressively to pursue his queen. It was not a move that she would have expected of him. She would have thought he would attempt something more ambitious. More contentious. Studying the board, she strove to understand his strategy. Had his move been made out of indecision, or carelessness? Or was there some hidden purpose she could not discern?

Annabelle reached for one of her pieces, hesitated, and withdrew her hand. It was just a game, she told herself. She was ascribing far too much importance to every move, as if some momentous prize hung in the balance. Nevertheless, she reconsidered her decision carefully before reaching out once again. She slid her queen forward and captured the pawn, experiencing a thrill of satisfaction as the pieces clicked together, ivory on onyx. Clasping the pawn in her palm, she tested the weight of it before setting it carefully beside the board.

As the week unfolded, it turned out that the one moment at the chessboard had been Annabelle’s solitary flicker of enjoyment. She had never felt this way before…not happy, nor sad, nor even worry-bitten about the future. She was simply numb, her senses and emotions dulled until she began to think she might never care about anything again. The sense of detachment was so thorough that she sometimes had the sense of standing outside herself, watching a mechanical doll move stiffly through each day.

Lord Kendall partnered Annabelle with increasing frequency…they danced together at a ball, sat side by side at a musical evening, and walked through the garden with Philippa meandering at a discreet distance behind them. Kendall was pleasant, respectful, and quietly charming. He was so tolerant, in fact, that Annabelle began to think that when she and the wallflowers sprung their final trap on him, he might not even resent it so terribly, being forced to marry a girl he had inadvertently compromised. He would get used to it eventually, and, being a philosophical man, he would find some way to accept the situation.

As for Hodgeham, it was clear that Philippa was managing to keep him away from Annabelle. Moreover, Philippa had somehow convinced him not to carry out his threat to expose their secret to Lord Kendall, though she would not discuss the details of the conversation. Concerned about the effect that such constant distress must be having on her mother, Annabelle tentatively brought up the possibility of leaving Stony Cross Park. However, Philippa would not hear of it. “I will manage Hodgeham,” she said firmly. “You just continue on with Lord Kendall. It is clear to everyone that Kendall is taken with you.”