“Oh, but I am sorry. Your being here has been such a pleasure! I⁠—” She stopped, and looked away across the flowers.

“You?” prompted Jack before he could check himself.

With a tiny laugh she brought her gaze back.

“I am sorry you must leave us, naturally.”

She sat down beneath an arbour of roses, and patted the place beside her invitingly, with just the same unconscious friendliness that she had always shown him. My lord stayed where he was, with one hand on a tree trunk and the other fidgeting with his quizzing glass.

“Mistress Di⁠—I think it only right that I should tell you what I have told your father, and what I told your aunt some time ago, when she refused to believe me. To some extent I am here under false pretences. I am not what you think me.”

Diana laced and unlaced her fingers, and thought that she understood.