“You really do have lamentable aim.”

I grinned cheekily. “But I can out-pickpocket you any day.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” he snorted. “And is ‘pickpocket’ even a verb?”

“Do you want to quibble or do you want to read what I found in Travis’s pocket?”

“Let me see it.”

I held it out of his reach. “I haven’t even read it yet. You can look over my shoulder.”

His smile was crooked. “Bossy.”

I unfolded the paper. It was soft from too much handling, as if it had been read every single day, like a favorite poem. But even I hadn’t read The Lady of Shalott enough to alter the paper it was printed on, and I knew it by heart.

Colin twitched his nose at the perfume. “Why do girls do that?”

“It’s a love letter,” I explained.

“She must have spilled an entire bottle on it.”

“Shhh,” I said softly. “Listen,” I added and began to read.

Dearest Reece,

I know you think it improper, or at the very least imprudent, for us to write to one another, but I don’t care. There are too many rules as it is and they would choke me if I let them. Between corsets and lessons and curtsies and etiquette, I am hardly myself, and that is how they want it. They would prefer we all dress and talk and think (or not think) alike, like paper dolls.

I do not wish to be a paper doll.

Surely you can see that I am stronger than that. I don’t give a fig for the scandalbroth or the gossipmongers. Let us remove to Paris, where no one knows us to care and where they dine on scandal with éclairs every morning.

You will say again that it is impossible but I refuse to believe it. I know with every touch of your hand on mine, with every stolen kiss, that nothing is impossible.

Perhaps love isn’t meant to be simple. Perhaps this is merely a test, such as Psyche went through to prove herself to Cupid. Would you have me count lentils, beloved?

And as you claim I have the most to lose, I pray you will let me decide for myself what it is I want and need.

Which is you.

Not silks or lobster soup in crystal bowls or diamonds around my neck.

Just you.

You say again and again that you love me.

Prove it.

I lowered the letter. “He’s in love.”

“I reckon that explains the mad weeping.”

I turned to stare at him. “This can’t be a coincidence. Rowena showed me a letter at the séance last night. She jilted Peter and wanted to marry someone else.”

He stared back. “Travis? Rowena Wentworth was in love with that morbid beanpole?”

“Perhaps he wasn’t morbid before she died.”

He shook his head. “Daft. She’s an heiress. I guess he was jealous she was going to marry Peter? Some lover.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think that’s it. Her father gave her his permission,” I added, tapping the letter on my thigh. “So he can’t be the murderer. At least not for that reason.”

“Maybe she tired of him.”

“Maybe. Or maybe Peter found out and flew into the boughs. Elizabeth said he has a nasty temper.”

Colin frowned. “He’s a high flyer, no doubt. Going to be an earl and all that. His pride might’ve driven him off his nut when he found out.”

“How’s Caroline involved?” I wondered. “She lit that lamp on purpose. And Rowena threw a dead trout at her last night.”

“No wonder she chose you. Between pastries and fish, no one’s safe.”

A scratch at the door interrupted us. Colin dropped and rolled under the bed again. One of the maids poked her head in. “Miss?”

I tried not to look as if I was hiding a handsome young lad under the mattress.

“Yes?”

“Lord Jasper sent me up to see if you need help getting ready for the ball.” She smiled proudly. “I have a fair hand with a curling iron.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I needed to get Colin out before I ended up naked in the middle of my bedroom. “I, um, could I get some hot water? To wash my face?”

“Certainly, miss. I’ll have the footmen bring up the bathtub, if you like, before all the fine ladies start calling for their own baths.”

“That would be grand, thanks.” I’d never actually been in a full reclining tub before. We had a battered hip bath in the kitchen.

The maid curtsied and closed the door behind her. I let out a breath. Colin crawled back out. “They need to sweep under there,” he said, sneezing. “I’ll keep an eye on Peter for a while,” he added before slipping out of my room.

By the time I was bathed, coiffed with my hair in long ringlets, stuffed into a ball gown, and finally left alone in my chamber, I’d lost the rest of the afternoon. The ball was about to begin and I had no time to find Colin. Lord Jasper was waiting for me and I couldn’t be rude, not after everything he’d done for me. I’d have to put in an appearance and hope I could lose myself in the crowd as soon as possible.

The ballroom was even more sumptuously decorated than it was last week, with glass vases full of orchids and glass lanterns hung on jeweled chains from the painted ceiling. The orchestra was playing something liquid and beautiful, and couples danced in perfect circles. I curtsied to Lord Jasper, then kept my back to the wall, creeping behind the chairs set out for chaperones and wallflowers wishing someone would ask them to dance. I couldn’t see Elizabeth anywhere, or Peter, or even Tabitha—and she loved these events.