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night’s overindulgence, came hot against Esther’s neck.
    It was time to end this.
    “Lady Morrisette has asked me to join her as soon as I’ve seen to the young ladies. If you’d get the door, sir. Please.”
    Esther suffused the last word with pleading, but knew a moment’s real trepidation when Sir Jasper did not immediately do as she asked. He gave her breasts as much of a squeeze as her stomacher allowed, reached around her to lift the door latch, and stepped back.
    “A man’s protection would offer you a great deal more than this servile existence, Miss Himmelfarb.” He stroked his crotch twice, his gaze on Esther’s breasts. “A great deal more.”
    Gracious God . Esther did her best rendition of the flustered schoolgirl and ducked out of the stairway, kicking the door shut behind her with a shade too much force. Sir Jasper offered not marriage but ruin, and the cursed man no doubt honestly believed a few months of his favors were preferable to a respectable life with children.
    Esther set the tray down on a sideboard and paused to consider her appearance in the mirror above it. Flushed, pale, angry .
    Sir Jasper’s offer, not the first of its kind, was not preferable to decades of respectable marriage and motherhood—but was it preferable to decades of impoverished spinsterhood? To being shuffled around her siblings’ households as the poor relation? To growing old with her parents?
    “I behold a vision, though not, I think, a happy one.”
    Behind her in the mirror, an unpowdered Percival Windham, golden hair loose about his shoulders, was smiling perplexedly at her reflection.
    Now , he chanced upon her? Now , when she wanted to cock back her arm and slap any man she saw on general principles?
    She curtsied. “My lord. Good day.”
    “It is no such thing when you’re consigned to carrying trays for the harpies populating this house party.” He stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. “We’ve shared a moonlit posset, Miss Himmelfarb, though you seem determined to ignore the memory.”
    He was implying some question or other, while Esther wanted to… howl like a wolf, in part because they had shared a moonlit posset.
    “Forgive me, my lord. I do not relish Lady Zephora’s tongue lashing when I appear belatedly with her tea tray.”
    He came around to stand between Esther and her reflection, his lips pursed in study. “Hang Lady Zephora and the whole chorus. Something has you overset.”
    At that precise, benighted moment, Sir Jasper emerged from the stairway and sauntered along the corridor.
    He nodded at Lord Percival. “My lord.”
    “Sir Jasper.”
    Jasper paused and ran an insolent gaze over Esther while she stood silently by the sideboard. Bad enough to be ogled, but it hurt to endure such treatment where Lord Percival could see it. Esther did not know whom to hate for that hurting—Jasper, Lord Percival, or herself.
    Sir Jasper took himself off after a pointed look at the tea tray. Had she been alone, Esther might have ducked back into the maid’s stairway and had a good cry.
    Percival Windham turned an inscrutable gaze on her in the ensuing silence. “Esther Himmelfarb, was that weasel bothering you?”
    The question held such quiet ferocity, Esther wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She nodded, because whatever else was true about Percival Windham, he hadn’t blamed her for Sir Jasper’s weaseling. “I should have known better than to use the maid’s stairs. He is a predictable nuisance.”
    “You will not blame yourself for his bad behavior. Come along.” Lord Percival picked up the tea tray like it weighed nothing and winged an elbow at Esther. “You look tired, my dear, but I know you aren’t lurking in gardens of a late hour.”
    Esther took his arm, recalling the muscles there only when she wrapped her fingers around them. “How could you know that?”
    “I’ve made the kitchen garden my private retreat, but I’ve also repaired there in hopes of