"You walk as if you were afraid the boards would creak." Lady Anne turned her head. The clear grey eyes were perfectly grave. "They don't, in the garden. You may tread as you like."
That night, after the others had gone up, Thomasin went down to the library for a book, because she could not sleep, and found the Earl there alone, standing by the dead fire with his gloved hand against his chest.
She would have gone. He said, "Don't—please. Miss Bramley. Come in. I'm poor company but I'm not dangerous."
She came in. She found a book—it was Cowper; she put it back—and he watched her do it.
"You were the cousin by the wall," he said. "In Bruton Street. You looked at me as if I were going to perjure myself."
"I beg your pardon, my lord."
"No, I deserved it. I was perjuring myself, a little. I told your cousin I had a fondness for Yorkshire." He almost smiled. "She has been very good to me. She knows more about my estate than my steward does. I think she'll do it better than I ever could. I don't—" He stopped. "I find I don't know her at all. Isn't that strange? I thought I knew her better than anyone living. She writes—there's a passage in one of her letters I've read so often I could say it in my sleep. A good deal of what people call happiness is only stewing hard pears with cloves—"
"—and pretending," said Thomasin, "and not minding very much."
She heard herself say it. She heard it in the cold room as clearly as the bell.
He did not move. He stood quite still by the fireplace with his hand against his chest and looked at her, and she saw the look come into his face slowly, the way light comes into a room when someone opens the shutters a little at a time.
"She reads them to me," said Thomasin. "My cousin. Her letters, before she sends them. And yours. I—good night, my lord."
She went out. She did not run on the stairs. She had learned long ago which boards creaked.