Sterling watched as, plate in hand, Lady Annabelle approached the table.

She’d put a few more morsels on her breakfast plate today than she had yesterday—not that he cared. But she had missed dinner last night—thanks to him and his inability to school his tongue in her presence.

In truth, he’d considered delivering a light dinner plate to her chamber last night before turning in. He’d refrained because he hadn’t wanted to risk disturbing her at that late hour. Nor had he wanted the vision of her in her nightclothes as she opened her chamber door to be the last thing he saw before bed.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, slanting her a glance as he picked up the newspaper and opened it to the page where he’d left off.

“To be honest, no.”

“No?” He saw the faint smudges under her eyes, then. “Probably because you went to bed hungry,” he muttered. “I can afford to feed you, you know.”

Her white teeth flashed as she sliced into a small piece of ham, and his pulse kicked up.

Good Lord. He was ridiculous where she was concerned. God help him if she ever figured out how much power she held over him. No woman alive had ever enthralled him the way she did without even trying. Why? She was beautiful, but many women were.

She was also difficult, headstrong, overly confident.

Except when she wasn’t.

He shook his head to clear it. No good would come of meditating on Lady Annabelle’s intriguing blend of attributes.

“I dream here,” she said, before sliding a forkful of eggs into her mouth.

He set the paper aside and propped his chin on his hand to study her. “Is that unusual for you? Dreaming?”

She eyed her plate. “I suppose I do dream at home. But I don’t recall them, and I don’t find myself waking from them repeatedly. And…never mind.” She huffed out a seemingly self-conscious laugh and, using the edge of her knife, slid more eggs onto her fork.

She had a very pretty way of eating, sitting straight and erect and carrying tiny tidbits to her lovely lips on her fork. She didn’t hunker over her plate as a man might, shoveling food into his mouth. No, she ate as if performing the measured steps of a dance.

Did all ladies eat that way? He could not recall. But here, now…He could practically see her practicing, a heavy tome balanced atop her head.

And he was staring again.

“And?” he prompted, his voice brusque, though he suspected that had more to do with his annoyance at himself. He didn’t know who he was around Annabelle.

Her gaze snapped to his face, blue eyes startled.

Hardly surprising. He tried again, this time, composed. “I would like you to go on. Please.”

Her expression softened, for lack of a better word, as if she found the notion of his interest in hearing what she had to say alien, and nice.

“Very well. I dreamt of when I was young. My governess, Miss Jenkins, was there, and I was…like before.”

“Like ‘before’?”

Her face flushed a deep crimson. “That’s not important,” she muttered, sawing away at an already minced slice of pork. “The main thing is that the dream was not at all pleasant.”

“In other words, you had a nightmare?”

“Not so much a nightmare, but definitely unpleasant. I awoke in the night, relieved to be done with it, but when I resumed sleeping, the dream persisted.” She blew air out her cheeks and shifted her gaze to his. Wide, guileless, bottomless pools of blue. “Have you ever experienced the phenomenon, Lord Randall?”

He shook his head.

“It’s like…Oh, I know. Say, you have a ball to attend, and everyone awaits you in the foyer, but you’ve misplaced your dance slippers. You look, and you look, and suddenly hours have gone by, and still, no slippers.”

“Sorry, I can’t relate,” he said dryly.

She scowled at him. “Very well. A constellation of stars is due to arrive, and someone’s removed your precious apparatus.”

“Removed my apparatus?” he choked out on a burst of laughter. Good God, his apparatus. He poured himself more coffee. “Yes, now that I would find disastrous. Even a missing telescope would be cause for alarm.”

The look she sent him was equal parts confusion and suspicion, as if she sensed he teased her, but couldn’t work out precisely how.

“So, you dreamt you were late for a ball last night?” he asked, redirecting her thoughts.

A shuttered look crossed her face. “No. I was…searching for someone. I’d won at marbles—”

“Marbles?”

“I was quite good at marbles,” she said, sounding pleased with herself, then added under her breath, “because of the patch, no doubt.”

“Patch?”

She huffed out a breath. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry. Won’t interrupt again.” He mimed buttoning his lips, and she sent him a look of silent rebuke—or tried to. He saw the glint of humor in her eyes before she lowered her lashes.

Then her expression sobered. “I’d won, but not fairly. I’d cheated. I thought, if I could just give the winnings back—the marbles,” she explained. “But I couldn’t find anyone, and they were so heavy. I searched, and I searched, wanting to make it right. But I never could.”

His humor faded. “It was just a dream, Annabelle.”

She nodded, scooting her eggs and now-decimated pork around on her plate.

He didn’t like seeing her like this. It caused an ache in his chest he didn’t care for in the slightest. “I still say you brought it on yourself, skipping dinner,” he said, mostly to distract her.

She appeared not to hear him. A moment later, she set her cutlery aside, squared her shoulders, and faced him, her expression resolute. “Lord Randall, I’ve come to a decision.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“I shall return to London.”

“Of course, in due time, when your chaperone arrives.”

“I think it best if I depart sooner. I wonder,” she mused aloud, narrowing her eyes in a contemplative manner, “if perhaps Babette could fashion a netted cap for me.”

Somehow, he’d lost the thread of the conversation. “I beg your pardon?”

“A black netted cap would conceal my identity, should anyone happen to notice me.”

He frowned at her. What was she playing at now?

She picked up her fork and resumed eating, if one could call it that. His mother would call it playing with one’s food.

“Do you not care for the breakfast?”

Her hand stilled. “It’s more than adequate.”

“Then, I wish you would eat some of it.”

Her delicate brows furrowed into a bemused frown. She forked up a bite of eggs, chewed, and swallowed. “Satisfied?”

“For starters. As for your outlandish notion—”

“I see nothing outlandish in the notion so long as I draw no attention to myself in the process.”

As if a world existed where she would not draw attention,

“I am perfectly capable,” she went on, warming to her idea. “I practically traveled here on my own.”

“Out of the question,” he told her, thoroughly vexed.

Because it was. Never mind two days earlier he’d all but insisted she take herself off and cease darkening his door. But that had been when she had the benefit of a chaperone.

By God, she knew the risks. Why the sudden urge to leave? Unless…

“Lady Annabelle, is there a particular reason you feel you can no longer await your chaperone?”

She did not meet his eyes.

A distinct warmth crawled up his neck. Damn it to hell. “Lady Annabelle, do you consider my behavior toward you, particularly my rooftop behavior, to have been grossly dishonorable?”