Chapter Fifty
December 9th, 1808
Okehampton, Devonshire
Reid waylaid Letty in the corridor outside the parlor the next morning. “How are you? How do you feel?”
“Very well. And you?”
“No, I mean . . .” He lowered his voice. “Are you sore?”
She was heart-sore, but that wasn’t what he meant. “No.”
He nodded his relief, and shuffled his feet in an un-Icarus-like manner. “Letty . . . do you have to leave for London tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“But if you’re taking yourself off the Marriage Mart, then there’s no reason—”
“I still have to return before I’m missed. I owe it to my family not to distress them. And if Mrs. Sitwell thinks she’s lost me she’ll be beside herself.”
Reid accepted this with another nod, and shuffled his feet and seemed about to say something more—and then he turned and op
