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over his chest.
    “You were telling me about Balfour’s assets.” One of the man’s assets was family. Three brothers, all doing well, plenty of family wealth to help out any sibling whose fortunes suffered a reverse, a nice big country house to gather everybody together for the holidays…
    While Dante had a few dependents, and Hector’s reports.
    “Are you even listening, Dante?”
    Dante rose and crossed the car, which was lurching and swaying away from the train station.
    “I always listen, but be patient with me. Margs sprang the nursery maids before we’d even reached Edinburgh. My nerves are delicate right now.”
    His patience was delicate, for Hector’s very competence grated. Dante opened the parlor stove and used the wrought iron poker to redistribute the fresh coal.
    “It’s only a house party,” Hector said, helping himself to another chocolate. “You eat and drink, flirt a bit, dance and sing, play cards, and casually mention that the mills are doing well enough to support a few more investors.”
    Dante closed the stove, the poker still in his hand.
    “Do you ever think maybe those old fellows with their claymores and targes had an easier time of it? No mincing and flirting involved—you wielded your sword against any who opposed you, plain and simple. No investment opportunities, just life and death with a wee dram now and then.” He made a few passes at thin air with the poker, then felt silly at Hector’s pitying expression.
    Dante would feel equally silly dancing and flirting away the coming weeks, much less playing cards night after night with men he’d likely never see again.
    “Edinburgh was worth a try,” Hector allowed charitably. “I don’t suppose Miss Margaret met anybody there?”
    “She met plenty of fools sniffing around for her dowry, and an equal number of well-bred ladies I wouldn’t turn my back on. Maybe MacGregor will have a spare relation who might catch her eye.”
    Though the children would miss Margs terribly if she married and moved away.
    “Maybe MacGregor will have a relation who might catch your eye.”
    “That would at least quiet the gossips I left snickering behind my back in Edinburgh. If she were a well-dowered relation, then she might spare me all that mincing and toasting and caroling too.”
    Also warm his bed, which notion a tired, single, and possibly lonely fellow shouldn’t be blamed for contemplating wistfully on a cold, snowy afternoon.
    Hector’s pencil paused in its journey down the right side of a page of notes.
    “Maybe marriage and money ought not to be on the same ledger page. The English aristocracy has bound up matrimony and wealth for generations, and look how they’re turning out.”
    Lady Joan was an English aristocrat—a rather pretty one—though the woman had a peaked, pinchy look to her Dante couldn’t approve of.
    “I hate it when you make a good point. Move over and pass me the chocolates.”

Four
    When silence descended not fifteen minutes out of Aberdeen, Joan missed the chatter of the children and Miss Hartwell’s gentle clucking and scolding. One of the nursemaids was coming down with a sniffle, so both had been banished from the parlor cars for the duration of the journey, lest the children take ill too.
    A lady did not pace.
    A lady did not worry the lace at her cuffs, much as a child might compulsively stroke a corner of a favorite blanket or doll’s dress.
    A lady did not allow herself to become inebriated by strong drink, then overcome by a man’s illicit passions.
    The sheer shame of Joan’s folly with Edward Valmonte threatened to choke her and had her heading for the platform between the train cars. As she opened the door to one car, Mr. Hartwell opened the door to the other. He had in his hand the box of chocolates Joan had stashed in her bag before making a hasty departure from Edinburgh.
    “My lady, where is your cloak?”
    Cloak. She’d come outside in the dead of winter on a speeding train without