"Absolutely not. What an utterly harebrained idea, Annabelle.”

Gilbert’s eyes had the rolling look of a hare that knew the hounds were upon him.

Annabelle lowered her lashes. She knew it would look demure, and demure placated her cousin best when he was all in a fluster. Of all the types of men she had learned to manage, the “ignorant yet self-important” type was not exactly the most challenging. Then again, when her very fate lay in the hands of such a man, it added insult to injury. Gilbert would snatch the chance of a lifetime from her here in his cramped little study and go straight back to admiring his freshly pinned butterflies in the display case on the desk between them.

“What would be next,” he said, “joining the circus? Standing for Parliament?”

“I understand that it’s unusual,” she said, “but—”

“You are not going to Oxford,” he bellowed, and slapped his hand down on the desk.

Her father’s old desk. Left to Gilbert in her father’s will rather than to her. The dignified piece of furniture did nothing for her cousin: age-worn on four carved lion paws, it would have bolstered the authority of any man throning behind it, but Gilbert was still fluffed up like a startled chicken. Well. It was understandable that he felt ambushed. She had surprised herself. After five long years as Gilbert’s maid for everything, she hadn’t expected to feel a yearning urge ever again.