Lily Ferguson’s finishing governess had warned her that a young lady must appear pleasantly fascinated with scandals and engagement announcements, no matter that they bored her silly.

“Aspic and small talk,” Lily muttered.

They were equally disagreeable. Fortunately, the Earl of Grampion’s dinner party was lively and the general conversation loud enough to hide Lily’s grousing.

“I beg your pardon, my dear?” Neville, Lord Stemberger, asked. Because his lordship apparently longed for an early death, he leaned closer to Lily’s bosom to pose his question.  

At the head of the table, a footman whispered in Lord Grampion’s ear. The earl was a titled bachelor with vast estates in the north. Thus, his invitations were coveted by the matchmakers.

Then too, he was attractive. On the tall side, blond hair with a tendency to wave, blue eyes worthy of a Yorkshire summer sky, and features reminiscent of a plundering Norseman. Strikingly masculine, rather than handsome.

Perhaps he had bad teeth, for the man never smiled. Lily would ask Tippy for details regarding the Kettering family, for Tippy studied both Debrett’s and the tattlers religiously.

Lily had found Grampion a trifle disappointing when they’d been introduced. His bow had been correct, his civilities just that—not a spark of mischief, not a hint of warmth in his expression. Many handsome men were dull company, their looks excusing them from the effort to be interesting, much less charming. 

Lily’s musings were interrupted by the sensation of a bug crawling on her flesh. Lord Stemberger’s pudgy fingers rested on her forearm, and he remained bent close to her as if entirely unaware of his own presumption.

At the head of the table, Grampion rose and bowed to the guests on either side of him, then withdrew.

Excellent suggestion.

Lily draped her serviette on the table. “If you’ll excuse me, my lord. I’ll return in a moment.” Thirty minutes ought to suffice to fascinate Lord Stemberger with some other pair of breasts.

She pushed her chair back, and Lord Stemberger, as well as the fellow on her right, half rose as she departed. So polite of them, when they weren’t ogling the nearest young lady or her settlements. Across the table and up several seats, Uncle Walter appeared engrossed in an anecdote told by the woman to his right.

Lily made her way down the corridor, intent on seeking refuge in the women’s retiring room, but she must have taken a wrong turning, for a raised male voice stopped her.

“Where the devil can she have got off to?” a man asked.

A quieter voice, also male, replied briefly.

“Then search again and keep searching until—Miss Ferguson.” The Earl of Grampion came around the corner and stopped one instant before knocking Lily off her feet. “I beg your pardon.”

A footman hovered at his lordship’s elbow—a worried footman.

“My lord,” Lily said, dipping a curtsey. “Has somebody gone missing?”

“Excuse us,” Grampion said to the footman, who scampered off as if he’d heard a rumor about free drinks at the nearest pub.

“No need for concern, Miss Ferguson, this has been a regular occurrence for the past week. My ward has decided to play hide-and-seek all on her own initiative, well past her bedtime, after promising me faithfully that she’d never, ever, not for any reason—I’m babbling.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I beg your pardon. The child will be found, I’ve no doubt of it.”

This was the polite, chilly host to whom Lily had been introduced two hours ago? “How old is she?”

“Almost seven, though she’s clever beyond her years. I found her in the hayloft last time, and we’d been searching for hours. The nursery maids don’t think she’d leave the house at night.”

No wonder he was worried. Even Mayfair was no place for a lone six-year-old at night. “How long has she been missing?”

His lordship produced a gold pocket watch and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Seventeen minutes. The senior nursery maid tucked the girl in at precisely nine of the clock—for the third time—and was certain the child had fallen asleep. She went back into Daisy’s bedroom to retrieve her cap precisely at ten, and the little imp wasn’t in the bed.”

“You could set the guests to searching.”

Grampion snapped the watch closed. “No, I could not. Do you know what sort of talk that would start? I’m supposed to be attracting a suitable match, and unless I want to go to the bother and expense of presenting my bachelor self in London for the next five Seasons, I cannot allow my tendency to misplace small children to become common knowledge.”

Lily smoothed back the hair he’d mussed, then tidied the folds of his cravat, lest some gossip speculate that he’d been trysting rather than searching for this ward. He was genuinely distraught—why else would he be baldly reciting his marital aspirations?—and Lily approved of him for that.

For resenting the burden and expense of a London Season, she sympathized with him, and for his honesty, she was at risk for liking him.

And that he’d blame himself for misplacing the child… Lily peered up at him, for Grampion was a tall specimen.

“Where is your favorite place in the house?” she asked.

“I don’t have a favorite place. I prefer to be in the stables, if you must know, or the garden. When the weather is inclement, or I have the luxury of idleness, I read or tend to correspondence in my study.”

His complexion was a touch on the ruddy side, the contours of his features a trifle weathered now that Lily could study him from close range. As a result, his eyes were a brilliant blue and, at present, full of concern.

“Come with me,” Lily said, taking him by the hand. “That you found your ward in the stable is no coincidence. You say she’s been in your home for only a week?”

Grampion came along peacefully, suggesting he was possessed of sense, despite his upset. “She’s an orphan, her parents having died earlier this year. The will named me as guardian, and so she was left almost literally upon my doorstep. The poor child was quite close to her mother and barely knows me from among a dozen other neighbors.”

“What’s her name?”

“Beelzebub, on her bad days. Her parents named her Amy Marguerite, her mother called her Daisy.”

Lily dropped his lordship’s hand outside the study, which was across the corridor from the formal parlor. “What do you call her?”

He focused on a spot above and to the left of Lily’s left shoulder. “Sweetheart, poppet, my dear, or, when I can muster an iota of sternness, young lady.”

Lily patted his lapel. “Refer to the child as Daisy, but do not acknowledge that she’s in the room.”

“You believe she’s in the study?”

“I’m almost certain of it, if you frequent the study late at night. You will lament her absence, worry aloud at great length, and confirm to me that losing the child would devastate you.”

He considered the door latch. “Devastate might be doing it a bit brown. With practice, I could endure to lose her for ten minutes here and there.”

He’d be devastated if the child wasn’t soon found. Lily was more than a little worried, and she hadn’t even met the girl.

His lordship pushed open the door and gestured for Lily to precede him.

No wonder he preferred this chamber. Books rose to a height of two stories on shelves lining two sides of the room. The windows on the outside wall would look over the garden, and the furnishings were of the well-padded, sturdy variety that invited reading in unusual positions for long periods.

The wall sconces had been turned down, throwing soft shadows across thick carpets, and the hearth blazed with a merry warmth.

A pleasure dome, compared to small talk and aspic.

“We simply can’t find her,” Lord Grampion announced. “Daisy is very clever at choosing hiding places, and I despair of locating her when she doesn’t want to be found.”

“Where have you looked?” Lily asked as a curtain twitched in the absence of any breeze.

“We’re searching the house from top to bottom, the maids are starting in the cellars, the footmen in the attics. Nobody will sleep a wink until Daisy is once again tucked safely in her bed.”

Lily pointed to the curtain, and Grampion nodded.

“She must matter to you very much for you to leave your guests and set your entire staff to searching, my lord.”

“Of course she matters to me. She’s the dearest child, and I’m responsible for her happiness and well-being.”

His lordship was clearly not playacting. In the space of a week, Daisy had captured his heart, or at least his sense of duty. Many daughters commanded less loyalty from their blood relatives, and nieces were fortunate to have a roof over their heads.

As Uncle Walter so kindly reminded Lily at every opportunity.

“Do you think she might be lost?” Lily asked as his lordship silently stalked across the room. “It’s so very dark out tonight. Not a sliver of a moon in the sky.”

“Daisy is too clever to be lost,” Grampion said, pushing back the curtain. “But she’s not too clever to be found.”

A small blond child sat hunched on a window seat. She peered up at the earl, saying nothing. Most parents would have launched into a vociferous scold. Grampion instead sat beside the child. He said nothing and merely tucked her braid over her shoulder.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the girl said, ducking her head. “I miss home.”

“So do I,” the earl replied. “Are your feet cold?”

Bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of a linen nightgown. “Yes.”

The earl scooped her up and settled her in his lap. “You gave me a fright, Daisy. Another fright, and you promised not to do this again.”

She sat stiffly in his arms, like a cat who had pressing business to be about in the pantry. “Will you beat me?”

“Never.”

He should probably not have admitted that, and Lily should not be witnessing a moment both awkward and intimate. She took a step back, and the child’s gaze swung to her.

“Who’s she?”

Grampion rose with the girl in his arms. “Miss Lily Ferguson, may I make known to you Miss Daisy Evers, my ward. Daisy, this is Miss Lily.”

He’d chosen informal address, and Lily was far more comfortable with it. “Hello, Daisy. The earl was beside himself with anxiety for you.”

“Worried,” Grampion said. “I was worried, and now I’m taking you up to bed, young lady.”

“May I have a story, please?”

Grampion should refuse this request, because naughty behavior ought not to be rewarded.

“His lordship has many guests who will all remark his absence,” Lily said, holding the door open. “I know a few good stories, though, and will stay with you until you fall asleep.”

Grampion led the way up two flights of stairs, pausing only to ask a footman to call off the search. The nursery was lavishly comfortable, but all the furnishings looked new, the toys spotless and overly organized on the shelves.

Where were the girl’s brothers, when her toys wanted a few dings and dents?

“You will behave for Miss Ferguson,” his lordship said. “Do not interrupt to ask why nobody has ever seen a dragon, or how dragons breathe fire without getting burned.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Try to go to sleep,” Grampion said, laying the child on her bed and brushing a hand over her brow. “Miss Ferguson, a word with you, please.”

“I’ll be right back,” Lily told the girl.

His lordship plucked a paisley shawl from the back of a rocking chair and led Lily into the corridor.

“One story,” he said, draping the shawl around Lily’s shoulders. “No more, or you’ll still be reading when the sun comes up. And you may slap me for asking, but are you enamored of Lord Stemberger?”

The shawl was silk, the feel of it lovely against Lily’s skin. What sort of bachelor earl kept silk shawls for the nursery maids?

“I am in no fashion enamored of Lord Stemberger. Why?”

“He…” Grampion appeared to become fascinated with the gilt scrollery framing a pier-glass across the corridor. “He did not conduct himself as a gentleman ought at table. Sitting beside him, you might not have noticed where his gaze strayed, but I will not invite him back. He lacks couth.”

Lily approved of Grampion very much for speaking up when many other men would have looked the other way or, more likely, guffawed in their clubs over Stemberger’s coarse behavior.

Grampion lacked warmth, but he was honorable, and to an orphaned child, he’d been kind.

“See to your guests, my lord,” Lily said. “I’ll tend to the dragons and be down shortly.”

“Miss Lily?” came a soft question from the child’s bedroom. “Are you coming?”

Grampion bowed over Lily’s hand, his grasp warm in the chilly corridor. “One story. Promise me. The child needs to know I mean what I say.”

“One story,” Lily said. “One happily ever after. I promise. Now be off with you.”