"It's not an act," Anne said. "That's why it's so successful. Goodness me, Eleanor, you sound as if you care."
"I'm not sure whether Lisette should marry him either. After all, he does have a thoroughly disreputable number of children."
"Not just children—bastards," Anne said with her usual bluntness. "Wait until Mother hears that little detail. Lisette may have a brain as empty as a washhouse on Sundays, but I agree with you. She doesn't deserve the kind of scandal broth that will follow those children. She has her own to cope with."
"You know Lisette. She changes her mind every five minutes. She may be smiling at him now, but wait until tomorrow."
"What an interesting visit this shall be," Anne said, coming to her feet. "Wake up that dog, Eleanor.
Did you know there's a puddle under our settee?"
Eleanor shrugged. "I should have taken him for a walk on the lawn, but I was so rattled by all the screaming that I forgot."
"Bastard children or not," Anne announced, "Villiers really does have beautiful shoulders. I married Jeremy in large part because he has such a beautiful nose."
"Nose?" Eleanor had never noticed her brother's-in-law nose one way or the other.
"Beautiful other things too," her sister said impudently.
Eleanor sighed.
Chapter Nine
Villiers walked up the stairs to his chambers, exasperation pulsing through his body. He couldn't believe that he was considering marriage to Eleanor. She had actually laughed at him for not realizing that those children were orphans. Laughed at him about something as sensitive as his children.
A moment after she taunted him, he had realized that none of the orphans could possibly be his. The twins were only five years old, and every child he'd seen was at least seven. But did he really know the difference between the sizes of five-year-olds and seven-year-olds?
Something in his gut twisted. It was absurd, humiliating and absurd. He hadn't given a damn about the existence of his children for the whole of his thirty-five years. And now, all of a sudden, he was consumed by them?
It made him feel as if he should just cut off his own head and be done with it.
Tobias was curled in a chair in his chambers. "The nursery is useless," the boy said, staring at him unblinkingly. "There's an old nanny up there who used to care for Lady Lisette. She tried to feed me gruel, so I left."
"Did you tell her where you were going?"
"No," Tobias said with a patent lack of interest.
Really, Villiers thought, wasn't that precisely what he himself would do? He never informed servants or anyone else about where he was going or why.
Though he'd always taken that as the prerogative of being a duke. Tobias was no duke.
"What are you reading?"
"It's a book about this Cosmo Gordon, see? He killed someone." "In a duel. I know. He killed Frederick Thomas in Hyde Park last year. How did you learn to read?"
"Mrs. Jobber taught us. I can write too."
"I meant to get you a tutor but I forgot," Villiers said, frustration licking at him again. So far fatherhood felt like an exercise in failure. "Where's my valet?"
"Popper is so cross about Lady Eleanor's dog that Finchley went off to try to calm him down."
"Ridiculous. That animal is so small that it can hardly be called a dog. It's more like a stuffed cat."
"I wish I'd seen it frighten Lady Lisette," Tobias said wistfully. "Look at this." He held up a small bronze horse with a tail that whisked in the air.
Villiers hauled on the bell cord, wishing that Finchley would drop the errands of mercy and stay where he was supposed to be. "Where'd you get it?"
"It was sitting around in the nursery," Tobias said. "They haven't had any children there in a long time. Everyone knows that Lisette won't have any."
"She is Lady Lisette to you," Villiers pointed out. "Why won't she?"
"She loves babies. But her father says she needn't marry until he dies. You aren't thinking of marrying her, are you? Is she the one?"
"Yes," Villiers said decisively, putting Eleanor out of his mind. "She is."
"She's potty," Tobias said. "Cracked. They all say so."
"Who says so?"
"Her old nanny. The maid said the same. And Popper said that once she starts that screaming, there isn't anyone who can stop her. Except you, I guess. He said you picked her up and she settled down just like a baby with a bottle of gin."
"Babies don't drink gin," Villiers said, pretty sure that he was right about that.
Tobias shrugged. He obviously had about as much interest in baby care as Villiers did.