Anne answered him from across the table, which was a breach of etiquette, but it was that sort of dinner party. "Eleanor does what every woman does for entertainment."
Villiers cut a glance at Eleanor and she could see laughter in his eyes. Anne was definitely the worse for all that rum punch, not to mention the Champagne. Popper seemed to have decided that the best way to survive the evening was to float all the unwanted guests in a sea of bubbles.
"And what is that?" Roland asked, looking adorably interested.
Eleanor smiled at him. He was as fresh and sweet as an early peach. For all he must be older than she was, he seemed younger. He looked like someone who was ready to fall in love.
"We watch men, of course," Anne said with a tiny, ladylike hiccup. "Men are endlessly amusing."
Eleanor had discovered that if she leaned toward Roland, his eyes slid down to her breasts as if he couldn't stop himself. And when he looked back up at her face, there was something in the depths of his eyes that made her shift in her chair.
"I can't imagine why you aren't married," he said, pitching his voice below the hum of conversation.
She was boggled for a moment. If she admitted to her own ruling about dukes, she sounded like a snobbish fool. On the other hand, if she admitted to being tenuously engaged to Villiers, she would have to stop flirting. Rather than decide, or dissemble, she turned the topic back to Roland. "What do you do for recreation, sir?"
"I write. Day and night, I write poetry." He met her eyes again, steadily. "I feel as if we shall definitely meet many times in our lives, Lady Eleanor."
Her heart skipped a beat at the pure intensity in his gaze. "Ah—I hope so."
"I write poetry," he said again. A lock of dark hair fell over his eyes and he threw it back. "Have you ever read the verse of Richard Barnfield?"
"I haven't read much poetry," she confessed. "I'm halfway through Shakespeare's sonnets at the moment, but I'm finding them slow going."
Roland picked up Eleanor's Champagne glass and leaned toward her. "Shakespeare is all very well, but of course his work is terribly out of fashion. I prefer a line that's more evocative. Her lips like red-rose leaves floated on this cup. ..and left its vintage sweeter."
"That's lovely," she breathed. "Did you just write it this moment?"
He grinned at her, and his smile was even more enticing than his intent gaze. "I would lie to you about that, but I don't want to lie to you, ever." He handed her the glass. "Taste. Honey from Hyblean bees, matched with this liquor, would be bitter."
"Where is Hyblea?" It was Villiers, speaking across the table as rudely as had Anne.
Eleanor blinked at him. She was caught in the web of Roland's words. The last thing she wanted was a geographical discussion. She frowned and turned back to the poet. "Do tell me the rest of the poem?"
"I'm afraid that the rest of the poem isn't fit for the supper table," he said with a glance from under his lashes. He put one finger on the inside of her wrist. "This blue vein touches your heart, Lady Eleanor."
"I would love to know the remainder of the poem," she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper.
"So would I," Villiers put in.
She glared at him. Couldn't he tell a private conversation when he overheard one? But now everyone was looking down the table, and Roland withdrew his finger as if she had burned him. She twitched with annoyance.
"It is part of my own version of Romeo and Juliet," Roland said. "I won't share more; people find poetry tedious. Certainly my family tells me that mine is tiresome."
"Too flowery, in my opinion," his father said. "Of course, he's had quite a bit printed. He's not just some ne'er-do-well with nothing better to do."
"Printed?" the duchess said, her tone dripping with disdain.
"Likely you aren't knowledgeable about the literary world," the squire told her. "The very best have their poems printed, and no shame in that. The shame is in not printing."
"Humph," was Her Grace's response to that.
"In fact, my son was knighted last year for his poetry writing," the squire said, puffing up his thin chest.
"A veritable troubadour," Villiers said. His comment was perfectly pitched to make it unclear whether he meant it as a compliment or an insult.
"When we tragically lost Prince Octavius last year," the squire continued, "Roland wrote an exquisite verse in his memory. Truly beautiful, and the king himself thought so. He felt it succored him in his time of suffering, and he summoned the lad to Buckingham Palace and knighted him on the spot."