“Viscount Herries, the eldest son of the Duke of Beaumont.”
It took a moment to identify the man in question. “Evan? Evan is younger than I am!”
Clothilde shrugged. “He is a grown man. That is the best way, madame. Trust me on this. Men do not age like good wine.” She crooked her finger into a C. “Useless to a woman by the time they’re forty.”
Bathed, draped in silk, and feeling much more herself, Eugenia came downstairs to find the formal drawing room empty but for Villiers, now wearing a magnificent burnt-russet coat with tawny buttons and black trim.
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
“They have traipsed off to the kitchens,” His Grace said. “Entirely your fault, I must add.”
“Someone made a cake!” Eugenia said, delighted.
“A child of mine, baking,” Villiers marveled. “Almost inconceivable, and one only hopes not stomach-churning. Shall we stroll together, my dear?”
They processed slowly down the long room, Eugenia’s arm tucked under the duke’s elbow.
“So, Goddaughter,” he said, “who was the lucky man?”
Eugenia let out a startled laugh.
Villiers turned his head; wise, sinful eyes laughed with her. “Would I not notice that my beloved goddaughter has cast off her widow’s weeds and become a woman again?”
Eugenia felt herself turning pink. “This is a most improper subject of conversation.”
“The only kind that interests me,” Villiers remarked.
“Does his name matter? It is finished.”
“Names always matter.”
Her father and Harriet entered at the far end of the room, accompanied by a group that included children.
Villiers promptly steered her to a sofa. “I trust you will not insult me by asking if I can keep a secret.”
“Edward Reeve,” Eugenia said with a sigh.
“Ward?” Villiers’s eyebrow arched. “He has had a trying year.”
“Oh, did you know of the children?”
Silence. Then, “I have not. That young man has been quite busy if he fathered multiple children out of wedlock. Were these children conceived before he betrothed himself to the young lady who is now the Duchess of Pindar?”
“I should have made myself clearer. Lizzie and Otis aren’t his.” She told him about Lady Lisette’s marriage.
“That woman never failed to surprise,” the duke said, in a tone of disapproval. “Do I understand that the children appeared on Ward’s doorstep, after which he turned to you for a governess?”
She ended up telling him everything.
“Good old Chatty,” Villiers said, when she’d finished her story. “What a stroke of luck that he was in the vicarage. It sounds as if the girl is a version of her mother, albeit sane. Do you know that I almost married Lisette?”
Eugenia’s eyes widened. “What a terrible mistake that would have been.”
“For more than one reason.”
“Lady Lisette instead of Eleanor. The mind boggles. I would never have imagined it.”
Villiers gave a visible shudder. “Unthinkable. Was it the children that put you off Ward? I can scarcely tolerate my own, so I heartily sympathize if you were overwhelmed by the idea of taking on Lisette’s orphans.”
“I know how much you love your brood,” Eugenia said, slipping her arm back into his. “You cannot fool me.”
“I do love them,” His Grace said, as if admitting a dark failing. “But they are dirty, they often smell, they grumble, and they do not show proper respect for their elders.”
“Villiers blood runs in their veins,” Eugenia said, gurgling with laughter. “Surely that explains, if it does not excuse, them.”
“Absolutely not,” His Grace rejoined. “Do you know what my own heir told me last week?”
That heir, Master Theodore, was eleven and a miniature version of his father, down to the arrogant nose and biting intelligence.
“He said I was too old to wear puce,” Villiers said moodily. “When did certain colors become the exclusive province of the young? He’s a mere stripling yet dresses as if he were a man of eighty. All in black and white, like a chessboard.”
“I trust you immediately ordered a pair of puce gloves for him? And perhaps a coat to match?”
When Villiers smiled, his entire face changed, and Eugenia saw—not for the first time—how fortunate it was for the male half of society that the duke was so much in love with his wife. “My dear Eugenia, you are a genius. I’ll have the measurements taken under the pretense of cutting yet another black coat.”
“In truth, I would be very happy to mother Lizzie and Otis,” Eugenia confessed.