Ward could not have been less interested in Eugenia’s story of some dreadful child who had painted himself blue. But he recognized at the same time that he would happily listen to anything she wanted to tell him.

Damn it. She was irresistible.

“Who was that woman when we came in?” he asked her, after the story of the blue boy was over. “The harridan who implied that you shouldn’t be allowed out of the registry office and claimed she’d met me, although we have definitely never met.”

“That’s Lady Hyacinth Buckwald,” Eugenia replied. And, at his blank look, “You haven’t heard of her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t go into society, and my family knows I loathe gossip. So, no.”

“She knows of you,” Eugenia said mischievously. “Or at least, she knows of your fortune. The poor woman has four daughters to marry off. I think Petunia is second eldest.” She pursed her lips. “Theirs is an unblemished family line. Petunia might be the solution to your prayers.”

“No,” Ward stated without hesitation.

“Lady Hyacinth doesn’t care for me because I removed her governess after Boris—her husband—chased the poor woman around the ballroom at eight in the morning.”

“Is it the time of day relevant?”

“His behavior was inexcusable at any hour; the time of day simply magnifies his transgression. One feels that a gentleman ought to be doing . . . doing whatever gentlemen do in the morning.”

“The poor sod is likely desperate,” Ward said. “Putting Boris to the side, I assure you that gentlemen are prone to chasing women around at eight in the morning.”

“Be that as it may, they should never chase their governesses!”

One moment her eyes were flashing at him with amused, sophisticated desire, and the next she was as prim as a patroness of Almack’s. Or at least what he imagined those ladies to be.

It was almost as if there were two Eugenias. One real, and one . . . not precisely unreal. The perfect lady and the real Eugenia.

That ladylike Eugenia was surely the result of pure will, inasmuch as she hadn’t been born to the position. Her performance was quite impressive; he actually felt like applauding.

He genuinely liked and admired her. She’d not only made a life for herself following the death of her husband, but presumably a prodigious fortune with Snowe’s Registry.

She was fascinating.

Damn it, if he didn’t have to marry a gentlewoman for the sake of his siblings, he would give serious thought to courting her.

No matter what, he meant to pursue her. The truth of that was throbbing through every limb. Eugenia would be his. He would make love to her until this flame between them burnt out. Hopefully it would take only a night or two.

There was nothing to stop them but the eggshell-thin layer of respectability to which she clung.

Thinking of that, he gave her a slow smile, so suggestive that she froze, fork halfway to her mouth.

She blinked at him and carefully put down her bite of cake, uneaten.

“I don’t think you’re listening to my diatribe about gentlemen who consider a governess to be fair game simply because she lives under the same roof.”

“No,” Ward admitted.

Eugenia knew that smile. Was there any woman who hadn’t seen that particular smile on a man’s face, if not on many men’s faces?

Ward had apparently come to the conclusion that she was his for the taking.

The problem with that—well, the problem with that, obviously, was that she was a respectable widow.

“What are you thinking?” she asked warily.

His eyes stayed on hers, happy and alert. A cheerful, anticipatory look that most married women knew.

Perhaps not every married woman. Perhaps not Lady Hyacinth.

“I’ve just realized how much I like you,” he said.

“If you are thinking of chasing me around a ballroom at eight in the morning, or any other time, dismiss the thought,” Eugenia said, trying in vain to ignore the melting sensation in her stomach.

“I am a respectable widow,” she clarified. “It’s essential to Snowe’s Registry that my reputation remain as such. Nothing unbefitting, no matter the hour.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “As such? Sometimes I feel as if I’m talking to a dictionary when I’m with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my sentence construction,” she said, a bit stiffly.

Ward nodded. “Not at all.” His eyes were dancing.

“The more important thing is that whatever conclusion you’ve drawn, Mr. Reeve, you’ll have to discard it. I mean that.”

Ward leaned forward, his eyes intent on hers. “You must stop calling me Mr. Reeve, or I shall do something drastic.”

Eugenia couldn’t stop herself; the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile.

“There it is,” Ward said, settling back. “That smile of yours means that you will call me Ward. And I shall call you Eugenia, so that’s settled. I notice that you haven’t tried the strawberry trifle.”

“I’ve already eaten more confections than I’ve had in months,” Eugenia protested. On her side of the table were three untouched sweets. On his, five empty plates.

He snorted. “A bite or two of this or that? Mr. Gunter’s pâtissier will weep if all this is sent back to the kitchen.” He reached across the table and helped himself to a forkful of her trifle. It was light and airy, cream whipped with bits of sweet fruit.

“I mustn’t taste any more, because I won’t be able to stop,” Eugenia protested. “I have a terrible sweet tooth, and no self-control whatsoever.”

But the fork was coming toward her mouth. “Just a taste,” he coaxed.

The taste was so sublime that she closed her eyes for a moment from pure pleasure.

“You adore sweets, don’t you?”

She opened her eyes and put a hand to her heart. “This may be the best trifle I have ever eaten.” She plucked the fork from his hand and took another bite.

“That’s why you have all the children learning to bake,” he said, watching her. “You love sweets. You are an epicure.”

“More of a glutton,” she said honestly. “Everyone should be able to make something that gives people so much joy.”

Ward’s face wore an odd expression as he watched her eat. “Describe the taste for me.”

She took another bite and closed her eyes again. “The cream is velvety smooth with just a touch of liqueur. The strawberries are tangy and not too sweet.”

Ward made a sound precariously close to a groan. She opened her eyes and said, “My cook is forbidden to make confections like this. I can’t indulge myself, or my hips wouldn’t let me through the door. No cakes, unless I have company to dine with me.”

Except she never had company, now she thought about it.

“If this were my cook,” she added, surprising herself, “I would ask her to macerate the strawberries in liqueur first, making them even more tart.”

“Your late husband must have plied you with sweets every chance he got,” Ward said.

She shook her head. “Andrew was an ascetic man. It was one of the things that I loved about him.”

Ward nodded.

“My own father, by contrast, has spent most of his life pleasing himself,” Eugenia said, feeling a twinge of disloyalty.

“He must be a happy man.”

“Yes. He is most happy when inventing things. Rather like you, I believe,” she added, wondering if she should have a bite of the chocolate cake.

So she could compare it to the trifle.

“Yes, you ought to eat it,” Ward said, meeting her eyes. “It’s one of the best cakes I’ve ever had.”

“Don’t you dare try to feed me again,” Eugenia said. “It’s lucky we are screened by that fern so no one saw you.”

“Not lucky,” Ward said. “I slipped Mr. Sweeney a pound note.”

Eugenia winced. “Privacy is dreadfully expensive.” But she was glad. She’d hate to know that Lady Hyacinth was watching her, and probably eavesdropping as well.

“Your reputation is important,” Ward said. “I would never do anything that might hurt you in any way.”

Ward wasn’t talking about taking tea together. His eyes were so heated that she lost all desire for the chocolate cake.

“You haven’t told me why you came to London,” Eugenia said, taking a hasty sip of tea. It had gone cold and had that bitterness of tea that has steeped too long.

Ward raised a hand; a second later a waiter was bowing at their side, then hurrying away with the rejected teapot in hand. Ward was the sort of man to whom waiters and their like always paid attention. It was a bit irritating.

“I need advice,” Ward said.

“How are Lizzie and Otis faring with Miss Midge since you last wrote?”

“Therein lies the problem.”

Before he could elaborate, a high-pitched voice interrupted them. “Mrs. Snowe, Mr. Reeve, I trust you will forgive me; I wish to present my darling Petunia.”

Ward looked up warily. On the rare occasions he found himself in the company of ladies—usually at his father’s house—he had a devil of a time with marriage-minded mothers. They seemed to hunt him with all the determined enthusiasm of a foxhunter who’s glimpsed a bushy tail. His fortune clearly outweighed his irregular birth.

What he needed was a portable foxhole.

Next to Lady Hyacinth stood a younger version of herself: the same brown hair, lanky figure, long chin. It couldn’t be easy to be Lady Hyacinth’s daughter.

Especially once you realized you’d inherited the family chin.

“I’m sure you won’t mind if we join you,” Lady Hyacinth said, breaking about ten rules of polite behavior all at once.

By the time fresh tea arrived, Ward had been pushed around the table so that he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the marriageable daughter.

“One must assume you have been discussing governesses,” Lady Hyacinth said, “though I cannot imagine why. Mrs. Snowe is an expert.” She patted Eugenia’s hand. “There are those who reprove a woman for engaging in commerce, but I always defend you, Mrs. Snowe. Your endeavors clearly spring from the anguish of having no children of your own.”

To Ward’s admiration, Eugenia’s smile didn’t slip a bit.

“I have asked Mrs. Snowe for a governess,” Ward said, “as I have recently become the guardian to two children.”

“Not your own, surely?” Lady Hyacinth said. “That would make you entirely ineligible, Mr. Reeve, earl in the family or not. Even a paper-rolling machine can’t make up for everything, you know.”

At this grotesquely tactless statement, Eugenia’s smile disappeared.

“They are not mine; their parents are deceased,” Ward stated. He saw no reason whatsoever to reveal any further details, even though all London would know as soon as the Duchess of Gilner’s private act was heard in the House of Lords.

“Mrs. Snowe has been kind enough”—he interpreted a twitch from across the table and smoothly changed direction—“to endeavor to find me a governess. They seem to be in short supply.”

“I knew there could be no unsavory reason for this tête-à-tête,” Lady Hyacinth said. “That’s why I thought it was the perfect moment to introduce my darling Petunia. Mr. Reeve, how is your dear father, Lord Gryffyn?”

“I believe he is well,” Ward said. “He and my stepmother will be traveling in Sweden on a diplomatic mission for a few more months.”

“So brave of them,” Lady Hyacinth said. “I was told that they brought the family with them. Surely it would have been more prudent to leave their precious children at home.”

“My parents would never expose my siblings to danger,” Ward said, showing his teeth in a faint approximation of a smile.

“At the very least, they should have left the heir at home,” she pronounced. “I am proud to say that Petunia has never had even a sip of water from non-native soil. I don’t believe in it.”

Ward glanced at Eugenia, but she was gazing into her teacup as if she were reading the leaves.

“So few people understand the intricacies of polite society,” Lady Hyacinth continued. “It is best not to spend too much time with young children, for example. It excites them and makes them feel that they are important. Time enough when a debut nears. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Snowe?”

“In my experience, it depends on the parents,” Eugenia said, less than diplomatically.

Lady Hyacinth took no notice. “At one’s debut, delicate questions arise that can be answered only by a mother. Take, for example, the problem of elbows. I imagine that you have paid a great deal of attention to that question, Mrs. Snowe.”

Ward enjoyed seeing Eugenia nonplussed. He had the feeling it didn’t happen often.

“I cannot say that I have,” she said, finally.

“Unclothed skin,” Lady Hyacinth pronounced, “is of vital concern. Does one wish naked elbows at the dinner table, or will the gentlemen find it too stirring?” She turned to Ward with a ferocity he’d once seen in a hawk’s eye. “What is your opinion of naked elbows, Mr. Reeve?”

“I have no opinion at all,” he said. This was not strictly true. He had noticed, for example, that Eugenia’s slender arms were quite bare. A man could ignore the conversation and contemplate kissing his way up from her fingertips.

“Fashion is for people of low account,” Lady Hyacinth pronounced. “Those of us born to a high station ignore such trivialities.”

“Mother!” Petunia interjected. “I quite forgot something significant. Mr. Simon Briggs asked me to accompany him for a drive.” She looked mortified, but Ward didn’t think her memory was the cause. In fact, he’d bet Mr. Briggs wouldn’t appear.

The lady surged upright. “My dear Petunia, you mustn’t make a habit of this negligence.”

They all stood and Mr. Sweeney appeared. Lady Hyacinth turned to him. “I shall require my French silvered fox-fur stole with the intact head, if you please. I entrusted it to one of your lackeys when we arrived, and I shall want it returned without a single hair disturbed.”

“Immediately, my lady,” he murmured, sending a waiter scurrying.

“What a charming time we have had,” Lady Hyacinth said, bestowing a wide smile on Ward, who bowed and kissed her hand.

Mr. Sweeney dropped the fox stole around her neck with such zeal that the fox head flew up, appearing to leap for freedom.

Lady Hyacinth arranged her stole so that it hung over her right breast. “Mrs. Snowe, I am gratified to discover that even though you were taking tea alone with a gentleman, it was for unimpeachable, albeit mercantile, reasons. I promise you that I shall continue to defend your reputation when the question arises. As it inevitably does, unfortunately.”

Eugenia didn’t let on by a quiver of a hair how she felt about that, but Ward had the idea that anger was vibrating in the air. Instead she smiled sweetly and said, “You are just as so many have described you as well, Lady Hyacinth.”

“It is a cross to bear,” the lady answered. “When one has generations of fine breeding behind one, society ogles. But as I tell Petunia and my other girls, it is responsibility that makes us what we are. And our responsibility is to display the best of breeding.”

Eugenia had drawn Miss Petunia aside and was murmuring something to the poor girl. Ward said, “Your daughter is a lovely young woman, Lady Hyacinth. She seems very tactful.”

“Oh, the very essence of tact,” the lady agreed. “We do not have a governess from Snowe’s—they found themselves unaccountably without a woman who could serve a household of our caliber—but true manners must be learned at home. Why, look at you, Mr. Reeve.”

Ward was beginning to enjoy himself. “What about me?”

“With your, ahem, background, one would never dream of meeting you in Gunter’s or elsewhere, but given that you were brought up in the earl’s household, you are . . . more. More,” she repeated firmly. “Breeding tells. Why, you go everywhere, don’t you? I believe I saw you with the Duke of Villiers the other day.”

“His Grace is a good friend of my father’s,” Ward said.

“I believe you went to Eton, and you didn’t learn to bake a cake there, did you? The aristocracy ought not to labor in the kitchen, no matter what Mrs. Snowe’s governesses require!”

Eugenia turned from her conversation and said, “This has been a pleasure, Lady Hyacinth.” She dropped a curtsy.

Lady Hyacinth inclined her chin, and turned back to Ward. “Mr. Reeve, I feel that we have reached a new level of amicability. A friendship, as it were. I shall call on your dear father as soon as his lordship returns from Sweden—hopefully with all the younger family members still in tow. But even if they find themselves in blacks, I shall call upon him.”

Ward couldn’t bring himself to comment on his father’s happiness at that prospect, but an answer was irrelevant.

“I can see that my darling Petunia has formed a true appreciation for you, Mr. Reeve. I hope to see you at an event soon—she dances like a blossom on the wind.”

“Mother!” Petunia said in an anguished voice.

“I must escort my daughter to her next engagement,” Lady Hyacinth said. “The mother of a diamond of the first water like Petunia has no time to dilly-dally over tea.”

Her curtsy was so brisk that her bosom rose in the air and bounced as it settled back into place.

As did the fox, its bright glass eyes fixed on Ward.

“If I heard rightly, you recently acquired Fawkes House, did you not?” Lady Hyacinth said, dilly-dallying. “Perhaps you should rename it, Mr. Reeve. That name was all very well back when Lord Fawkes lived in the manor.”

“I hadn’t considered,” Ward said, taken aback.

“You could hardly call it Reeve House, could you? It sounds like a weevil. Or a German vegetable. Such a complicated language for such simple people. I never did meet one who wasn’t thinking about turnips.”

And with that she sailed away, the fox head flapping and her daughter—red-faced from pure mortification—following.