The night had turned chilly, and after Eugenia’s bath Clothilde laid out an evening gown of rose-colored velvet.

The fabric clung to her curves and turned her skin the color of milk, so she drifted downstairs feeling luscious and ready to be seduced, and was disappointed to find the drawing room empty.

“Mr. Reeve has been temporarily delayed,” Gumwater announced. “May I offer you a glass of sherry?”

“Yes, thank you,” Eugenia said. When he was gone, she positioned herself on a sofa before a great mirror and tried out various postures. If she sat with her ankles crossed, her waist looked appealingly small. If she bent forward, her bosom appeared more ample than it already was.

Gumwater reappeared with a tray on which a crystal decanter and two glasses were balanced. He wordlessly filled her glass and disappeared again. With a rush of nervous energy, Eugenia surged to her feet, picked up her glass, and began surveying the sparse furniture.

At length the door opened, and she turned to see Ward enter. Despite her wait, she couldn’t stop smiling. He was devilishly handsome, with hair tumbling over his brow.

“Please accept my apologies,” he said. “We had something of a crisis upstairs.”

“What happened? Can I help?”

“Thank you, but Ruby and I seem to have brought things under control.” He went to the tray and took up the remaining glass with the enthusiasm of one greeting a long-lost friend. “Jarvis was not happy to discover that Ruby believes even rats need nightly baths, so he retired under the grate and would not come out until lured forth with cheese. Once he’d emerged, I helped Otis negotiate a weekly bath for Jarvis.”

If Eugenia were not a lady, she would walk over to Ward and run her hands down his shoulders. And perhaps even farther. His silk breeches left nothing to her imagination. She tipped up her glass so he didn’t guess where she had been looking.

“I have been thinking about our meeting with the vicar tomorrow,” she said untruthfully. “What can you tell me of him?”

“Very little. His name is Howson. According to Gumwater, the bishop’s visit is the result of complaints arising after the man accused an elderly woman of running a brothel when, in fact, she was raising orphans at the expense of the county.”

“Rash at the best and dangerously irrational at the worst.” Eugenia set her glass down. “Does tomorrow worry you?”

Ward shrugged. “He sounds as cracked as a walnut, but I’m confident that between the two of us we will knock some sense into him. Figuratively speaking, of course. I believe that our supper awaits us.” He held out his elbow. “May I?”

He ushered her to a small room, paneled and appointed, though it had the same empty feeling as the drawing room. It held a table, a sideboard, and a few chairs, but nothing embellished the walls or the floor.

When they entered, Gumwater was fussing with dishes on the sideboard. “Everything is as you requested, sir,” he said. “I’ll return to—”

“Thank you,” Ward said. “I’ll ring if we wish for anything else.”

The butler withdrew, glancing at Eugenia from the corner of his eye in a way that suggested he knew her to be a woman of easy virtue.

She wasn’t.

But she couldn’t blame him, since she fully intended to become one.

Mrs. Snowe of Snowe’s Registry was a woman of impeccable moral rectitude. But Eugenia was discovering more clearly every second, that Eugenia Snowe, née Strange, was not.

As evidence of which, she was having a meal alone with a man with whom she had determined to have illicit relations. Susan would be proud.

“What are you thinking about, Eugenia?”

“I was wondering if I am the sort of woman who will take to debauchery,” she admitted. “Perhaps I will surprise myself and become adept at depravity.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the appalled expression on Ward’s face.

“What depravity?” he demanded. “We have done nothing more than kiss. You and Lizzie traded ribald speeches, but I hardly think that qualifies.”

“According to all the ballads I’ve heard on the subject,” Eugenia said, “a widow is halfway to moral decline once the chimes ring after midnight for the first time.”

A laugh rumbled from his side of the table. “What on earth do chimes have to do with it?”

Eugenia threw him a naughty glance. “Once a man has kept a widow awake after midnight, she sees no reason to go to bed alone again.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

The need in Ward’s eyes was so potent that she looked down at her soup bowl. The soup was pale green, with an aroma of new peas and delicate herbs. Eugenia gave an involuntary moan upon tasting it. “This is superb.”

He slid his bowl across the table. “Have mine. I haven’t touched it.”

“I couldn’t,” she protested.

“Please do. Frankly, I would happily give up my meal to watch you eat.”

She took another spoonful, and since he was observing her, she let the spoon slip extremely slowly from her lips. “You have a wicked side,” he muttered. “I may not survive the next course.”

“Pooh,” she said. Then, changing the subject: “How long do you wish Otis and Lizzie to remain in mourning, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I had thought to take them out of blacks after six months, but if you think they ought to be in mourning a full year, I’m happy to follow your lead.”

“Given Lizzie’s veil, I think your instincts are correct. It would be good to ease the children away from outward expressions of grief as soon as possible.”

She took another spoonful of soup, glancing at Ward from under her eyelashes. He was wearing an exquisitely cut tailcoat, cut from a dark blue kerseymere. “You decided not to wear black?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I scarcely knew Lady Lisette; it felt hypocritical to claim grief at her death. How long did you remain in mourning?”

“Oh, I was very conventional,” she said, taking another spoonful of soup. “Full mourning for a year. After that, half-mourning.”

“Half-mourning is gray, am I right? And violet.”

“Gray,” she agreed. “Who knew there were so many shades of gray?”

“Five? Ten?”

She smiled at him over her wine glass. “There are forty at least. No, likely fifty. Fifty shades of gray.”

“I have a gray cravat,” Ward said. “My valet went through a brief infatuation with French fashion, during which canary-yellow, gray, and aubergine cravats entered my closet. Alas, I refuse to be the dandy that he wished me to be.”

“I can picture you in a gray cravat,” Eugenia said. “But not for mourning,” she added. “Merely because gray is au courant.”

“You wore gray for how long? Two years? Longer?”

Her eyes fell under his gaze. “I found it difficult to counterfeit joy. Color is a language, after all. A statement.” She took her last spoonful of soup. “What time are we expected at the vicarage tomorrow morning?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Ought we to have a plan?”

Ward removed the cover from a serving dish holding fragrant lamb stew. “I have a plan. If Howson makes any sort of fuss about my sister’s foolery, I’ll have him removed from his position.”

“How will you do that?”

“Only two things matter in this country: money and rank. I have both, even as a bastard, and if that’s not good enough, Lizzie and Otis do as well.”

“Are you referring to Lord Darcy’s estate?” Eugenia asked.

He glanced at her, and back at the stew. “That, and I settled thirty thousand pounds on Lizzie. I want to ensure that her dowry will overcome any hesitancy owing to her parentage or to my guardianship.”

Eugenia felt a pinch at her heart. He was such a good man. He’d given up his independence, his freedom, his place at Oxford, and now a significant fortune, for the sake of a brother and sister he’d never known.

Her father always insisted that titles and blood didn’t matter, that the only important thing was what a man did with his life. Watching Ward from under her eyelashes, Eugenia had no doubt but that her father would approve.

Later, at her bedchamber door, he took her hand and brought it to his lips. For a dismaying moment, she thought he would walk away without even kissing her. But at the last second, he bent his head and kissed her greedily, every stroke of his tongue making it clear that he planned to make her his.

There was sensual possession there . . . and restraint too. “Eugenia,” he said, voice low and rough. “It’s time for bed.”

“Very well,” she gasped. She turned to open the door, to guide him inside, but he stopped her, a kiss gliding over her throat.

“Alone.” He drew back. “I don’t want to seduce you before you’ve had a chance to recover from the journey. It seems less than gentlemanly.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“Tomorrow,” he continued, “I mean to abduct you once again—straight to my bedchamber.”

It was a vow, a promise.