During the time it took for Ward’s blood to cool down, he discovered that he couldn’t stop grinning. He was entranced by Eugenia’s sensuality, by her candor, by her laughter.

Even the way she drew her ladylike cloak around herself and dismissed him, all the time with a glint in her eye that admitted it was a pretense.

She was like no other woman he’d ever met. Just now she was prancing down the hall ahead of him, and he knew perfectly well that every twitch of those rounded hips was calculated to drive him insane.

When she reached the end of the corridor, Eugenia looked over her shoulder, and damned if she didn’t look as composed as if he hadn’t tried to make love to her. She had been close to coming in his arms.

He knew she had.

Her breath had caught and she had writhed against him, fingers clenching his shoulders, all because he was kissing her breast.

It was the first time that he’d ever ground out a series of demands like that, perhaps because other women in his experience had made it clear that they were happy to do anything he wanted.

Anything, anywhere.

Not inconsequentially, he had walked away from them without a second thought.

But Eugenia?

She had walked away from him.

He strolled into the vicarage’s drawing room and waited for a maid to pour him a cup of tea, taking the time to add milk and sugar, both of which he loathed. One sip of that revolting beverage, and his cock deflated.

A cup of tea, a chat with the bishop, and he could summon his carriage and return home. Where he fully intended to pull the owner of Snowe’s Registry upstairs and ravish her against the bedpost.

Or against the wall.

He turned around, holding his tea. Tears were trickling down Lizzie’s cheeks. “What happened?” he rasped, dumping his tea cup on a side table and crouching down beside his sister.

“Nothing,” Eugenia said. “Lizzie is demonstrating the art of weeping. She planned to employ the art this morning, but she was thwarted by Chatty’s expeditious handling of your vicar.”

“Howson was not ‘my’ vicar,” Ward said testily. Granted, the bishop was a middle-aged man, but did Eugenia have to nestle in his arm like that?

What about when she married again? What if he was crossing a London street and saw her gazing at her husband with that sweet expression?

He would turn the other way, obviously.

“Lizzie, what is the possible good of being able to cry on command?” he demanded.

“It might do her a rare sight of good when she’s married,” said the bishop—or Chatty, as Eugenia was calling him. “There’s nothing that controls a man as quickly as a woman’s tears.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Eugenia said. “Ladies never use tears to get what we want. There are other ways. More honorable ways.”

Lizzie stopped crying and looked up at the bishop with the air of a young saint. “Please pardon my silliness.” The lisp was overdoing it, in Ward’s opinion. “My fault is himinous, and if you forgive it not, heaven will not pardon it in the world to come.”

Himinous? What did that mean?

He almost missed Eugenia rolling her eyes.

“Heinous, not himinous,” Eugenia corrected. “A Woman Killed with Kindness, and a most inappropriate speech for you to quote.”

“I was the prompter for that play too,” Lizzie said, dropping her hands, which had been clasped beseechingly. “My father said that knowledge of good literature could never hurt.”

The bishop smiled down at her. “You will be a remarkable young woman someday.”

“Time to make our farewells,” Eugenia said firmly.

As they walked toward the door, Eugenia and Lizzie in the lead, the Right Reverend Chattersley-Dorfmann looked at Ward over his spectacles. “I gather Eugenia intends to travel on to her father’s estate?”

“I believe Mrs. Snowe did indicate as much.” Of course, Ward wouldn’t allow Eugenia go today.

He needed a week with her. No, a fortnight.

“She is a dangerous woman. So much life,” the bishop said, his eyes steady. “Such charm and beauty, paired with intelligence and energy. I’ve known her since she was a child. Young Lizzie reminds me of Eugenia.”

“Mrs. Snowe is remarkable,” Ward agreed. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Honor—”

“Her entire family is extraordinary,” Chattersley-Dorfmann said. “I encounter her aunt frequently; she operates Magdalene House, as you may know. Her husband is with the River Police—a former magistrate for the City of London—but Magdalene House is entirely her own.”

“An edifying occupation,” Ward said. “Well, I must bid you farewell, with my sincere gratitude for your forbearance with regard to my sister’s foolery, my lord.”

The bishop ignored him. “I expect you think that I am worried about Mrs. Snowe,” he said, folding his hands over his considerable middle. “In truth, I am worried about you, Mr. Reeve. She’s above your touch, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Ward bowed. “Mrs. Snowe travels on directly to her father’s estate, my lord, but I thank you for your concern.”

A few minutes later, he escorted Eugenia and Lizzie to the carriage with a mental shake of his head.

The bishop apparently believed that being a bastard put Ward out of the reach of a good woman, in the same way that it barred him from the church.

Ward had clear memories of a maid informing him at around six years old that the Bible itself said that no one of illegitimate birth could enter the assembly of the Lord. That was true enough, but her warning that a bolt of lightning would strike him down on entering?

Not quite so much.

Unfortunately, he had been young enough that he had taken her advice seriously. A couple of years later, he had refused to enter St. Paul’s Cathedral for his own father’s wedding, though he never told his father or stepmother why.

In the real world, rather than the ecclesiastical one, his fortune paired with the fact that both his parents came from the nobility meant that his illegitimate birth was practically irrelevant.

When he climbed into the carriage, Eugenia was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, listening intently to Lizzie.

“Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of all the muscles,” Lizzie was saying, her peaked face glowing. “Papa bought me a book.”

“I should like to see it,” Eugenia said.

The little girl’s face fell. “We couldn’t bring our belongings whilst we made the voyage to see our brother.”

“A voyage implies that you came over water,” Eugenia noted.

“Trip,” Lizzie said, with a wave of her hand. Apparently, she had so many synonyms rattling around in her head that she used them indiscriminately.

“Did you leave other things that you now miss?” Eugenia asked.

“My books,” Lizzie said. “I took Mama’s veil, and Otis had Jarvis, and that was all that really mattered.”

“Is there anything you’d like me to retrieve, Lizzie?” Ward asked.

“There’s no point to acquiring possessions.” His sister rearranged her features into a mask of tragedy. “All golden girls and boys come to dust.”

“Cymbeline,” Eugenia said unsympathetically, “Misquoted, and irrelevant to this conversation.”

Lizzie shrugged. “We didn’t have very much. The troupe burnt our wagon after Lady Lisette died, because they were afraid that her illness might have been contagious.”

Ward pulled his sister in his lap and wrapped both arms around her. “I wish I’d known you were alive,” he said, kissing her hair. “I would have taken you and Otis out of there, Lizzie, I promise you that.”

He looked up to find that Eugenia was smiling at him.