Ward entered Mrs. Snowe’s office and checked in his stride.

No governess he’d ever seen had hair that was a curly, swirly mess of red caught up on her head, a delectably curved figure, and lips several shades darker than her hair. Her lips were lush, even erotic, despite being pressed together into a hyphen.

Ward paid little attention to women’s clothing, but he remembered his governesses in gray and black, like dingy crows.

Mrs. Snowe was wearing a pale yellow gown that celebrated her breasts. Her absurdly wonderful breasts.

A delicate jaw, a straight nose . . . Their eyes met.

There was the look he remembered from governesses of old.

She was cross as the dickens, likely because he’d dismissed Miss Lumley. Under her controlled façade, she was practically vibrating with exasperation.

Mrs. Snowe was a former governess, all right, and she’d already summed him up and found him lacking.

He bit back a grin. The governesses he’d chased from the house as a boy hadn’t cared for him either. It was strangely comforting to realize that at least one type of woman was absolutely honest in her assessment of a man.

Eugenia took a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face. No matter how foolish Mr. Reeve had been to sack one of her governesses, it wasn’t his fault that she was irritated by her unexpectedly desirous reaction to his appearance.

She began to walk toward Mr. Reeve, but before she could take more than a step, his long legs had carried him across the room.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Snowe.” He extended his hand with an unhurried confidence that Eugenia recognized.

She ought to: she had grown up with it. It meant that Mr. Reeve, like her father, generally found himself the most intelligent man in the room.

She touched his fingers, thinking to withdraw her hand immediately and drop a curtsy. A good part of the allure of Snowe’s was that she was a member of the peerage. No one ever forgot that.

His large hand closed around hers and he shook it briskly.

Unless they had no idea.

Now he was nodding to her with all the detached civility with which one greets an upper servant. A housekeeper. Or, more to the point, a governess.

It had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t know who she was. They’d never met, but their fathers were friends. Though she had a vague memory that he’d spent years abroad . . . perhaps at university?

“How do you do?” she asked, withdrawing her hand. Her accent usually informed even the most bumptious father that in the current social hierarchy, she belonged at the top.

No such recognition seemed to occur to Mr. Reeve. He glanced about the room with lazy curiosity.

“Very well, thank you,” he said, bending over to look more closely at a small Cellini bronze that stood on a side table. “I wonder if we could come straight to the point, Mrs. Snowe.”

Eugenia’s registry was situated in a small but beautifully proportioned house in the most fashionable area of London. The chairs were Hepplewhite and the rug Aubusson. The wallpaper had been hand-painted in Paris in an exquisite lattice pattern of violet and cerulean blue.

The chamber was so elegant that its atmosphere served as a correction to clients deluded enough to think that they were bestowing a favor on Snowe’s by seeking a governess. Moreover, it had a dampening effect on reprobates in pursuit of her person or her fortune.

Mr. Reeve was obviously as unaffected by his surroundings as by her person.

“May I offer you a cup of tea?” Eugenia asked, forgetting that she had intended to push him out the door without ceremony.

He straightened and turned, and the pure masculine force of him went through her like a lightning bolt.

“I would be grateful if we could dispense with formalities.”

There was no question about it; she was facing the rare client who had no idea who she was.

At all.

It was rather . . . fascinating.

The appeal of her agency lay in her rank—by right of being born to one nobleman and married to another. Her enormous inheritance didn’t hurt, but it was her birth that allowed her to be accounted “eccentric” for running a business, instead of being banished from polite society.

Although to be fair, there were a few who considered her to be a disgrace to her name. Still, even those recognized that her father was a marquis and her late husband the son of a viscount.

Mr. Reeve appeared to believe that she was a governess.

Eugenia was appalled to find that he was rattling her nerves. This was absurd. He was just another client, to be soothed or squashed as his complaint merited. Considering his termination of Penelope’s employment, he needed to be squashed.

She would be polite but firm, as was her practice. He was far from the first parent to whom she’d refused a governess, let alone a second one.

She sat down and nodded. “Won’t you please be seated?”

He dropped into the chair opposite her. “I imagine that you’ve learned that I had to dismiss Miss Lumley. I need someone else.”

“May I know the nature of your dissatisfaction?”

“I see no reason to get into particulars,” Mr. Reeve replied, drumming his fingers on his chair. “She’s a pleasant woman, but she won’t do.”

“Miss Lumley is not a glass of milk that you can send back for being curdled,” Eugenia stated.

“‘Curdled’ is a good word for her. Let me be clear that I’m not blaming you. Or her, for that matter. The blame for Miss Lumley’s curdled nature must be put at the feet of her parents.”

Since when did Oxford dons have husky voices that made a woman think—not that Eugenia was thinking of that, because she wasn’t. Still, her tutors had spoken in polished syllables, whereas Mr. Reeve had a gravelly timbre. “Could you be more specific about Miss Lumley’s perceived shortcomings?”

“She hasn’t the strength of will or the wits needed to deal with my siblings.” A hint of impatience passed over his face. “I could make allowances if Lizzie and Otis were fond of her, but they aren’t. Surely you can spare a governess? I’m told all the best ones work for you.”

“Yes, they do,” Eugenia said. “But as a general rule, I do not reassign my employees. Inasmuch as you were not happy with Miss Lumley, you are welcome to look for a governess elsewhere. I can direct you to several respectable registry offices.”

Any ordinary client would have panicked at this pronouncement, but Eugenia was forming the impression that panic wasn’t in Mr. Reeve’s arsenal.

“I’d rather you gave me a new one.” His mouth curved upward in a smile that—that—

Eugenia spent a second wrestling with the fact that his smile set her heart racing. “Mr. Reeve, forgive me, but you don’t appear to understand the nature of Snowe’s Registry Office.” She sounded like a pompous fool, but what could she do? He seemed to know nothing at all about her or her company.

“I suspect you are correct.” The faint humor in his eyes was extraordinarily irritating, but it was certainly not unusual to meet gentlemen who underestimated her.

“My governesses are highly trained and much in demand,” Eugenia stated. “They are considered essential in the best nurseries. Parents have been known to hide their children in the country and pretend they didn’t exist if I can’t find them a governess.” She paused in order to emphasize the statement. “I cannot offer you another of my governesses.”

Mr. Reeve didn’t even blink. “Surely you could spare just one? We didn’t have the chance to meet before you sent Lumpy—I mean, Miss Lumley, but—”

Eugenia cut him off. “‘Lumpy?’”

“The children didn’t take to Miss Lumley,” he said apologetically.

“‘Lumpy’ is a highly disrespectful epithet,” Eugenia snapped.

“I’m fairly certain they never used it to her face.” He seemed to think that was sufficient. “But as I was saying,” he continued, “given that you and I did not have a chance to meet before Miss Lumley was dispatched to my household, I came to London in order to ensure that the next governess will be more suited to the position. To be frank, I need a cross between a lion tamer and a magician.”

“Never mind the impossibility of that; your request implies that I would trust you with another of my governesses,” Eugenia countered. “You will have to seek your lion tamer elsewhere.”

By way of reply, he gave her another wicked smile. The sort that made a woman likely to give in to whatever he asked. “May I first tell you about the children?”

Eugenia spared an incredulous thought for the woman who had jilted him. She must have been as chaste as an icicle to reach the altar without succumbing to that smile. Yet there was no question but that his fiancée had held him off.

This man would never let a woman go after he had made love to her. Eugenia was certain of it.

She drew in a soundless breath. What on earth was getting into her today? She must be having a reaction to being cooped up in the office for the last few weeks. She needed fresh air.

“Lizzie is nine,” Mr. Reeve was saying. “I would describe her as excessively dramatic and unnaturally morbid.”

“What form does her morbidity take?” Eugenia asked.

“She wears a black veil, for one thing,” Mr. Reeve said.

Even after years of hearing about children’s eccentricities, that was new.

“I have the idea that only widows wear mourning veils,” Mr. Reeve continued, “but most nine-year-olds don’t make their governess faint by dissecting a rabbit on the nursery table, either.”

“Dissecting, as in, cutting to pieces?”

“Exactly. Though I think Miss Lumley found Lizzie’s attempted conjuration of the rabbit’s ghost more disturbing,” Mr. Reeve added, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

“I see,” Eugenia said. “I gather the conjuration was unsuccessful?”

Mr. Reeve’s sudden grin kindled a hot cinder in her stomach. “No phantom rabbit appeared, if that’s what you mean. Lizzie’s brother Otis is eight, and far more conventional. He’ll go to Eton in the fall, but since neither of them has had any schooling, he has to catch up first.”

Eugenia was thinking about ghostly rabbits, but her attention snapped back to him. “No schooling?”

What? Had they been raised by wolves? Mr. Reeve’s initial letter had only said that he needed a governess, not that he needed a miracle worker.

“No formal schooling,” he amended. “They both know how to read. Otis seems to be quite good at mathematics. A few days ago he opened a betting book in the stables, offering proper odds.”

“What bets are involved?”

“The question of which horse would produce the most dung collected ha’pennies from every stable boy.”

A gentleman never mentioned excrement before a lady but, of course, Mr. Reeve didn’t think she was a lady.

“Until it was discovered that Otis had gifted his chosen steed with fistfuls of carrots in the middle of the night. The bets were returned,” Mr. Reeve added.

“My uncle is a member of the Thames River Police,” Eugenia said. “I could arrange to have him give Otis a stern talking-to. Has your brother been informed that gentlemen do not take money from stable boys, no matter how interesting the wager?”

“That’s a very good point,” Mr. Reeve agreed. “Perhaps I should explain that our mother spent the last decade of her life in a traveling theater troupe.”

Oh, for goodness’ sake.

She had known—all polite society knew—that Mr. Reeve was the illegitimate son of an earl. But the information that his mother was an actress had been concealed.

Once people learned about his mother, Mr. Reeve would never receive another invitation. He clearly didn’t care—which explained why she had never met him, and why he had apparently never heard gossip about the widowed lady who opened a registry office.

In fact, she’d guess that Reeve was so arrogant that he didn’t give a damn what society thought of him.

No, “arrogant” implied that he had an inflated sense of his own abilities. Eugenia had a shrewd feeling that he judged himself in relation to other men without exaggeration.

“Do Snowe’s governesses tutor only the children of the rich and titled?” he asked. A note in his voice made Eugenia’s nerves flare in a primitive response, like a rabbit cornered by a fox.

She was no rabbit.

She gave him her frostiest look. “Certainly not. My governesses can be found in more than one irregular household; the Duke of Clarence’s five children share three Snowe’s governesses at Bushy Park.”

Amusement lit his eyes and the air of danger about him evaporated. “I am far more proper than Clarence. There is no counterpart to the lovely Dorothea in my household.”

Her heart skipped a beat at his lazily flirtatious reference to the royal duke’s mistress.

“Do you expect commiseration for your household deficiencies?” It was a feeble answer, but all she could come up with.

Ward shouldn’t be teasing a respectable former governess, but Mrs. Snowe was irresistible. That peony pink in her cheeks was the prettiest thing he’d seen in weeks.

And she was widowed, after all. He never flirted with married women, or members of his household, but she wasn’t his servant, no matter how much he had paid her for Lumpy’s lachrymose services.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned my lack of companionship,” he offered. Her scent was sweet and elusive . . . like dewberries. Tiny berries that smelled sweet but were tart on the tongue.

“Gentlemen do not bemoan their lack of companionship. Nor, I might add, do they speak of excrement in the presence of ladies.”

He let out a bark of laughter. She was tart, indeed. “I can tell what you’re thinking, Mrs. Snowe. You think that I need a governess.”

“It’s too late for you,” she said roundly. “More to the point, I’m afraid that it’s also late for your siblings. How can your brother possibly go to Eton if he’s had no schooling whatsoever?”

“Otis will learn anything required in no time,” Ward said. “Both children are remarkably intelligent.” After a pause, he qualified reluctantly, “Not that I know any other children their age.”

She smiled at him—for the first time?

When she smiled, her whole face changed.

Every damn bone in Ward’s body—including his most private one—flared with heat. Mrs. Snowe had eyes, a nose, a chin . . . all the ordinary features every woman had. But that smile turned her face into the most beautiful he’d ever seen.

Maybe they weren’t ordinary features.

Red lips. Porcelain skin. Hair the color of autumn leaves on fire. She was speaking and he should be listening, but instead he was—

What the hell was he doing?

Simmering with desire for a governess, albeit a former governess? He’d lost his mind. At least she was a widow; he’d truly disgust himself if he found himself lusting after a married woman.

He’d never felt this madness when he was with Mia—

He seized on that idea with relief.

This all had to do with his former fiancée. He’d been rejected. This extreme wave of desire was the result of that unpleasant surprise.

It explained the insistent beat of his heart, which echoed right down his body to—

It made sense.

More or less.

He’d always enjoyed bedding women, and clearly the months of abstention during his betrothal to Mia had taken a toll. He needed to take a mistress.

Or perhaps make an appointment with a cheerful, welcoming tart. A woman who expected nothing but guineas, and would be surprised by pleasure.

With an effort, he wrenched his mind back to the present.

“Miss Lumley is capable of teaching both of them everything they needed to know,” Mrs. Snowe was saying. “She is an excellent teacher of Latin, history, and etiquette—as well as crucial skills such as how to run a household, play tennis, and bake a cake.”

“Bake a cake!” Ward said. “Why on earth would they be taught that particular skill?”

Eugenia watched as Mr. Reeve’s face cooled into that of an offended peer. Susan was right: he had a distinct resemblance to an earl.

“I can assure you,” he stated, “that my siblings have no need for culinary skills. I had a succession of governesses as a child, but not one ventured into the kitchen.”

“Snowe’s children all learn to bake a sponge cake,” Eugenia explained. “Baking requires concentration and precision, and it has the potential for serious injury. Children enjoy it.”

He gave her a wry smile. “Knives. Fire. I suspect I would have loved it.”

“I suppose that you were a very naughty child,” Eugenia observed, despite herself.

“‘Wicked’ was the word most often employed,” he offered. That smolder in his eyes should be outlawed. It sent a frisson, a little shock, right down to her toes.

Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of a gentleman turning the corner in front of her, and something about the set of his shoulders or the gleam of his hair would make her remember the excitement she felt on seeing her husband for the first time.

No gleaming hair here. Mr. Reeve had tumbling brown curls that he clearly hadn’t done more than glance at. Probably no valet.

Definitely no valet, she amended, glancing at his neckcloth, which was tied with a knot. Not a gentlemen’s knot, but the knot children learned how to tie.

“Snowe’s cakes have become something of a secret code,” she said hastily. “An excellent way by which Lizzie and Otis can fit in with their schoolmates.”

Mr. Reeve shrugged. “They show no signs of anxiety about their manners and are, in fact, astonished when dealt a rebuff. I doubt the ability to bake a sponge cake will prove a magic talisman.”

“Social bonds come from shared experiences,” Eugenia said. “In the normal course of events, most children will never touch a kitchen implement again, though they are hopefully more respectful to kitchen workers than they might have been. What I have been trying to say, Mr. Reeve, is that I think you should take Miss Lumley back, if she will agree to return.”

He frowned at her.

“I have some twenty families waiting for a governess,” she added, “and I think we’d both agree that you have a pressing need.”

“Miss Lumley will not do.”

“I exchange governesses only in extremity,” Eugenia said. And, in answer to his raised eyebrow, “For example, one governess attended an extraordinarily compelling sermon on her day out, and thereafter swore off dancing and French lessons. I moved her to a Quaker household.”

“I wouldn’t mind that one,” Mr. Reeve said. “Lizzie and Otis could do with a reminder of the Ten Commandments, especially the one about honoring your older half-brother.”

“Which doesn’t exist,” Eugenia pointed out. “My point is that no one rejects a Snowe’s governess merely because he doesn’t like her. ‘Liking’ is not the point.”

“Tears roll off her like fleas from a wet dog,” Mr. Reeve said flatly.

Eugenia narrowed her eyes. “None of my governesses should be compared to a canine under any circumstances. Nor a flea.”

“My siblings have recently lost their mother.” He gave Eugenia a plaintive glance that didn’t fool her for a second. Susan was right; he was used to getting his way and he had no scruples about how he got it. “A sobbing governess—who faints at the slightest distress—is a drawback, to say the least.”

Eugenia felt a prickle of misgiving. “I know that Miss Lumley is plagued by nerves, but I wouldn’t have thought her anxiety would take the form of constant weeping.”

“You can take my word for it. It’s not a good example for Lizzie. My sister is already preoccupied by death.”

“It’s unfair to condemn Miss Lumley for fainting at the evisceration of a rabbit. It’s likely a messy business.”

He shrugged. “Everyone else managed to stay on their feet.”

Mr. Reeve had an air of defiance about him now, as if he expected Eugenia to censure his little sister, but she couldn’t hold back her smile. “Lizzie sounds like a most unusual and interesting child, something of a natural philosopher.”

She almost confessed to her own childhood interest in mathematics, but thought better of it.

“My sister has arrived at an intriguing theory about bone formation and blood circulation. I am virtually certain that she is wrong, but it hardly matters.”

“I wish that I were able—” Eugenia began, but she was interrupted.

Mr. Reeve clearly realized she was about to refuse his request for the last time. His face changed, all its humor gone, his mouth thinned to a tough line. He leaned forward and met her eyes.

“The children have no family on their father’s side, but their maternal grandmother is pressing to become the guardian of Lizzie and Otis. Given my irregular birth, she has a strong case.”

“Oh dear,” Eugenia said.

“She attempted to wrench Lizzie’s veil away from her, and I only found my sister hours later, hidden in the attics. Otis has a pet, Jarvis, to which he is deeply attached and his grandmother has demanded that Jarvis be disposed of.”

Eugenia frowned. “A dog or cat can be a wonderful companion for a grieving child. If you’d like, I could—”

Again, she was cut short. “Jarvis is a rat.”

“A rat,” Eugenia echoed faintly. She had a horror of rodents, having nearly died of rat-bite fever as a young girl.

“If Jarvis is banished to the stables, Otis will follow,” Mr. Reeve said. “I have no parental experience, but I believe that taking Lizzie’s veil by force was not a good idea.”

Eugenia nodded.

“Their grandmother is a harridan, Mrs. Snowe, who has already expressed her belief that the children should be whipped into shape. Whether or not she means it is hardly the point: she is not a suitable guardian for children who have lost both their father and mother in a matter of a few years.”

“You make a very good argument,” Eugenia said, adding, “None of my governesses employ corporal punishment under any circumstances.”

“I need a governess,” he stated, eyes still focused on hers with unnerving force. “When you signed a contract giving me Miss Lumley, you promised me just that. A woman in constant floods of tears cannot persuade the House of Lords that my household is a suitable place to raise Lizzie and Otis. I need a governess with backbone, who can stand up to their grandmother during her visits.”

He was right.

“I believed Penelope Lumley would do well because she is loving and an excellent model for conventional behavior,” Eugenia explained. “I do see that she was not ideal under the circumstances. I shall find you a replacement.” She hesitated. “Is there anything else I should know about the children? They are eight and nine years old, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you could tell me more about the veil?”

“It is black lace, falling to Lizzie’s shoulders. She removes it only for meals and dissection.”

Eugenia felt a sudden twinge, remembering how she herself had longed for a mother as a young girl. “She must desperately miss her mother,” she said softly.

“So it seems,” Mr. Reeve replied.

That was an odd answer, but Eugenia didn’t have time to investigate; she had a prickling awareness that the Duchess of Villiers had certainly arrived for her appointment by now. One did not keep a duchess waiting.

“I shall do my best to find you a new governess,” she assured him, holding out her hand. “In three days at the most.”

He shook it, briskly. “I appreciate that, Mrs. Snowe. I shall return on Monday.”