Ward had always known that his father was powerful, but he hadn’t realized how many friends the earl had until he looked around the ballroom of Beaumont House. In the absence of his parents, his uncle by marriage, the Duke of Beaumont, was heading a campaign to ensure that the Duchess of Gilner’s private act would be soundly defeated.

There were three dukes in the room—no, four: as he watched, the Duke of Pindar strolled in, with his wife—Ward’s former fiancée—on his arm.

A quartet was playing at the far end, a few couples drifting through a quadrille. The Duke and Duchess of Fletcher were dancing scandalously closely, and if His Grace bent his head a smidgeon, they would be kissing.

One of his father’s closest friends, the Duke of Cosway, on the other hand, was arguing with his duchess, but Ward knew them well enough to understand that their arguments were like kisses. A prelude to intimacy.

For a moment a vision of a future with Eugenia drifted through his head. His longing to be dancing and arguing with her twenty years from now was a ferocious burning in his gut.

But the children were the important thing at this moment.

After the court case . . . Eugenia.

The vow beat in his head, the rhythm of the last week. Desire to be with Eugenia gnawed at him, and only iron control had kept him from returning to Fonthill and kidnapping her again.

Once the children were securely his, he would do just that. He could convince her that he loved her and respected her, after he’d become guardian of the children without her help, removing any question of whether he wanted her only for that.

He kept seeing the bleak, betrayed pain in her eyes, and the familiar sense of being gut-shot hit him again.

The thought of her dancing with Beaumont’s heir, possibly sleeping with him, was a roar of anguish in his skull. Thinking of the devil—or the devil’s father—the Duke of Beaumont appeared at his shoulder. “Mr. Reeve, I would like to introduce you to Lord Bishell, who just came into his title . . .”

Ward bowed as he was introduced to yet another peer who was implicitly being instructed to vote against the private act, or risk Beaumont’s wrath—and the Duke of Beaumont was the most powerful man in the House of Lords.

It was becoming clear to Ward that his grandmother was remarkably foolish to imagine that she could garner enough votes to win the case. She knew perfectly well how society functioned and yet she, an embittered old woman, was challenging the most powerful cabal of noblemen that existed in all England.

Ward actually felt a flicker of sympathy for her. She had lived to see her only daughter reviled by all England. From what he understood, Lady Lisette had died without ever again visiting her mother. And now the duchess’s bastard grandson would raise the only relatives she had left.

The door opened again. Knowing it was a foolish hope, he turned to see if possibly the Marquis and Marchioness of Broadham—and their daughter, Eugenia—would enter.

The Beaumont butler announced, “Her Grace, the Duchess of Villiers; His Grace, the Duke of Villiers.”

Villiers would never pause in the doorway, but he had no need to, because every person in the room turned at the sound of his name. He was famous for his flamboyant dress, but tonight he wore a dark plum coat with no embroidery whatsoever.

“Leo, what on earth has come over you?” their hostess cried, running over to them. “You are practically funereal.”

The duke made a magnificent bow. “It’s my hair,” he said, straightening. “White hair and black eyebrows. I assure you, Jemma, that putting on some of my favorite coats is like putting finery on a crow.”

Her Grace kissed Villiers’s duchess on both cheeks. “Sweetheart, how are you? I heard that Theo fell off his horse and broke an arm.”

“Taggerty’s Traveling Circus came through the village,” the Duchess of Villiers said with a wry smile. “Naturally, having seen it once, Theo thought he could stand on his horse’s back too.”

Ward walked forward. “Your Grace,” he said, kissing the Duchess of Villiers’s hand. He bowed to her husband. “I am truly grateful for your support.”

“You sound like a campaigning sheriff,” Villiers observed, raising a thin eyebrow. “Have you some tin mugs to give away?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ward said evenly.

“They could be engraved with a pertinent saying. I would suggest ‘fools are wise until they speak.’” His tone couldn’t have been more acerbic.

“Stop being such a curmudgeon,” their hostess said, linking arms with Villiers. “Come. I must show you an attacking combination I have just learned that has no fewer than three sacrifices.” With a smile at his wife, she drew Villiers over to a chessboard set out in the corner. Only her ballroom—and perhaps Villiers’s—would include a gaming table.

Ward turned to the Duchess of Villiers, an extraordinarily beautiful woman whose hair was still as gold as a guinea even after raising eight children, if one included her husband’s six bastards—and one did, because she and her husband had gathered them all under their roof.

“That’s the last I’ll see of my husband tonight,” she laughed. “Those two talk only of chess if they’re within each other’s orbit. I’m so sorry not to have seen more of you in the last few years, Ward.”

“I lived abroad for some time before I began teaching at Oxford.”

“You’re being very modest. Your father has endlessly boasted of your paper-rolling fortune.”

Ward ignored that. “I apologize if the Duke of Beaumont prevailed upon your husband to attend the House of Lords tomorrow against his wishes.”

“Villiers is Eugenia’s godfather, so he’s feeling grumpy,” she replied in her direct manner. “But he will fight for you in court. We have six illegitimate children, Ward. The House of Lords cannot be allowed to delude themselves that we would allow illegitimacy to overthrow a will such as the one written by that poor young lord.”

“I am indebted,” Ward said.

The duchess smiled at him. “Villiers believes you will make Eugenia happy.”

“That is not what he indicated to me.”

“He is of the belief that competition can drive a man to recognize his own folly.” She tapped his shoulder with her fan. “If you must know the truth, he’s peevish because he wagered that you would climb to her window after that scene at Fonthill . . . instead, you returned to Oxford.”

“Your husband wagered that I would ruin Eugenia’s reputation by surprising her in her bedchamber? That is reprehensible, Your Grace.” He shouldn’t be so blunt, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“Ward,” the duchess said with a sigh. “Do remember that we’ve known you most of your life, won’t you? You must call me Eleanor. Of course, Leo thought that. He is so certain of his command of human nature; it does him good to be mistaken from time to time.”

“He’s not entirely mistaken,” Ward allowed. After all, he fully planned to climb to her bedchamber window if need be.

“After I banished Villiers years ago,” the duchess said, “my future husband put on a plain black coat—anathema to him to this day, as you can tell by his complaints—and wrote a note under a different name asking me for a drive in Hyde Park. I was in that carriage before I grasped my suitor’s identity.”

“Are you suggesting that I should pretend to be a different man—legitimate, perhaps? Or a member of the nobility?”

The duchess’s eyes softened. “Ward, you are a member of the nobility. As are all of our children. What Villiers wanted to prove in his black coat was that the private man, not the most flamboyant rake in London, was in love with me.”

“I love Eugenia,” Ward said.

“Everyone loves her,” the duchess said, with a clear look from her blue eyes. “You will need to move quickly. Evan has told his mother that he plans to make her his wife.”

A sound dangerously close to a growl rose from Ward’s chest.

“I expect her to attend the hearing tomorrow, sitting in the peeresses’ box.”

It had never occurred to him that Eugenia might be there. Not that he knew anything about the House of Lords and their not-so-private private acts.

His former fiancée, Mia, suddenly appeared. With a smile at the duchess, she nudged Ward with her elbow. “Ask me to dance, won’t you?”

“It’s refreshing to see how friendly the two of you are,” the Duchess of Villiers observed. “When I realized that Roberta had once been betrothed to Villiers, I glowered at her every chance I got.”

“We are excellent friends.” Mia twinkled at the duchess. “I intend to use Ward to make my husband jealous.”

A minute later, as they began circling the floor, she asked, “Are you quite well?”

“Not really,” Ward replied.

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “Just look around this ballroom. Why, if someone blew it up with gunpowder the way Guy Fawkes tried to do with Parliament, half the country’s peers would be lost.”

“You’re a novelist to the core, Mia,” Ward said, smiling down at her.

He felt a prickling in his shoulders, glanced to the side, and met the glare of Mia’s husband. The look in Pindar’s eyes actually cheered him up. “I think you’re succeeding in making your husband jealous.”

“Excellent,” Mia said, patently unconcerned. “Now, how are you planning to win back Mrs. Snowe?”

“I shall kidnap her.” He had decided to drive the carriage to Fonthill’s front door, push past that butler, and carry her out over his shoulder. But if she attended the House tomorrow, he would steal her straight from there.

Mia frowned. “I’ve written that plot twice, Ward, and it would not be romantic in reality. I always have to finesse the inconvenient fact that my heroine wouldn’t have a toothbrush or a clean chemise.”

“I brought her maid along last time.”

“Last time?” Mia squeaked.

“Vander is on the verge of doing me bodily harm,” Ward said, bringing her to a halt in front of her duke, who promptly tucked his wife under an arm and dropped a kiss on her head for good measure.

“Don’t be a bear,” Mia said, looking up at her husband. “I dragged Ward onto the floor.”

“Why?” Vander growled, in a very bearlike fashion.

Ward gave him a sardonic grin. “It seems there’s a former-fiancée clause that permits her to organize my love life.”

Mia poked Vander around the middle. “Will you please stop glowering at my former fiancé?”

Mia was small, but she obviously wasn’t allowing her out-sized husband to intimidate her. Ward considered giving her a congratulatory kiss, but that might push Vander too far.

“I want to make certain that Ward wins the hand of Eugenia Snowe,” Mia continued. “I’ve only met her twice, but I thought her absolutely enchanting.”

“Everyone does,” Ward said.

Well, with the exception of his grandmother.

“You must make a grand gesture,” Mia said earnestly. “Something Mrs. Snowe would never expect. Something that will make it clear that you love her more than you possibly could any other woman, that you treasure her just as she is.”

“I made one,” Vander said. He had both arms around his wife now.

“What did you do?” Ward inquired.

“I wrote a poem.”

“You wrote a love poem, because I write novels about love,” his wife declared. “It was your way of telling me that you respected my profession.”

From Vander’s twitch, Ward was pretty sure that His Grace hadn’t been considering his wife’s novels when he wrote that love poem.

He let a sardonic smile touch the corners of his mouth so that Vander realized that Ward had a hold over him.

The duke narrowed his eyes.

“You must do the same,” Mia said, blithely unaware of the silent conversation occurring over her head. “Your grand gesture has to convince Eugenia that you value and respect her as an intelligent woman with remarkable accomplishments.”

“What is he supposed to do?” Vander asked. “Hire another governess? From all accounts, he sacked one of her governesses and the other quit. It would be hard to demonstrate respect for Snowe’s Registry after that.”

“Ward has to make a huge gesture,” Mia insisted. “There’s India! She’ll help.” She started waving frantically.

Ward turned as Thorn Dautry’s wife, Lady Xenobia India, joined them.

“Hello, Mia darling,” India said, dropping a necessarily shallow curtsy, since she was obviously carrying a child. “Mr. Reeve, it’s a pleasure to see you. And Vander, you’re looking a bit peevish this evening.” She went up on her toes to kiss the duke.

“Where’s Thorn?” His Grace growled, by way of greeting.

“Here,” came a laconic voice. Ward had not seen Thorn Dautry since he and Vander had helped him rout Mia’s uncle, the scoundrel who’d had him thrown in prison.

Now he thought of it, if that old crook hadn’t died, he might have had to thank him for stopping his wedding to Mia.

“India,” Mia cried, “Ward needs our help. He has to make a grand gesture to convince Eugenia Snowe that he truly loves her.”

“Does he truly love her?” India peered at Ward. Whatever she saw in his eyes must have satisfied her, because she turned back to Mia and said, “Flowers?”

Ward shook his head. “Not extravagant enough.”

“Excellent!” Mia said, clapping her hands together.

“What?” her husband asked.

“Ward has something in mind. I can tell.”

It seemed he was making a grand gesture.