Eugenia dropped into her chair, looked at Ward, and burst out laughing. He was apparently a man who would happily fight a legion with one hand tied at his back, but when faced with a bumptious mother, was desperate for rescue.

“If you allow another woman of that sort to join us,” Ward told the headwaiter, “I will never darken the door of this establishment again.”

“I am extremely sorry, sir,” Mr. Sweeney said earnestly. “If another woman like that brings her custom to this establishment, I shall follow you out of the building.”

“Excellent. I think we’d better have more tea and a few pastries. How are the hampers coming along?”

“We are ready whenever you wish, Mr. Reeve,” Sweeney said before slipping away.

“Lady Hyacinth is infamous,” Eugenia told Ward when they were alone again. “She truly is one of a kind.”

A waiter arrived and placed an assortment of new cakes on the table, murmuring that they were a gift of the house.

“Pure guilt,” Ward said. “Sweeney permitted that disaster to happen, just as if he’d waved good-bye as our boat capsized.”

Eugenia took in a sharp breath. She wasn’t going to think about Andrew.

Not about boats capsizing.

Not today.

“What have I said?” Ward asked. “Bloody hell, you wrote me that your husband died in a boating accident, didn’t you?”

His eyes were an intense blue. “I’m truly sorry. Here, have a bite of cake.” He forked up a large bite and extended it toward Eugenia’s lips. She oughtn’t to. She’d eaten too much. “And describe how it tastes,” he added.

“Chocolate is everything a woman wants,” Eugenia said. She took the bite. “This is sweet, bitter, decadent, unbearably delicious . . . pure pleasure.”

She smiled at his stunned expression and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.

“Go on.” His voice was hoarse as he extended the fork again.

Eugenia closed her eyes and allowed herself to savor the taste. “Chocolate tastes like all the good things in life swirled together.” She opened her eyes. “It’s like happiness.”

“You are the most sensual woman I’ve ever met,” he growled.

Eugenia blinked and jolted back to herself. “Me?” Her voice came out in a surprised squeak. “Not at all! I’m a very sedate person. I simply like chocolate. Everyone does.”

“Not the way you do.”

“Did you give Miss Carrington chocolates when you were betrothed?”

He shook his head. “Do you suppose she would have refused the opportunity to become a duchess if I had?”

“It’s possible,” she said, grinning at him.

“I didn’t bed her,” he said abruptly.

“I suspected as much.” Eugenia silently congratulated herself on not betraying shock at this rapid shift into a topic that she had never discussed with a man.

“I’m amazed that you have given my cursed betrothal any thought.”

His heavy-lidded eyes sent a bolt of pure sensation down Eugenia’s body. It was terrifying—exciting. It raced straight to her head.

“You wouldn’t have allowed Miss Carrington to leave you if she had truly been yours,” she said. “I spend a good deal of my time analyzing young boys, you know. Grown boys aren’t so different.”

“Indeed.”

“Men in general are remarkably primitive,” she said, pouring him a cup of tea and taking one herself.

“Would you have expected me to beat my chest in a display of possessiveness upon my return from that regrettable incarceration? Remember, I came back to discover my fiancée happily married.”

“Had the two of you been intimate, Miss Carrington would have been waiting for you.”

A rueful look crossed his face. “I can’t say that I’m happy with the notion that the only way I might have kept my fiancée was if I’d ruined her.”

Eugenia laughed. “There is ruination, Mr. Reeve. And then there is . . .” She stopped, as a small voice in the back of her head was insisting that she had abandoned all principles. She decided to ignore it. “And then there is chocolate.”

His eyes blazed and he reached across the table and laced his fingers into hers. She had noticed his body. But it had never seemed as brawny as when he sat across a small, elegant table designed for whispering secrets.

“We’re back where we began,” he said huskily. His thumb rubbed a circle in her palm that made her want to squirm, but she didn’t pull it away. “I should have plied my fiancée with chocolate.”

“Only,” she dared, “if you were certain that the chocolate was of the very best quality.”

Ward brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back, swiftly, just a touch of his lips. He turned it over and pressed a kiss on her palm that sent sweet heat up her arm. “Please tell me how one determines the very best chocolate.”

“It has the qualities of the very best ices,” she said, drawing her hand away. The tearoom had gradually filled since they had first entered, and probably clients of hers were seated on the other side of the fern.

“You know so much more about delicacies than I do,” he said, his voice dark and unbearably sensual.

“The very best ices are sweet, so cold that they feel hot in the mouth. So sweet they taste bitter. So smooth that they slide down your throat.”

“And stiff,” he said. “Don’t forget stiff.”

“Mmmm, yes,” she said. “So stiff as to be . . . ravishing.”

Ward leaned forward. “How would you change that chocolate cake you just tasted, Eugenia?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I asked. If that cake had been made by your cook, would you be perfectly satisfied?”

“It’s not a question of satisfied,” she said. “It was wonderful. But . . .”

“What would you ask her to do?”

“It would benefit from a touch of cardamom,” she said readily. “Just a crackle of spice. And the texture could be improved. Perhaps by beating for another half-hour, or another egg yolk. Or one might try putting steaming water in the oven during the baking process.”

Ward sat back and grinned at her. “You are a master baker. I predict that at some point you will throw off this façade of respectability—”

“Mr. Reeve!” Eugenia squeaked. “There is nothing hypocritical about my behavior!”

“The pretense of prudence,” he said without a pause, “that stops you from eating the food you most desire. Perhaps you’ll open a pastry shop someday. Like this one.”

Eugenia scoffed. “Nonsense! I can scarcely make a sponge cake, I assure you.”

“I am confident that you could make a success of any endeavor, Eugenia.”

He sounded sincere.

She smiled, trying to ignore the way her heart was galloping, and rose. “I think we’ve had enough sweets, don’t you, Mr. Reeve?”

“I hope I do not shock the ladies in the room,” he said, also rising. “It would be best if we sat back down and talked about something more mundane, like my siblings.”

It took tremendous self-control not to glance at his breeches. Instead, they simply looked at each other, desire hanging in the air like smoke.

But his reference to his siblings struck a chord, and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh dear,” she breathed, “we forgot to discuss the problem of Lizzie and Otis.”

“We can talk about it in the carriage,” Ward said, and nodded to Mr. Sweeney, who had brought Eugenia’s pelisse.

Ward took it from him and held it as she slipped it back on. His strong hands touched her shoulders, paused for a moment in a caress that made her knees go weak.

She felt different. Freer, as if chains had fallen away. It was ridiculous, but true.

As they moved toward the door, threading their way between now-crowded tables, she heard a growled word behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at Ward.

“The Dowager Duchess of Gilner just entered,” he said. “My grandmother.”

Oh.

Sure enough, Eugenia’s way out of the tearoom was blocked by a hard-eyed old woman with the bearing of one who had once been considered a great beauty.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Snowe,” the duchess said.

Eugenia curtsied. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

The lady’s violet turban was adorned with a plume so long that it swept her shoulder when she turned to Ward. “Mr. Reeve.”

“A very good afternoon to you,” Ward said, bowing.

The lady rested her hands on the ornate brass ball which topped her cane. “I am too old to prevaricate, Mr. Reeve. A Snowe’s governess is hardly enough to qualify your household to raise children of the nobility, insofar as that you are not only unmarried, but illegitimate. I would prefer that you did not contest my petition to the House of Lords. An institution in which you do not belong, I might add.”

“My father brought me up under circumstances similar to those under which I intend to bring up Lizzie and Otis,” Ward replied. “I assume you approved of his guardianship, Grandmother, since you yourself dropped me on his doorstep.”

Eugenia had the feeling this was the first time Ward had used the word “grandmother” in direct address.

Her Grace’s gloved fingers tightened on her cane, the only outward sign of irritation. “I regret that you force me to put the truth in such blunt terms, Mr. Reeve, but you are my daughter’s by-blow, and I fully expected your father to place you in the country.”

The implication was clear. To her, Ward was little more than rubbish, but legitimate children were another story.

“If their other grandmother were alive, she would beg me to raise them,” the duchess added.

Eugenia thought that the late Lady Darcy must be turning in her grave at the idea her grandchildren had any contact whatsoever with the family of the woman who seduced her fifteen-year-old son.

“You are unfit, Mr. Reeve,” the lady concluded. She shifted her eyes to Eugenia. “It is highly irregular of you to take tea with one of your clients, Mrs. Snowe. In your situation, reputation is paramount. Yours is already compromised by your choices.”

The Duchess of Gilner was one of a cabal of society despots who considered Eugenia to have irredeemably lowered herself to the level of a merchant. Most of them hid their opinions because they—or their daughters-in-law—were well aware of the crucial importance of not alienating the proprietress of Snowe’s.

The dowager was apparently incapable of such diplomacy.

Eugenia didn’t care what the lady thought of her. “I gather that you do not wish your grandchildren raised by one of my governesses,” she said, with a syrupy smile. “Should you succeed in your petition against Mr. Reeve’s guardianship, I shall be happy to direct you toward another registry. One hesitates to call other agencies lesser, but I’m confident that they will be able to find you a good enough governess in due time.”

The dowager’s eyelids twitched.

Eugenia turned to Ward and dropped a magnificent curtsy. “I am very sorry to disappoint you in this matter, Mr. Reeve, but it’s clear that Her Grace does not feel the need for her grandchildren to have one of my governesses. What a pity, since they seem to have been disadvantaged in their early life.”

The tearoom was now bustling with patrons and virtually every table was listening avidly to their conversation.

Ward picked up Eugenia’s lead. “Mrs. Snowe,” he said, voice dripping with pathos, “I implore you not to withdraw your promise to send me a governess, as a consequence of the duchess’s rash statement.”

He turned to the dowager. “As I understand it, a Snowe’s governess is essential to my orphaned wards’ future.” His voice turned cold, implacable, and decisive. “I am certain that their late father—who explicitly left them to my guardianship—would wish them to be raised with the best possible care.”

The duchess’s nose twitched as if a rotten egg had cracked nearby. “I comprehend that you are angling for better terms, Mrs. Snowe. Although it offends propriety to engage in such a distasteful negotiation in public, I shall compensate you double Mr. Reeve’s fee.”

“I was not negotiating,” Eugenia corrected her. “All London knows that I send my governesses only to the very best houses, Your Grace. I shall carefully consider your petition, should you win your lawsuit.”

And with that, she left, with Ward close behind.