“Sister Busy,” implored Popper. “Cry you mercy, Sister Busy, consider your place in life.”

“And while you are contemplating that, Mrs. Busy, you might include the thought that I may well marry your mistress, Lady Lisette,” Villiers said. “In which case this house will become one vast tent for my wicked self. And then you, Mrs. Busy, will need to thrust yourself onto the sanctified highway because I may well bring all six of my children to live under this roof. In case you are wondering, none of the six was conceived with the benefit of matrimony.”

“Six!” she gasped, falling back and regarding him as if he were the very devil himself. “Thou tellest untruths. No man is so rank in the face of the Lord.”

Against all odds, Villiers was beginning to enjoy himself. “Are you gnashing your teeth, Mrs. Busy? That’s an odd sound you’re making.”

“Thou art a Nebuchadnezzar, a very Nebuchadnezzar, come to mock me!” Mrs. Busy said.

One of the pot boys giggled.

“Sister Busy,” Popper implored.

“I must take my leave,” Villiers said with a flourishing bow. “Thank you for this charming conversation.”

Popper ran after him down the corridor. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” he said, panting.

Villiers stopped. “What relation is she to you?”

Popper rang his hands. “She’s my sister, Your Grace. We were raised Puritan, you see, but she took to it fiercely, and then she married Zeal-of-the-Land, and I’m afraid that she became rather rigid. She needs this position. She has nowhere else to go, and Zeal-of-the-Land left all his possessions to the church.”

“He left everything to the church?”

Popper nodded. “With a request that they say prayers for his soul four times a day for a year. Which they will, because it transpired that Brother Busy had acquired quite a large estate. But unfortunately his will left my sister destitute and in need of a position. Please, Your Grace, I know that she’s a fierce woman. But Brother Busy’s death left her soured.”

“I can imagine,” Villiers said, pushing open the baize door that led back to the foyer.

They emerged into chaos. Oyster was barking hysterically and running in circles, Eleanor was shouting, one of the footmen was chasing the dog, and Lisette was standing on the second or third step of the staircase, screaming. Into all of this rushed Popper, uttering useless admonitions in a shrill voice.

“Quiet!” Villiers bellowed.

Everyone obeyed him except, characteristically, Eleanor. She whipped around, hands on her hips, and said through clenched teeth, “Escort Lisette elsewhere before I do something I may—or may not—regret.”

Oyster had dropped onto his haunches and was gazing at him in a rather charmingly attentive position, so Villiers raised a finger to the footman, who scooped up the dog. “Take him outside,” he commanded before turning to Lisette.

She was clinging to the banister, her face absolutely drained of color. Although she had stopped screaming, she was obviously paralyzed with fright.

“Lisette,” he said, coming to the bottom of the stairs.

She looked at him, her face pathetically wan, her blue eyes huge.

“Poor scrap,” he said, and held out his arms. She fell into them and he scooped her up. She put her head against his shoulder, as trustingly as if she were a child.

“Take her into the drawing room,” Eleanor said. “I’ll go outside and make sure that Oyster is out of sight and sound.” She said it flatly, without an edge, but Villiers could read her voice easily enough.

He looked down at Lisette’s spun-gold hair. She wasn’t the bravest of creatures, but there was no point in defending her at the moment. Besides, Eleanor had already stamped out the door after Oyster.

So he walked into the drawing room and sat down on a sofa. After a moment Lisette eased off his lap and onto the bench beside him. “I’m quite irrational when it comes to dogs.” Big tears made her eyes glisten. “I hate being such a coward.”

“Many people are afraid of dogs,” he said, trying to sound consoling, although sympathy wasn’t exactly his forte. “There’s no need to apologize.”

“Oyster is likely a quite nice dog.” She was twisting her fingers around and around each other. “It’s just that I had such a terrible experience last year in the village. A feral dog was threatening everyone, and there were children in the square. I had to protect them.”

“Terrible,” Villiers said, only half listening.

“If we marry,” Lisette said, “you must promise me that we will have no hounds on the premises.”

“If we marry?” he echoed, snapping to attention.

It was the second time in as many days that a woman had announced their imminent marriage without bothering to wait for his proposal. In this case, he hadn’t even broached the idea of marriage, which made her announcement seem truly presumptuous.

“Yes,” Lisette said, apparently unmoved by the surprise in his voice. “I am truly considering it, Leopold. I like your children so much.”

Of course, that was why he was considering it too: because she would be a bighearted, wonderful mother to his motley brood.

She smiled up at him. “I think we should suit, especially because you don’t own a dog.”

No dog but six children. Most women would run screaming in the opposite direction, so it seemed he had found the perfect woman.

At least from that particular point of view.

“Why don’t you kiss me now?” Lisette asked. Her eyes were the exact color of sky outside the window. Of course he wanted to kiss her.

He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. They were pale pink, very soft.

“I like kissing,” she said, sighing a bit. She put a hand on his chest. “Do you like kissing, Leopold?”

“Of course,” he said, wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into. It was her fresh sweetness that made her such a perfect choice for a wife. He would have to be slow and kind, and hope that he didn’t wilt from pure boredom during the act.

“Of course, I like other things about bedding men,” she said.

He blinked.

“Kiss me again,” she cooed, pursing her lips. He obliged, settling his lips over her soft ones. She couldn’t have meant that comment the way it sounded.

“What do you like about bedding men?” he inquired.

She looked up through her lashes modestly. “I’m certain that you can teach me a great deal.”

Lisette was the very model of a respectable virgin. Not like infuriating Eleanor, who had clearly slept with Godless Gideon before he ran off to marry Ada. And not like her in other ways too, because Eleanor had that trick of setting a man’s blood on fire just by looking at him.

Whereas Lisette’s sweet blue eyes were restful.

“Kiss me again,” she said, placing a slender arm around his neck.

He bent his head again and this time ran his tongue along the seam of her lips. He was a little afraid that she might be prudish in her approach—weren’t virgins always nonplussed by their first real kisses?

But she opened her mouth readily enough. They played with their tongues for a while, and she even stroked his shoulders.

They’d be fine in bed.