“A spouse?” Eleanor still felt so shaken by her conversation with her sister that she could hardly formulate a coherent thought. She had thought of herself as presenting a modest appearance. Demure. Virginal. But Anne made her feel like a balding old maid.
“A spouse of a certain rank,” Villiers qualified.
Eleanor felt a stomach-churning qualm of embarrassment and took recourse in sarcasm. “Now all that is left is to assess each other against such criteria as the weight of a sow, or the brains of a poodle.”
“In truth, I would rather not marry someone with less intelligence than the aforementioned Oyster.”
“I never pee on the floor when irritated,” Eleanor told him.
“You can have no idea how pleased I am to hear that,” Villiers said. Perhaps his eyes weren’t quite as frosty as they first appeared. “In that case, I have no cause to query the intelligence of our future offspring.”
Her sister was wrong. She could talk to men without sniping at them. Absolutely she could. “You play chess, don’t you?” she ventured. It was one of the few things she knew about Villiers: that he was ranked number one in the London Chess Club.
“Yes. Do you?”
“I used to play with my brother when we were young.”
“Viscount Gosset? He’s a decent player.”
Eleanor personally thought that her brother was a terrible player, but she smiled anyway.
“I am more curious about why you set your cap for a duke, to use the vulgar phrase,” Villiers said. “When I first heard of your requirement, I assumed you were driven by pride. But you don’t appear to be quite as high in the instep as a young woman with such stringent ambitions ought to be.”
Anne was right. Her foolish comment had given her the reputation of a turkey cock. She managed a smile. “Ducal marriages are a matter of precedence and fiscal responsibility. Since I am uninterested in forging an alliance based on anything less practical, I decided quite early that I would like to marry a duke.”
“Admirably succinct.”
If quite untrue. Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “And you? Why do you care for the status of your wife, given that you will make her a duchess by marriage?”
He looked her directly in the face. “I have six illegitimate children.”
Eleanor felt her mouth slip open, and snapped her teeth together. Was she supposed to congratulate him? “Oh,” she ventured.
“I wish to marry someone who will not only mother my bastards, but launch them into proper society when the appropriate time comes. The Beaumonts have assured me that no woman below your rank will be able to cow the ton to the extent that I demand. You needn’t look so surprised. I assure you that many men at this ball have a bastard or two being raised in the country.”
There was something extraordinarily annoying about the way he paused after that, as if expecting her to scream and faint. “One or two…versus six,” she said musingly. “I gather you have led a life of rather extraordinary dissipation.”
“I’m not as young as I look.”
“You don’t look very young,” she observed.
“I see you’re not expecting to charm your way into a title.”
“Given your family situation, I think most people would agree that the burden of charm falls on you. Are you planning to legitimize your children?”
“I couldn’t do that without marrying one of their mothers.”
“More than one mother is involved?”
“Dear, dear,” Villiers said. “That was almost a yelp, Lady Eleanor. We seem to be attracting some attention; perhaps we might stroll down a path.”
She glanced to one side, only to meet the avid eyes of Lady Fibblesworth standing with the Earl of Bisselbate. Of course, their meeting would be extraordinarily interesting to most of London, given the rumors about Villiers’s hunt for a wife. She threw the couple a stiff smile and tucked her hand into the duke’s arm.
“I had assumed that the children were the offspring of your mistress,” she said a moment later, when they were far enough away to be out of earshot.
“Oh, they are,” he said. “Four mistresses. Have you examined the baths yet?”
“The baths are not open to the public until after restoration,” Eleanor said. “I understand that the tiles are in delicate condition.”
“Surely you know that marriage to a duke allows one to flagrantly ignore rules of this sort?” he asked, turning toward the ruined baths at the entrance to the gardens.
“My father is quite punctilious.”
“No breaking the rules constructed for ordinary mortals?” He sounded bored.
“And no illegitimate children,” she said, allowing her voice just a touch of frost.
“Touché!”
The Roman baths were guarded by a phalanx of footmen, but apparently they knew the duke. At any rate, they moved silently to the side as Villiers approached. Eleanor looked about her with some curiosity. The baths had been fully enclosed at some point in the past, of course. But now a wall had fallen in and was replaced by a thick hedge of what seemed to be lilac, though it wasn’t blooming.
The duke led her across cracked tiles scattered higgledy-piggledy on the ground. Eleanor slipped her hand from his arm and stooped to pick one up. It was indigo blue and painted with a silver arabesque.
“How lovely!”
“That deep blue color seems to be rare,” Villiers said. He looked around on the ground. “Pity; I don’t see more of the same.”
Eleanor sighed and bent to put it carefully in its place.
“Don’t you like it?”
“Of course.”
“Take it.”
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “We’re at a ball to benefit the baths’ restoration. As I recall, the king just described it as one of the nation’s greatest unknown monuments. And you’re telling me to steal part of the floor?” She began walking forward again.
There were fewer torches here, and the sound of a minuet being played by the orchestra grew fainter as they walked among the pillars. Some were broken, but many remained, the starry sky seeming to offer a fanciful roof.
“The actual bath is down here,” the duke said, taking her arm again to steer her down a shallow flight of stairs.
“It’s delightfully warm.” Moist air was rising from below. Eleanor walked down the last step and stopped. “And beautiful. Like a purple sea.”
The bath was a large square basin, surrounded by soft cushions. Its entire surface, every square inch of water, was covered with violets. Their scent rose gently from the warm water.
“I gather that Elijah plans a private celebration this evening,” Villiers said behind her.
She turned her head. “Elijah?”
“The Duke of Beaumont.”
“Of course.”
“I expect you don’t know his personal name since he married years ago and thus wasn’t eligible as a husband.” His voice was silky but annoying.
She cast him a glance. “I don’t know your name either.”
“That seems remarkably careless,” he remarked. “Narrowing your choices to dukes, and then not bothering to investigate their personal details.”
“There aren’t so very many of you,” she observed.