She threw the ball, scooped—and the sixth knucklebone slid, smooth as butter, under her spreading skirts. She closed her fingers around the bones.
“You won!” Tobias cried, looking utterly shocked. “But I never lose.”
She took a second to savor her victory. “That’s likely because you’ve never played a woman before.”
“You think girls are better at knucklebones than boys?” She’d seen that jutting jaw before. Villiers had it. Well, every boy had it when they were confronted with an unpleasant reality.
“I’m better than you are,” she pointed out. “Why shouldn’t the two of us stand as emblems for our sexes?”
He thought his way through that language. “I’ve played lots of girls before,” he reported. “And I always win.”
“Pride goeth before a fall,” she said. And then she relented, grinning at him. “I cheated.”
“What?” His voice suddenly dropped a register, taking on, in its disbelief, his father’s low voice.
She whisked aside her skirt and showed him the hidden jack. “You should always count the bones when someone claims victory.”
“I do always count the bones!” he cried. “Well, normally. But you’re a lady!” His voice swooped from high to low. He would have his father’s deep velvet tones someday.
“Your mistake,” she said cheerfully. “I cheated—but I still won. You tried to cheat and you lost. When I decided to cheat, I won because you didn’t see it.”
Tobias narrowed his eyes. “You’re a strange lady.”
“Very strange,” Villiers said from above her shoulder.
“I have thought Eleanor strange since our nursery days,” Anne laughed. She sounded a little drunk.
“Tobias,” Eleanor said, ignoring them, “do you suppose that you’re strong enough to haul me into a standing position?”
He jumped to his feet. “You’re not so large.” He had decided to like her, she guessed. Now that she had cheated. Men were strange, no matter the age. “I’ll be taller than you in a month or so.”
“You’re as boastful as my dog,” she told him. Sure enough, he managed to get her to her feet. She twitched her skirts so they flowed over her panniers.
He was longing to tell her that she was crazy and that dogs didn’t boast, so she put him out of his misery. “My dog Oyster is a terrible braggart.”
“What does he boast about?” Tobias asked.
“His tail, for one thing. He loves his tail. The problem is that he can’t see it because he’s too fat. So he goes around and around, barking so that I realize how important and beautiful and special that tail is.”
Tobias had clearly learned not to laugh, because he just watched her with those curious, intent eyes that reminded her of his father. It made her itch to comfort him, which was absurd.
“Second, Oyster is ridiculously proud of his ability to defend me.”
“Defend you? The nursemaid told me that he was the size of a piglet.”
“I have to admit that there may be a certain resemblance. But my point is that he thinks he’s very fierce. Extremely so. He likes to pretend that the fire andirons are about to attack me. He creeps up, attacks them savagely, and manages to save my life.”
Tobias hesitated.
“I know…you wish to inform me that Oyster is not the brightest canine,” Eleanor said, sighing.
Tobias almost smiled.
“The third thing he’s very proud of is his pizzle,” she said.
He grinned outright at that. “I thought ladies never mentioned such things.”
Actually they didn’t, generally speaking. “You also thought you could beat any woman simply because you have a pizzle,” she pointed out. “Not to mention the fact that you thought a lady wouldn’t cheat, so you didn’t count the bones.”
“I’m horrified,” Villiers said with a drawl. “Horrified.” He turned to his son, his eyes so serious that Eleanor wondered if Tobias would get the joke. “She’s no lady, son. I’ll have to find another duchess.”
“Oyster has the smallest pizzle you can imagine,” Eleanor said, glancing at Villiers just to make it clear that she might be able to imagine one smaller. “More like a radish than anything to be proud of.”
Tobias giggled, sounding like any other child.
“But when he starts waving it around,” she said, taking another sip of her rum punch, “you’d think that it was a royal pizzle.”
“What does he do with it?” Tobias asked. He sounded about five years younger than he had on entering the room.
“Well, I hate to tell you this, because it’s going to reduce your opinion of him,” Eleanor said, “but he is uncommonly fond of Peter, one of our footmen. Or perhaps it is more accurate to admit that his object of passion is Peter’s leg.”
Who would have thought it? Father and son laughed in exactly the same way.
Eleanor finished up her drink, thinking about how utterly predictable the male sense of humor was. Tobias reacted precisely as her own brother would have, at the same age. It seemed that men never really got past that age, in fact.
The Duke of Villiers. Age thirteen, going on…forty.
Typical.
Chapter Twelve
By the time Squire Thestle and his family finally appeared, Tobias had been dispatched to the nursery, and the entire company had consumed three glasses of rum punch each. Villiers showed no signs of intoxication, but Anne was weaving a little as she walked.
Eleanor prided herself on being able to manage several glasses of wine, but she was slowly coming to realize that rum punch was not like wine. Her head was swimming and she had to curb the impulse to beam.
Luckily, her mother had reappeared and taken over the role of hostess, since Lisette didn’t even bother to rise to greet the squire. Lisette, seated on a couch beside Eleanor, had been talking, almost without breathing, for twenty minutes. Really, Eleanor thought sentimentally, Lisette was greatly misunderstood by the ton. She almost always made sense.
“Lisette,” she said, interrupting, “Don’t you wish to marry someday?”
“Of course I plan to do so. I’m engaged; did you know that?”
Eleanor sat up. “You’re betrothed? To whom?”
“Roland’s older brother,” Lisette said, waving her hand at the squire and his son. “My father and his arranged it eons ago. His name is Lancelot.”
It must have been arranged when the betrothed couple were in their respective cradles, given the edgy politeness with which the squire nodded in the direction of Lisette. “Roland and Lancelot…No wonder Roland became a poet. Where is Lancelot?”
“He went on a tour some years ago,” Lisette said with complete unconcern. “When he comes back, I suppose we’ll marry. I’m quite comfortable as I am. Or if I meet someone I like better than Lancelot, I’ll just marry him instead. The squire wouldn’t mind.”
“What would you think of marrying Villiers, for example?”
“Villiers?” Lisette seemed to have forgotten who he was, so Eleanor waved her hand toward the duke. He was standing with his back to them, talking to Anne. She didn’t know why Anne was so taken by his shoulders. She preferred his thighs. His muscles were positively immoral, the way they strained the silk of his pantaloons.
