“A girl named Sarah-Susan told me where to find you in the sty,” Tobias said. His tone was begrudging but accepting.
“We could give mine to Mary-Bertha,” Phyllinda said. “Because once when Mrs. Minchem said that Lucinda couldn’t have any breakfast or lunch, she kept some bread and gave it to us. Do you remember that, Lucinda?”
Her sister nodded, but Eleanor was having trouble speaking around the anger in her throat, so they just went up to the lawn in silence and found the girls in question.
Eleanor stood watching the excitement as the three little girls claimed their prizes, until she remembered that she had a duke locked in her room. Tobias seemed reconciled to losing; he was trying to train Oyster to walk on his hind legs, which was an anatomical impossibility, as anyone could have told him.
“I know why you locked your father up,” she asked him, “but why did you lock me in as well? And why in my bedchamber?”
He looked up with an odd twist to his mouth. “I don’t like Lisette.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“The old nanny told me that if a lady and gentleman are locked in a room together, they have to get married. Which doesn’t make sense,” he said frankly, “because if they want to be shaking the sheets, they don’t need sheets to be doing it, if you know what I mean.”
Clearly Tobias had seen more than he should have in his short life, but he didn’t seem particularly scandalized.
“So you thought…”
“I’d rather you than her,” he said. It wasn’t much of an endorsement, but it felt good. “How’d you get out, anyway?”
“The balcony door was unlocked and no one had the faintest idea we were together, so your plan came to naught. And I do think that people do better to choose their own spouses. Your father wants to marry Lisette.”
“And you want to marry that ratty duke?” His tone was indescribably scornful.
“Yes,” she said rather faintly. “He’s an old friend.” She looked up and saw Gideon determinedly making his way across the lawn toward her, followed by her mother. “I had better let your father out now. Take care of Oyster.”
She dashed into the house, pretending she didn’t hear her mother calling.
Leopold was asleep. He had stripped off his coat and was lying sprawled out on her bed. She tiptoed across the carpet and stood next to him. He would never be beautiful, like Gideon. He was blunt and complicated, and still grieving for his brother.
She was in love with him.
Horribly, truly in love. The kind of love that wouldn’t alter, ever, and wouldn’t admit impediments.
Lisette was an impediment.
Gideon was another.
And frankly, Leopold was the third obstacle, given his professed intention to marry Lisette. Her love may not alter, but it wasn’t going to succeed either.
She kicked off her slippers and then reached under her skirts to unhook her panniers and her petticoat. Unfortunately, she couldn’t unlace her gown without help, so once she’d taken off her stockings, and left a heap of petticoats on the floor, she pulled up her skirts and climbed onto the bed.
Well, to be exact, she climbed on top of Leopold.
He grunted and pulled her down to him, and in that moment she realized that he hadn’t been asleep, not all the time she stood watching him, and certainly not while she was undressing.
“Did you dream about me wearing nothing but a pinafore?” she asked. He was kissing her neck and seemed to be—from all signs—very happy to see her.
“No pinafore,” he said. His voice had already taken on the wildness that was so opposite to his immaculately polished appearance as a duke. Her entire heart, her body, welcomed it. His fingers were…everywhere.