“If you had acquitted yourself any more adequately, I would have expired from a surfeit of pleasure. A woman underestimates you at her peril.”

He gathered her near, loving the feel of her warm and naked next to him. Perhaps he could broach the topic of marriage preliminarily, in a general sort of way.

“I look forward to the day when such pleasures are a regular aspect of my situation. Domestic bliss and all that.”

She said nothing, but then, he’d probably been too general.

“Do you ever contemplate marriage, Eleanora? Speculate about what benefits it might offer with the right fellow?”

Rex waited, mapping the curve of her hip and the turn of her waist in slow strokes. She was small but sturdy and ye gods, she was passionate. “Eleanora?” He seized all of his courage and whispered, “Will you marry me?”

The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Somewhere on the floor below, a longcase clock bonged the quarter hour.

Rex knew the feel of Eleanora in slumber, knew the peaceful weight of her in his embrace. He’d loved her within an inch of her sanity, apparently, all the way to a sound sleep.

He kissed her temple and drew the covers up over her shoulder.

“Tomorrow, then, or certainly before we return to London, we will embark on that conversation. I look forward to being your doting duke, if you’ll have me.”

*  *  *

“So where is she?” Jack asked, accepting the slice of buttered bread Pamela passed him. He had to let the brat on his knee have a bite first, and wee Mickey—named for his cousin—knew to take as much at one go as he could manage.

“Down with you,” Jack said, putting the boy on the floor. “If you keep eating like that you’ll soon be eight feet tall.”

The lad grinned around a mouthful of bread—no manners whatsoever—and skipped off.

“Go tell your sister to stop pestering Mrs. Hilton,” Pamela said. “The girl’s been up there for half the day.”

Jack had, to his shame, timed this call for noon, when food might be in evidence. Waiting around in doorways was hungry work this time of year.

“Ellie hasn’t gone to the chop house,” he said. “Not since Saturday. It’s Tuesday noon, and no Ellie. What if she’s ill?”

As far as Jack knew, no Naylor kin had ever set foot on the premises of Ellie’s fine lodgings, nor had they darkened the door of the Wentworth and Penrose bank. Never let it be said Ellie’s family had betrayed her before her betters. Kept a watchful eye on her, of course, but nothing more.

Pamela passed him the baby and rose to pour him a cup of tea from a pot swaddled in a towel in the dry sink. The towel was dingy, but the tea was steaming hot.