“Miss Abbott has keen powers of observation. Why didn’t you tell me?” And why wasn’t Stephen angrier? More surprised? Pleased? Something?

“I didn’t want him to be yours,” Harmonia said, “but he is yours. I cannot deny that. When you and I were dallying, Champlain was off in France fiddling with some violinist, or more likely a whole quartet. Champlain congratulated me on conceiving—congratulated me!—and I think he was honestly relieved.”

Still, Stephen could not grasp how he was supposed to feel about this development. “Champlain knew he’d been cuckolded?”

Harmonia poured herself a cup of tea, the hot liquid nearly missing the cup. “He once said that the reason I wasn’t conceiving might be that we didn’t suit in that regard. I could carry another man’s child, he could impregnate other women—and what wife wants to hear that casual admission?—but we were not a mating pair. I hate that term.”

“Doesn’t sit well with me either.” He’s your son. He’s your son. He’s your son. “Does Stapleton realize who the boy’s father is?”

“The marquess will doubtless guess, particularly as Nicky matures. He cocks his head as you do, and he is much cleverer than Champlain or I could hope to be. You have every right to be wroth with me.”

“Do I?” What would Abigail make of this development? More to the point, what had she made of it? What had the most glorious week of lovemaking in Stephen’s generally self-indulgent life been about?

“These things happen in the best families,” Harmonia said primly, as if some venerable uncle had grown a bit vague. “You still had a right to know.”

“We were dallying, Harmonia, each out to prove something by taking our clothes off and falling into the same bed. We were foolish.” Maybe pathetic was the better word. “We need not be foolish now.”

She took a sip of her tea, the cup rattling as she returned it to the saucer. “What were you trying to prove?”

A fair question. “Perhaps that I could swagger around like all the real courtesy lords who hadn’t been born in the gutter? Perhaps that my knee was useless, but my pizzle was entirely in working order? Nothing of any moment.”

Harmonia set her teacup back on the tray. “I wanted Champlain to notice me. To pay some blasted attention to the wife who loved him. I was so angry, and he was so focused on his next debauch. I might as well have been an aging lapdog for all he recalled where he’d last put me.”

“Take some shortbread,” Stephen said, holding out the plate. “You’ve had a trying time of it.”

She took a piece, had a small nibble, and set it on her plate. That sequence, of following a polite order, never questioning its appropriateness, struck Stephen as some sort of metaphor. Harmonia ought to be throwing the plate against the wall or at the very least delivering a few pointed opinions on the perfidy of her late husband.