Eloise jumped, just slightly. A true lady, of course, is never startled because she is never lost in thought. All her attention is directed to her dinner partners.

“I was thinking about Sophie’s babe,” Eloise said forthrightly.

It was Patrick’s turn to be startled. He and Sophie had achieved a sort of calm equilibrium. They did not discuss the subject, and there were days when he forgot that his wife was with child. Certainly he hadn’t thought about it tonight. Sophie sat at the bottom of the table glowing like the fairy on top of a Christmas tree. She didn’t look pregnant. She looked as delectable as spun sugar.

Eloise continued. “I am not convinced that Sophie is adhering to a correct diet.”

“She seems to be eating regularly,” Patrick said lamely.

“I believe that bathing in milk would strengthen her constitution.” Eloise looked at Patrick, her eyes shadowed with worry. “She refuses to do so. And when I recommended that she add oranges to her diet—oranges soothe the stomach, you understand—she refused to do that either.”

“But her stomach has not been indisposed, has it?” Patrick asked cautiously. It was a bit shameful to find that he did not know if his own wife had been ill.

“I believe not,” Eloise replied. “But I still could wish that she would eat an orange a day, and perhaps a glass of bitters once a week.”

“Bitters!”

Eloise nodded. “Drinking bitters is extremely salutary for the health. It strengthens the blood, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” Patrick replied gravely.

There was a moment’s pause broken by the clamor of sixteen well-bred voices chattering of this and that. The marchioness launched into an explanation of her recommendation that Sophie should eat partridges on a regular basis. Patrick looked down the table at his wife.

Tonight Sophie looked very much the grande dame, a far cry from the sensual little sprite who had frequented his bed on the Lark. She was wearing diamonds at her ears and around her throat; their chilly brilliance perfectly suited the creamy luster of her gown.

Suspended from the dining room’s arched ceiling was a chandelier that Patrick had shipped from Italy, long before that country had been swept into Napoleon’s net. Its crystal shards hung, sparkling, far above their heads. A draft caused by footmen moving silently in and out of the dining room caused the crystals to turn and gleam. They caught the reflection of Sophie’s diamonds as they twinkled in the candlelight.

But the diamonds didn’t turn her into an icy reflection of themselves. If anything, they made the rosy, creamy tint of her bosom look even warmer, softer, more delectable.

Patrick swallowed. If there is one thing a gentleman must never do, at his own dinner party in particular, it is to stare at his wife until his breeches are uncomfortably tight.