“I know, I know,” George mumbled. “I always thought she’d be happy with you. Although I hoped she’d find a quieter sort of fellow. Braddon and you, you’re cats of the same color, aren’t you? Rakes, the both of you.” He cast an apologetic glance at the young man before him, heaving himself to his feet. “I haven’t always behaved as I should.”

Patrick’s lips twitched but he managed to stifle a grin. This, from the man whose name regularly adorned the gossip columns of every London rag published? Patrick could hardly hope to convince George that he had no plans to take a mistress after marrying Sophie. George’s tempestuous extramarital history meant that rakes, from his point of view, never reformed.

George started again. “My wife has a powerful temper, and sometimes Sophie was … saw more than she should have.”

Patrick stood up, his relaxed demeanor not letting slip a clue to his keen interest in George’s confession.

“She’s a good girl, my Sophie is.” George was walking toward the door now, going to ring the bell and summon his daughter to the library to entertain Foakes’s proposal yet again. “She’s a good girl. She’s gotten me out of a curst hobble more than once, helped me out when her mama was acting like a termagant.”

Patrick walked up behind him.

“How did Lady Sophie aid you with these entanglements?” His voice sounded mildly curious.

“Oh, she would smile, as sweet as new butter, and tell her mother that I’d taken her to the races, that sort of thing.” George’s round eyes were full of self-condemnation. “Do you think that Sophie came up with this infamous plan to elope because of my indiscretions? Did she let you stay in her bed last night because I’ve been such a—”

“I take full blame for what happened last night. Lady Sophie is a true innocent. She had no idea what might happen when I climbed the ladder to her room.”

“Really?” For a moment the marquis’s eyes widened with surprise. “She’s—” What in the devil was he doing, trying to convince his daughter’s future husband that she was some sort of female libertine? She wasn’t, of course. It was just that Sophie had lied so convincingly in the past, protecting him from her mother’s wrath. He’d somehow fallen into thinking of his own daughter as a sophisticated lady of the town, instead of an innocent maiden. For a moment George was swamped in self-reproach.

Then just as he opened his mouth, the doors opened and Carroll stood there.

“My lord?”

“Ask Lady Sophie to join us, Carroll.”