“He humors her for a few minutes,” Amelia continued, “because he knows how much she likes an audience, but then he most often just shakes his head and walks away. I think he is happiest when out of doors, mucking about with his hounds.”

“Hounds?”

“He has twenty-five of them.”

“Gad.”

She grimaced. “We keep trying to convince him it’s got a bit excessive, but he insists that any man with five daughters deserves five times as many hounds.”

He tried to suppress the image in his mind. “Please tell me none are included in your dowry.”

“You should verify,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I’ve never seen the betrothal papers.”

His eyes held hers for a long, steady moment, then he said, “That means no.” But she held her blank expression for long enough to make him add, “I hope.”

She laughed. “He could not bear to part with them. Me, I think he will be happy to get off his hands, but his dogs…Never.” And then: “Did your parents get on well?”

He felt himself go grim, and his head began to pound anew. “No.”

She watched his face for a moment, and he was not sure he wanted to know what she saw there, because she looked almost pitying when she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said briskly. “It is done, and they are dead, and there is nothing to be done about it now.”

“But—” She stopped, her eyes a little sad. “Never mind.”

He didn’t mean to tell her anything. He had never discussed his parents with anyone, not even Harry, and he’d been witness to it all. But Amelia was sitting there so silently, with an expression of such understanding on her face—even though…well, she couldn’t possibly understand, not with her gloriously boring and traditional family. But there was something in her eyes, something warm and willing, and it felt as if she knew him already, as if she’d known him forever and was merely waiting for him to know her.

“My father hated my mother.” The words fell from his lips before he even realized he was saying them.

Her eyes widened, but she did not speak.

“He hated everything she stood for. She was a cit, you know.”

She nodded. Of course she knew. Everyone knew. No one seemed to care much anymore, but everyone knew that the most recent duchess had been born without even a connection to a title.

The title. Now that was rich. His father had spent his entire life worshipping at the altar of his own aristocracy, and now it seemed he’d never really been the duke at all. Not if Mr. Audley’s parents had had the sense to marry.

“Wyndham?” she said softly.

His head jerked toward her. He must have drifted off in his own thoughts. “Thomas,” he reminded her.