He nodded, turning her hand over. “Whereas your hand is delicate and pink.”

“A useless hand,” Ophelia said, pulling it away.

But he hung on. “A hand needn’t be scarred to be useful.” His mouth twitched and then he said, “Marie rocked her babes every night. Her hands were not scarred, but they were not frail.”

Ophelia was caught between a sense of danger—he really was looking for a mother for all those children—and elation that he had understood. He wouldn’t scorn her if he knew she rocked Viola to sleep.

Just as that thought went through her mind, the carriage skewed across the road. The duke reached over and plucked her into his lap as easily as she might pick up Viola.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

He braced one large foot against the side of the carriage opposite them, and the other on the opposite seat. Ophelia craned her neck sideways to frown at him just as the carriage slipped again.

This time it slid clear across the road.

“We’re likely to lose a wheel,” the duke said in her ear, one arm across her chest like an iron band, the other holding on to the strap.

“A wheel?” she managed, but the crack of splitting wood drowned her voice.

His Grace said one short, brutal curse, not at all dukelike.

The carriage began to list to one side slowly, as if it were a boat on the verge of capsizing. Just when it was about to fall over, it rocked back in the other direction and she heard a crunch as the axle presumably hit the ground. They were tilted, but not upside down.

The door blew open, and, with a theatrical swirl, snow rushed into the carriage.

Ophelia hardly felt it. The duke’s massive body had taken the shock of the carriage rocking, and now he tucked her closer against himself, as if his arms could ward off the winter. The wind caught the door and slammed it shut again.

“We made it,” the duke said, sounding very satisfied. “Your carriage driver, Ophelia, is worth every shilling you pay him.”

“My—what happened?”

“We lost a wheel, but he managed to keep us from toppling on our heads,” His Grace said. “Much though I love the feeling of you in my lap, I’m going to clamber from this carriage so that I can get you out. I don’t like the idea that a fool might be bowling along in the dark and run straight into us before he can stop.”

Ophelia was breathless, terrified, oddly exhilarated at the same time. “I must get home to Viola.” She caught his sleeve as he snatched up his gloves and pulled them on. “I must go home.” It came out like a command, the way no duke was addressed, let alone by an insignificant widow.