“You have a fine figure,” Louisa said, surveying him from head to foot. “You’ll need to order a new suit, of course. That is pitifully passé. Luckily, I have a length of rose silk that I can donate to the cause.”

Hugo glanced down at his breeches, waistcoat, and coat, made from somber grey with black buttons. “Rose silk,” he said with revulsion.

“Over-stitched with gold thread,” his sister said, nodding. “You’re disgustingly handsome, even given the Wilde eyebrows, so I’m not worried on that front. No, the real problem is persuading a skittish lady that eight children don’t pose an insurmountable burden. I’ll definitely have to sacrifice the rose silk; it might be enough to weight the scales of your desirability against your offspring.”

“No need for a sacrifice,” Hugo said, his tone sharpening. “I employ two nannies, three nursemaids, and a governess. That’s enough mothering. What’s more, given that Horatius is at Oxford, and Roland, Alaric, and Parth are at Eton, four of the eight would scorn the notion they needed mothering.”

Louisa groaned. “Parth is more trouble than the other boys put together. Did I tell you about what he—” She cut herself off. “Never mind that. Ignoring those boys, and the two others, for the moment, you have daughters in the nursery. I’m serious, Hugo.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“The girls must be taken to London, presented at court, and brought out at balls. That’s not to mention the delicate business of steering them away from fortune-hunters and toward respectable young men.”

“You—”

She shook her head. “Your daughters cannot wither in Cheshire, going to the local assemblies, living on the edge of a bog, racketing around the castle with no one to talk to.”

That stung. “I visit the nursery at least once a day.”

“Your children are rarely in the nursery so that hardly matters.”

Hugo frowned. “They aren’t running around Lindow Moss, are they?”

“When they’re home, the older boys virtually live in the bog,” Louisa said dismissively. “The children love to visit the stables, even the baby. My point is, terrible mother though she was, Yvette knew everyone in London.”

“As do I.”

“I have trouble picturing you rounding up your acquaintances and putting on a ball in Betsy’s honor—which will have to take place in a mere dozen years or so. I don’t mind acting as your hostess here, but I rarely leave Cheshire, as you know. I go to London solely to visit the modistes and see an occasional play.”

“Perhaps Horatius will have married by then,” Hugo said, thinking of his oldest son. “I have every faith that he will choose a perfectly raised daughter of a peer, who can do the honors.”

“I can imagine,” Louisa said, with a shudder. “I’ll probably hate her.”