“Yes, please, with sugar,” Maddie said. “My husband says that His Grace is making certain there won’t be any more children, and God knows, that is a good idea. I know Lindow is rich as Croesus, but establishing all those sons, not counting the heir, and dowrying two daughters would bankrupt anyone.”

“That seems mercenary, but I suppose . . .” Ophelia’s voice died away. Hugo had been willing to marry her, unless he was fooling, but she didn’t think he had been. Hard thinking in the middle of the night had convinced her that her initial impressions were correct: He had looked at her as no man ever had before.

But she had sent him away.

And he had stayed away.

“It’s too bad,” Maddie said, putting more sugar into her tea. “He was quite taken with you. If you hadn’t left the ball so suddenly, you might have bewitched him and become a duchess.”

“You yourself told me that he was too much for me,” Ophelia pointed out.

“I changed my mind once I spoke to him,” Maddie said. “One of us should have taken him, and he didn’t want me.”

“If he hadn’t been looking for a nanny, he might well have fallen for your charms,” Ophelia said, rather hollowly. And then she added, “Although your husband would not have been happy.”

“Who cares what Penshallow thinks?” Maddie said, hunching up a shoulder. “Yesterday I received the most horrid, ill-written note that you can imagine, informing me that my husband had been making children’s stockings.”

“What?”

“I was confused too, but it seems that he’s gotten his mistress—one of his mistresses—with child. I made him tell me all.”

“Oh, Maddie.” Ophelia reached out and covered her cousin’s hand with hers. “I’m so sorry. What shall you do?”

“What can I do?”

But Ophelia had known Maddie for all of her life, so she just waited.

“I told that ungrateful wretch that I’d raise his child,” Maddie burst out. “Oh! He’s so dreadful. First I accosted him with the news, and he pretended to know nothing. Then he admitted to giving the woman ten pounds so that she could bring the child to the Foundling Hospital when it was born.”

“One has to pay the Foundling Hospital?” Ophelia asked. She poured more tea, because in moments of crisis, tea helped.

Maddie added a great amount of sugar. “If you want the child to be apprenticed, yes. Penshallow had the nerve to boast that he took his responsibilities seriously! And then—oh, Phee, I can barely say this aloud, and only to you, obviously . . .”

“What is it?”

Maddie took a deep breath. “Then he suggested that if the child is a boy, we take him in and pretend that he’s mine. Because Penshallow needs an heir, obviously. And I don’t want to bed him ever again. I refuse.” Her voice rose.