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hands. Mama covered her face with her handkerchief.
    Marchmont emptied his glass and set it down. His slitted green gaze came back to Zoe. She couldn’t truly see it, so secret he was in the way he used his eyes, but she certainly felt it. His slow, assessing look traveled from the top of her head to her toes, which curled in reaction. All of her body seemed to curl under that gaze, as though she were a serpent stirring, lured out of the darkness into the warmth of the sun. She felt the stirring and curling inside, too, low in her belly.
    â€œThat is a most tempting offer,” he said.
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    The room fell oppressively silent, and it seemed to Marchmont that his voice echoed in it. “To be able to manage eunuchs is a rare accomplishment, indeed.”
    The four harridans made no sound. Their youngest sister had succeeded in doing the impossible: She’d rendered them speechless.
    â€œWell?” she said into the lengthening silence.
    He poured himself more wine. The effort not to laugh was sure to do him a permanent injury.
    He was sure he’d never, in all his life, heard anything so hilarious as Zoe-not Zoe’s marriage proposal or her sisters’ reaction to it.
    That alone was worth the thousand pounds he’d lost in the wager. Hell, it was probably worth the price of marriage. He’d be laughing about it for years to come, he didn’t doubt.
    But years to come was a very long time, and marrying now would be inconvenient. For appearances’ sake he would be obliged to give up his mistress for a time, and Lady Tarling hadn’t yet begun to bore him.
    â€œIt devastates me to decline,” he said, “but it would be grossly unfair to take advantage of you in that way.”
    â€œDoes that mean no?” said Zoe. Her soft mouth turned down.
    Marchmont eyed her grown-up, delectably curving body. “It is no,” he said, “with the greatest regret. Were I to consent, I should be marrying you under false pretenses. I can accomplish what you require without your having to shackle yourself to me permanently.”
    He knew that without him she had virtually no hope of a welcome in Society. He was the one man in London who could do what she needed done for her—and he owed it to Lexham to do it. Marchmont had not the smallest doubt in his mind about this. No amount of wine could wash that great debt away.
    Her frown eased and her expression sharpened. “You can?”
    â€œNothing could be simpler,” he said.
    She let out a little whoosh of air.
    Relief?
    He was, for an instant, taken aback.
    He was, he knew, a matrimonial prize. Unwed women would sell their souls for the chance to become the Duchess of Marchmont. Some of the wed ones, given the least encouragement, would happily do away with their husbands.
    But the Duke of Marchmont had never taken himself seriously, and even his vanity was of the detached variety, far from tender. If her tiny sigh of relief wounded his feelings, the blow was merely a glancing one.
    She had every reason to be relieved, he told himself. She would not have gone to the extreme of proposing to him if her appalling sisters had not, in their usual way, exaggerated the difficulties of her situation.
    â€œNothing simpler?” one of them cried. “How drunk are you, Marchmont?”
    He ignored her and kept his attention on Zoe-not Zoe. “For reasons which elude me, I am fashionable,” he said. “For reasons which elude nobody, I am highly eligible. The combination makes me welcome everywhere.”
    Zoe glanced at her sisters for confirmation.
    â€œI grieve to say it is true,” said Gertrude.
    â€œIt is very tiresome, and I find the responsibility onerous, but it can’t be helped,” he said. “My presence determines the success of a gathering.”
    â€œLike Mr. Brummell,” said Zoe. “That is what they said. The man must be like Mr. Brummell.”
    â€œNot altogether like him,