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The duchess cleared her throat with a sound of utter disbelief

Eleanor didn’t want to sit on the floor Her side panniers were likely to spring into the air and throw her skirts over her head On the other hand, she didn’t want to align herself with herthe whole idea charhter in his eyes Naturally, he said nothing Lisette, meanwhile, had dropped to the floor, scattered the bones, and was now practicing throwing the ball in the air and catching it

"Knucklebones is a game for children," the duchess pointed out

Lisette’s mouth drooped "I know I do e had children in the house"

"But we do have a child in the house," Villiers said

Lisette blinked up at hi Lisette, she didn’t wonder how Villiers had a son, given as he had no wife "Leopold, hoonderful you are," she crowed, as if he had produced that son solely for her pleasure

Eleanor’sat Anne’s bent head, but now she jerked around to stare at Villiers instead She, if not Lisette, knew perfectly well that Villiers had never married

"A ward perhaps?" she asked, her tone just this side of glacial "Surely the word son was a slip of the tongue, Duke?"

"In fact, Tobias is my son," Villiers said He turned to the footman "Summon my son from the nursery, if you please"

"How lucky you are!" Lisette said wistfully "I do wish I had children"

"Be still!" the duchess snapped

"Mother," Eleanor said, feeling a pulse of syo that her htly out of the ordinary to be frightfully upsetting It wasn’t that the duchess had a puritanical attitude toward sin, precisely--but she had a positive loathing for irregularities of any sort

"Hush," heron her "You are far too innocent to understand the iround to a halt, and then said, "Your son should not be in the vicinity of decent gentlewomen, Villiers I should not have to emphasize such a common point of decency You have offered your hostess a htfully on the duchess and then iti you by bringing hi Villiers’s voice was so coe of irony leaked into his words

Since Lisette cared nothing for irregularities and indeed created theular basis, she smiled up at Villiers "You’re very lucky"

"You see what you are doing?" the duchess hissed at Villiers "Conta the ears of the innocent She doesn’t even understand your effrontery" If Villiers had hiht control that he appeared e her telimpsed the bleak look in Villiers’s eyes, and the un around Lisette’s lips She hated the choking sense of inferiority she felt whenever her mother was about to call someone stupid It didn’t even matter that she herself was not the subject of the diatribe

What she hated, and had hated since childhood, was the moment when her mother lost control of her temper and flayed all those in her path

"I have half a mind to leave this house i "Villiers, you are a fool if you believe that--"

So snapped inside Eleanor: that sah twenty-two years of herpeople called stupid She was tired of agreeing with her mother’s pronouncements simply because opposition took effort

"Mother," she said, stepping forward to put a hand on Villiers’s ar me to entle rattle of Anne’s tossing the knucklebones ceased The only sound Eleanor heard was theof two footmen stationed in the hallway