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"Don’t try for a life on the stage," Villiers said flatly

"I think we should go back to discussing Astley," Anne said "That’s a farsubject than your e yet," he snapped

"Then we can save the discussion of your unhappiness for the next tihtly

Eleanor rose "If you’ll excuseto succor so her eyelashes "Or perhaps you plan to distribute food a to my chamber," Eleanor said, hat she considered a ht with a bath and my book"

"Ah, Shakespeare’s sonnets," Villiers said "Love that lasts ages, into which category we ood choice"

Eleanorsoret

The two people re table stared at each other

Then Villiers looked at Popper and jerked his head, so the butler and his footeois," Eleanor’s sister said ly "I didn’t know you cared about servants’ talk, Duke"

He ignored that "I was under the impression that you were not in favor of my suit"

"What suit?" Anne said "You’re ratulations Your life is certainly going to be interesting"

He narrowed his eyes

"All those children," she said innocently "What a responsibility It’d be one thing if you were planning to bundle thee of bread and cheese, but to bring them up as nobility? To pitch theitimacy didn’t matter?"

"I know they matter"

"Well, of course, they don’t matter to Lisette"

He didn’t knohy he was defending himself to Anne, whoia for the old Villiers, the one who tolerated no insolence of any kind The duke as coolly uninterested in anyone’s opinion except his own

What had happened to hiiven Mrs Bouchon a look that would have silenced anyone from the queen to a scullery maid, and she paid him no heed

"That is precisely why Lisette will be a perfectinto the sort of explanations he never would havefor the formalities of the ton, for its strictures and rules"

"She can’t afford to care for them," Anne said "She is considered mad"

"She’s not mad," Villiers said sharply "She seeree," Anne said, rather surprisingly "I’ve known Lisette for years, and I’ve never considered her to be cracked Not in the way that Barnabe Reeve went e"

"Yes," Villiers said, placing his fork and knife precisely on his plate "Reeve told ht be able to fly someday At the time, I considered it a boyish ambition that I rather shared His later conviction that he was groings was a surprise"

"So, there’s madness like Reeve’s, and then there’s Lisette"