“I live here,” she said, which she clearly felt was the most relevant credential.
“That explains it. I’ve only just arrived.” He looked around the room with the same assessing expression she’d been using on him. “It’s a very good drawing room.”
Eloise looked around too, as though seeing it fresh through his eyes. “Papa chose the curtains.”
“Did he?”
“Mama says they are too dark, but Papa says they are dig—ni—dignified.”
“They are both correct,” William allowed. “Dark and dignified are not mutually exclusive.”
Eloise considered this with genuine seriousness. “What does exclusive mean?”
“It means two things that cannot exist in the same place. Like being indoors and outdoors at the same time.”
“You can stand in the doorway,” she pointed out immediately.
“You’re right,” William relented. “And the curtains are dark and dignified.”
Eloise looked satisfied. She settled more firmly against his arm, apparently having decided the debate was resolved in her favor, which it was. “Do you have a dog?”
“I don’t.”
“We have a dog. Horatio.”
“After the admiral?”
She blinked at him. “He is brown.”
“Of course,” William said. “My mistake.”
Cecily pressed two fingers briefly against her mouth. Across the room, Edward had found something extremely interesting to look at on the ceiling.
“Is he a good dog?”
Eloise thought about this with visible effort, the particular honesty of a child weighing something properly. “Mostly. He ate Papa’s glove.”
“Oh.”
Eloise looked at her father, then at William. “Are you a solicitor?”
“No. A duke.”
She absorbed this. “Papa is a duke.”
“I know. We have that in common, your father and I. That and an appreciation for well-appointed drawing rooms.”
“And dogs?”
“He has one advantage over me in that respect,” William said. “Though I am open to reconsidering.”
Cecily looked at him. He was looking at Eloise, his expression composed and serious and entirely without the performance of a man trying to be charming, which was, she was finding, considerably more effective than charm.
He is doing what he does with his sisters—taking her seriously, not making it smaller than it is.
The nurse appeared then in the doorway with the baby, who was blinking as if he had not yet taken a position on being conscious.
Beatrice crossed the room and took him with practiced ease.
