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“Cold meats,” she said. “This aunt from Somerton did not take you into her household?”

“She’s elderly,” he said. “What elderly maiden takes on a boy?”

“You do know that your story is not going to help much tonight when Lady Melforth asks questions over tea.”

“Tea?”

“Lady Melforth insists that she get to know you.”

As long as she did not ask the obvious question, the one for which he had not yet formulated an answer, the question of how a random orphan came to the notice of a duke. “I shall regard too many questions as impertinent. Shall we eat?”

“Hah,” she said. “Great ladies feel quite entitled to know the business of the young gentlemen betrothed to members of their household.”

“Then I shall have to charm her.”

Her expression sobered at once. He pushed himself into an upright sitting position. “What? You don’t want me to charm her? You don’t trust charm?”

“I don’t.” She lifted the lid on the covered dish. “Chicken?”

*

At the fashionable hour of nine, Haxton showed Lark into the upper drawing room where Lady Melforth held court. She had left her couch and cushions for a high-backed gold velvet armchair with a crown of elaborate gilt woodwork. The chair’s gold filigree gleamed in the light of a dozen wax candles in tall silver candelabra above the stone mantel.

Her ladyship’s red hair was piled high above her imperious countenance, and one thick curl coiled artfully down over her right shoulder. Heavy black lace on a moss-colored silk gown spilled over her wrists on the arms of the chair. Her injured foot lay on a small padded velvet stool. Her posture was erect, her alert eye poised to detect a visitor’s every misstep. Lark noted the bit of vanity in that one curl. He did not see any tremor in her ladyship’s hand.

He made his bow as Haxton announced him. He had dressed in black dinner wear, as if he’d just left his club or perhaps the duke’s house and not his modest bachelor’s quarters. Straightening, he risked a brief glance at Viv, stiffly upright and obviously uneasy in a low chair to her ladyship’s right. He nodded. She looked at her hands clasped in her lap. He had not thought his remark about charming Lady Melforth would offend Viv so deeply.

She wore a wool gown the color of ripe plums, her hair up, no jewelry except for pearl bobs in her ears. The low chair, the dark gown, the occasion, he didn’t know what had subdued her spirits. If he could get close to her, he would lean into that exposed curve between her shoulder and the pearl-studded tip of one ear and whisper a challenge to make her eyes flash.

He gathered that he was to face Lady Melforth’s inquisition on his own.

“Mr. Larkin.” Lady Melforth tapped the arm of her chair. “I must take you to task for this engagement you’ve entered into. You really should have sought my permission to pay your addresses to a lady of Miss Bradish’s standing.”

“Forgive me, ma’am. Necessity prompted me to act in haste.” Lark crossed the rich carpet, stopping only when he stood where her ladyship was obliged to look up at him.

“Necessity?”

“Your relations, ma’am, the Strydes, were at hand, and from what Miss Bradish has told me, I feared that they might mistake my intentions toward her.”

Lady Melforth cast him a reproachful glance. “I don’t like this going behind my back. I should have been warned, you know, that an engagement was imminent.”

“Again, ma’am, I beg your pardon. Miss Bradish and I could hardly be more open with the Strydes so often here.”

“Yes, well. Do sit down, Mr. Larkin. I cannot be looking up at you like this.” She waved a lace-draped hand toward a shield-backed chair in the opposite corner.

Lark concealed a smile and drew the chair into a position where Lady Melforth could look down her nose at him.

“You do know Miss Bradish has no fortune of her own,” her ladyship continued.

“I do.”

“And you must not be misled by her position in my house. You must not rely on anything from me.”

Lark looked at Viv again, at the low chair and the plum dress, and returned his gaze to Lady Melforth. His jaw tightened. There was no mistaking Viv’s position. She might not be Jenny or one of the footmen, but she was subject to her ladyship’s whims. His position as her false fiancé gave him no right to protest that she deserved better.

“I do not, ma’am. If anything, I prize Miss Bradish the more for her independence from borrowed prospects.” It was a daring thing to say, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. He waited in silence while the coals on the fire hissed and a clock on the mantel made the faintest of ticks.

“You’re very sure of yourself, young man. Who are your people?”