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“Is it?”

“Sable is spirited,” Juliet said, and glanced at him sideways. “Does that mean Moonsong is the polite one?”

“Moonsong eats from your hand without making a face,” Eloise said. “Sable always looks as though she’s being inconvenienced.”

“Oh? Then Sable and I would get along,” Juliet said.

Adam looked at her in the same moment she glanced at him, just briefly, and the corner of her mouth moved upward before she looked back at Eloise.

What? What was that?

He looked at his plate.

The main course arrived: roast with roasted carrots and a very decent wine. Adam poured from the decanter and then, after a moment’s pause, poured a glass for Juliet without being asked. She glanced at the glass, then at him.

Then she said, “Thank you,” and reached for it.

When her fingers wrapped around the stem, he noticed that her hands were elegant. Long-fingered and unadorned now, except for the gold band on her left hand.

His wedding band. The one that proved she was his duchess.

Somehow, that thought filled him with pride he could not quite decipher.

He filled Eloise’s glass with water, passed the bread basket, and tried to remember what he had been thinking about before he walked through the dining room door.

“Papa,” Eloise said, setting her fork down with the patience of a seven-year-old, which was…not very much.

“Mm?” Adam looked at her.

She looked between the two of them with the measured patience of a chess player who has been waiting for three moves to deploy her best piece. “When are you and Juliet going to have a baby?”

Adam choked on his wine, the liquid splattering from his mouth and staining the tablecloth beneath him. It was not his proudest moment, but he couldn’t say that his daughter’s question was one he’d expected from the child.

“Eloise,” he managed when his lungs had recovered their purpose. He glanced at Juliet, frozen on her side of the table, her fork in her piece of meat. “Where did you learn to ask a question like that?”

“I think it’s a logical question. People get married and have babies, don’t they?” Eloise said, munching on a carrot.

“It is not,” he argued, “a dinner-table question.”

“But I heard Mrs. Priscilla tell Miss Green that⁠—”

“Whatever Mrs. Priscilla said, I assure you that it did not include this dinner table.”

Now, Juliet carefully set down her cutlery and took a breath.

“Eloise, darling,” Juliet began, her voice entirely composed, which Adam thought rather remarkable. “Your father and I have only just got married. These things are not decided on the third day.”

Eloise frowned. “How long does it take, then? I’d really like a sibling to play with!”

“The pony,” Adam said. “Sable’s ear. You were telling me about that.”

Eloise recognized the tactic; he could see it in the slight narrowing of her eyes. But she was seven, and he was her father, so his authority still took precedence.

She sighed deeply. “It is the left one,” she said.

“Ah, I see.” Adam was still clearing his throat after the wine went down the wrong way.

“I would still have liked a baby sibling,” she muttered, to no one in particular, spearing a piece of carrot.