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When not narrowed to slits, her eyes had a long, curved shape. Cat eyes. They mesmerized.

Did she seriously think his jest was a boast? That he was enough of a braggart to praise his own courage in the face of cows?

“It’s hardly that. It’s just . . . I like everything that goes on four legs.” He glanced away, gazed for a moment at the statue of a huntress and her hound.

“Dogs. Cows. Horses. Elephants. Camels.”

“Cats,” she offered.

“Cats,” he agreed, before he looked back at her and saw the mockery on her face. She hadn’t been serious. He stopped talking, pressing his lips together. Listing four-legged animals didn’t pass for conversation even in brothels.

It was the allusion to his heroism that had rattled him.

Miss Coover was waiting for him to speak with a strange expression on her face. He disgusted her. Well, of course he did. A fornicator too drunk to recall what he’d done—and no doubt too drunk to have done the thing properly—doesn’t make a good impression. If she were less intriguing, would he feel less humiliated? Pointless question. He had to address the situation head-on.

“You didn’t have to lie at all,” he pointed out. “You could have saved yourself some trouble, if you’d presented that painting to me, instead of peddling it to Adelaide Forbes.”

“Your Grace,” she said, chin lifting. “I never knew your name.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat, nonplussed. He should be pleased he’d had that much good sense. Even blackout drunk, he’d known better than to reveal his identity.

He wasn’t pleased. He didn’t like the version of himself he saw emerging.

“I was surprised when you walked through the classroom door,” she said. “Do you know, I’d taken you for a farmer.” She laughed, and her face passed through that strange phase of beauty before it became, once again, ordinary. The freckled face of a barmaid with a barmaid’s quick, sharp eyes.

“A farmer,” he echoed. He wore a coachman’s cape when he ventured out at night, and a felt hat, far less fashionable, and eye-catching, than his fine long coat and topper. But whatever the ensemble suggested, it was a far cry from farmer. And if he’d opened his mouth . . .

Perhaps he hadn’t spoken a word to her.

In the taxonomy of drunkenness, Anthony fit into several categories, combining the self-destructive, brooding, and silent tendencies. Had he pushed her down on the bed, pushed up her skirts, saying—asking—nothing?

Oh, embarrassment could manifest as agony.

“Yes, a farmer,” she said. “But in art, shepherds are more abundant. Hence, Endymion.”

The name meant nothing to him. No doubt it was written in one of the books he’d avoided during his short stint at university. He’d been a scholar of rugby football—could recite every national code and its history—and had particularly excelled at putting what he knew into practice on the field. Other subjects he’d mastered: cricket, rowing, fencing.

“Sounds Greek,” he observed, and she thinned her lips.

That’s right. He was a perfect boor. The world’s finest education had been his to waste. How had she come by hers?

“You did see the picture?” she asked.

Their eyes locked, and she looked down. At first, he mistook her bowed head for a sign of chagrin. Acknowledgment that the picture was tantamount to a violation. But no. She was marshaling her forces for a spirited defense.

“It’s not a portrait, you understand,” she said, looking up at him intently. “It’s not you. I based Endymion on you, which isn’t the same thing. The subject is mythological.”

Several objections sprang to mind.

“Then why wasn’t Endymion the one shot for adultery?”

Her jaw dropped.

“I don’t . . . Shot?”

Stupid. He needed to contain this situation, not compound it.

Too impulsive. That had been his teachers’ complaint. And the generals’. When would he learn? Her presence shook his self-command. It was too unsettling, knowing he’d had her, fucked her, when every detail of the encounter—good or bad—had been scrubbed from his mind. How had he behaved? What kind of man was he, really, when no one was watching, when even he wasn’t watching?