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The man beamed. “No longer, Your Grace. If I might show you into the Yellow Salon, the duke will join you shortly, I’m sure.”

Villiers no sooner entered the salon than he stopped short, staring at the rug stretched at his feet. It blazed up at him, an extraordinary dancing pattern of cherry red and deep crimson that covered the entire floor. Stags bounded in incredible detail around the border. “My God,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“There are only two or three such in the world, as I understand it,” the butler told him. “His Grace bought it from a Mongolian king. It is knotted in wool and silk, with gold and silver threads.”

Villiers had an enormous estate, but he thought he might be treading on something of comparable value. It made him feel almost queasy to walk on it.

Cosway stamped right over the carpet when he entered. “I’m sorry to have written you that letter,” he said without further greeting. “I’ve called a halt to my marriage ceremony.” He looked tired. Disheveled, but not nearly as extraordinarily odd as his mother’s letters had promised.

“So what got you into breeches?” Villiers asked, skirting the question of marriage. “According to various reports, you were shocking the countryside in your trousers.”

Cosway shrugged. “It wasn’t worth the amount of anxiety it seemed to cause my acquaintances. Not to mention my household.”

“No powder,” Villiers observed. “But breeches, and a decent waistcoat. We’ll make a duke of you yet.”

Cosway smiled faintly. “I even have a valet.”

“Can you be ready to leave for London in an hour?”

“What?”

“In an hour,” Villiers said agreeably. “You might want to tell your valet to begin packing.”

Cosway’s smile grew. “No.”

“Tonight the king holds a party on board the royal yacht, the Peregrine, which has been moored in the Thames, just outside the Tower of London.”

“Fascinating,” Cosway said. “I hope you enjoy yourself.”

Villiers dropped into a chair, taking a moment to deliberately rearrange himself. Then he said, as casually as possible: “The king has interested himself personally in the dissolution of your marriage on the grounds of your insanity, and has ordered the matter expedited both in Parliament and with the church. The duchess—that would be, your duchess—has been invited tonight. It is my distinct impression that the king will personally grant her a dissolution of her marriage.”

It was a blow. Villiers could see that. Then Cosway’s jaw set and his back straightened.

“I can’t stop her,” he said. “She deserves to choose her own husband.”

“She’s already being courted by every fortune hunter on three continents.”

“Yes, I expect that is the case.” Cosway sat down and crossed his legs as if they were discussing tomorrow’s weather.

Another man might have believed Cosway’s uncaring voice. But somehow Villiers had learned to recognize the signs of anguish, even buried deep in a man’s eyes.

“Ah well,” he said. “I just thought I’d let you know. I must say, I’m glad to hear that you’re so uninterested.”

“Why is that?”

There was just a shade of suspicion in Cosway’s tone, but Villiers was too good an actor to start laughing. “Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it to you, but I have a number of illegitimate children,” he said.

Cosway’s eyebrows flew up. “Do you find that inconvenient?”

“I haven’t,” Villiers said feelingly, “but I am beginning to. You see, I have decided to gather these children into my own household.”

“And the number is?” Cosway asked.

“Six.” Villiers sighed. “I can hardly believe it myself. The sins of youth become the burden of old age.”

“You’re hardly old,” Cosway objected. “What are you, thirty? I suppose you could sprout a full dozen if you put your mind to it.”

“Thirty-four,” Villiers said. “And my soul is much older, I assure you. At any rate, six illegitimate children do pose something of a problem for my matrimonial prospects, as you can imagine.”