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“She could make one now if she wished,” Florence said, scowling at her brother. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that book reading equates to intelligence, Val.”

“I shall return at four o’clock,” Dominic said, escaping the nursery to the sound of inelegant whoops of joy.

Since it was a sunny day, he drove them in his low-slung, open curricle, the twins crowded on the seat beside him, excitedly pointing out an apple seller, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and an elderly man whom Florence declared possessed by a devil based on his “pitch-black eyes.”

Dominic added “possession” and “possession by a devil” to the Prohibited List.

“At this rate, we shall have nothing to talk about at all,” Florence observed dolefully.

Which was precisely why Dominic had tried to find a wife with whom he could converse. Thankfully, they arrived at Buckingham House before he had to reveal the unfortunate truth that most conversations were as sweet and empty as spun sugar.

“We can always discuss steam engines!” Florence exclaimed as they turned from Marlborough Road into Pall Mall and saw an engine on a large cart, surrounded by people.

Dominic had the idea that decorous women like Leonora probably didn’t celebrate the Duchess of Huntington’s inventions, but steam engines were certainly better than codpieces. “You might begin a list of approved topics, to balance the other,” he suggested.

“The locomotive is beautiful,” Valentine observed, hanging over the side of the curricle to see better. The machine had a cherry-red cylinder for a body and a chimney that bent to the side, just as noted in the newspaper.

“What peculiar-looking wheels,” Florence observed.

“Torie said they will run on steel rails, remember?” her brother replied, leaning even farther as he craned to see underneath the locomotive. “Of course, it arrived here on a farm wagon, as London streets have no rails.”

“Don’t fall out,” Dominic barked. His groom leaped from the stand behind the curricle and moved to the horses’ heads.

“She’s here!” Valentine crowed.

Dominic glanced over the crowd and immediately saw Torie. No one could miss her, since she was wearing a bright orange hat with a distinct resemblance to a steam pipe, along with a darker orange, extremely tight walking costume. Most of the men who’d come to see the locomotive were staring at her curves rather than the puffs of steam emerging from the engine.

Torie was listening intently to a stout, middle-aged woman with a monocle—likely the Duchess of Huntington, since the lady was gesturing toward the engine.

“Don’t be rag-mannered when greeting Miss Sutton,” Dominic told the twins.

“Don’t you mean Miss Victoria?” Florence asked.

“As her older sister has married, she is now Miss Sutton.”

“She’s still Torie to us,” Florence said with certitude. “Oh, now I see her!” She pointed in an extremely inelegant fashion and seconded it by giving her brother a shove. “Do get out, Val!”

Her brother pushed open the curricle door and jumped down. By the time Dominic came around to lift his niece from her seat, she had already plummeted to the ground and toppled forward to her knees. Florence popped back up, gave her dusty skirt a perfunctory brush, and dashed after her brother, who was weaving his way through the crowd.

Dominic strolled after them, consciously putting a sardonic twist on his mouth because otherwise he might grin in an entirely uncharacteristic fashion. Torie had made it clear that she didn’t want his title or his temper.

What she didn’t realize was how much he relished a challenge.

When he reached his niece and nephew, Torie was introducing the twins to the Duchess of Huntington. He made a mental note to congratulate their tutor; Valentine’s bow was a thing of beauty, and Florence sank to just the right level for a duchess, undismayed by her dusty skirts.

Actually, she had probably forgotten the state of her dress.

“Ho, Kelbourne,” the Duke of Huntington bellowed from where he was standing on the wagon, lecturing the crowd. His Grace refused to waste time in the House of Lords but had promised to appear on the day of the antislavery vote. Dominic had a whole list of lazy lords to whom he would send a summons on the morning the bill was—finally—forwarded for a vote.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he called. And turning: “Miss Sutton.” Torie was hard to take in with one glance: her insouciant hat, her generous lips, her figure, enhanced by her exquisitely tailored costume.

He’d like to greet her with an open-mouthed kiss. Just looking at her made lust boil up in him.

Despite lecturing the twins on proper comportment, he didn’t feel proper at all.

He had discounted the role of lust in his marital plans, never expecting to feel it for his wife. No longer. Not when he could barely take his eyes off Torie’s mouth. He felt like an adolescent trying to quell a throbbing groin.

“We asked Lord Kelbourne to bring us,” Florence said to Torie, beaming as she hung on to her hand.