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“You should never have said anything so inappropriate about infidelity,” Dominic stated once Flitwick left the room. “In fact, you should have headed off the entire unseemly conversation.”

Rumpled and adorable as he sometimes appeared, he had a positive gift for chilly observations. Rude observations. That tight jaw wasn’t adorable at all.

Just as she had feared, it seemed a nanny’s twill dress and apron had dropped over her head.

“I would have preferred that you step forward and manage that conversation yourself, given that your sister’s behavior was at the heart of the matter,” Torie said, keeping her voice cordial with an effort. “But one grows used to male cowardice.”

“Cowardice had nothing to do with it!” he snarled.

Torie leaned back against the mantelpiece, rather enjoying herself. “Yet the great debater of the House of Lords, the man famous for his withering setdowns—not to mention his bellowed retorts—couldn’t steel himself to answer questions about a Greek epic?”

“Valentine referred to my sister’s infidelity. What in the hell was I supposed to say? How did they know that?”

“The whole world knows of it, unfortunately. Having met Lady Dorney only once, I was unable to list your sister’s better qualities, so I gave you the chance to do so.” She took a sip of sherry and raised an eyebrow.

Dominic’s mouth tightened.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Torie cried. “Your only knowledge of your sister springs from her dalliances with men? Or you were so overwhelmed by her sins—which gentlemen of every stripe indulge in daily—that you have forgotten who she was as a person?”

“I didn’t know her,” he said.

Torie found herself, for the first time in her life, thinking that she might sketch a face rather than a rose, trying to catch the interesting panels of Dominic’s cheeks, the curl on his broad forehead, his dark eyes. Offended eyes.

“I was sent to Eton at the age of seven, and even before that, we had little contact.”

“You must have overlapped in the nursery,” Torie said.

“She was sent to seminary when I was five.”

“Then you should make something up. Those children need to know more of their mother than her scandals.”

“My point was not in reference to my sister’s lamentable marriage, but to your remarks about infidelity.”

“Ah,” Torie said sweetly. “You didn’t care for my observation that men consider fidelity a vague suggestion rather than a commandment? After all, I have heard it said that sleeping with a courtesan doesn’t count as adultery. Yet I believe that Exodus 20:14, also known as the seventh commandment, would not concur that payment creates a special exception.”

Dominic put down his sherry with a click. “The subject is unsuitable for children.”

“One could say that Odysseus earned the nubile nymphs in the afterworld by right of his meandering heroic adventures with various goddesses, pigs, one-eyed giants, et cetera,” Torie continued, ignoring his sour comment. “But is that the same as the hero offering coin to such a nymph? Or a husband to a mistress?” She tapped her chin with one finger.

Dominic looked furiously annoyed—and then suddenly amused.

Torie’s heart thumped. He was handsome when he lost his temper, eyes flaring and all the rest. But when his face softened into laughter?

“Thankfully, I am not in charge of legislating morality within marriage or literature. But I do remember a story that I could tell the twins about their mother.”

Torie picked up her sherry and let a spicy swallow course down her throat. “Yes?”

“One Christmas, I was home from Eton and she from seminary. I must have been seven, so she was around nine. She was looking out the window of the nursery at the drive before the house when she suddenly turned around and bolted out of the room.”

“Did you follow her?”

“I? No. I was memorizing Latin verbs.”

“Of course you were.”

“She returned to the nursery with a soggy young rabbit in her apron. She’d fished it out of the Italian basin that marks the center of the shell drive.”

“The rabbit was in the basin?” Torie repeated, fascinated.