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“I’d wager he doesn’t give a damn because she’s addled,” someone else said.

“Don’t forget the Dorney wards,” the countess put in, a malicious glitter in her eyes. “A ninny for a nanny—that’s what my husband said.”

“Torie is not a ninny!” Clara burst out. “He couldn’t be so cruel as to do this deliberately.”

“If that’s the truth, then he simply doesn’t care for her feelings,” her mother retorted. “Look at the way he kissed his fiancée in front of the whole theater—as if she were no better than a courtesan.”

They were all chattering, humming like a beehive in summer, some arguing for Torie’s deliberate humiliation and others that the viscount was an uncaring lout. At the same time, they kept peeking out of the corners of their eyes, hoping Kelbourne would pull his mistress into his arms and give them a show paralleling the one he put on during the interval of Romeo and Juliet.

Clara turned her back and desperately thought about whether Torie would want to know. Thankfully, her friend couldn’t read the gossip columns. Since Leonora left for Wales, the scandal sheets were presumably not delivered to the house any longer, so her maid wouldn’t read them to her either.

“Showering her in diamonds,” the countess said, catching Clara’s attention, “while his poor fiancée has a paltry emerald for a betrothal ring.”

“Poor woman” seemed to be the general summary of Torie’s plight.

Torie could jilt him at the altar, and after this evening, not a person in polite society would blame her. The scandal wouldn’t affect her marriage prospects since she could send a groom to Bath and retrieve the liverish duke.

But she had only one day to make up her mind. On Friday morning, Torie would walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, and after that?

In the eyes of society, she would be a ninny and a nanny for the rest of her life.

Chapter 20

The next morning, Torie twisted the large emerald off her finger and put it on the windowsill where it didn’t risk being dabbed with paint. She was trying to decide if she’d made a terrible mistake.

The twins were so happy. And so was Torie—when she was in the nursery, or when she was kissing Dominic. The rest of the time she was plagued by serious doubts about how well she and her husband would get along.

She couldn’t help thinking that the Duke of Queensberry would have acquiesced to any reasonable request she made. It wasn’t just that His Grace was malleable: he was ready to get married. He wanted a partner in life.

Dom? Not so much.

The more time she spent with him, the firmer her impression that her future husband envisioned his life unchanged by the addition of a wife, other than in the bedchamber and, of course, the nursery.

The problem wasn’t so much that she and Dominic together were as combustible as kindling, but that he really did consider her primarily a nanny, not a wife.

Perhaps due to her inability to take over the household accounts, Dominic hadn’t introduced her to his steward. Although he had chosen Leonora for her hostessing skills, he had told Torie that she needn’t fuss if he invited a few people to dinner, because Mrs. Flitwick knew his preferences. Moreover, he noted that he would frequently dine out and she could always eat with the twins. Clearly dinners together as husband and wife were not a priority.

Dominic followed that patronizing announcement by giving her such a scorching kiss that she temporarily forgot to challenge him.

Did he imagine she would dine in the nursery, waiting with bated breath for the moment when her lord and master strode through the door?

He wouldn’t have assumed that attitude with Leonora. Torie’s sister would have demanded companionship most evenings. She would have insisted her husband accompany her to balls and musicales and all the social occasions that the Season offered.

For some reason, he assumed that Torie would rather stay at home, even though she distinctly remembered telling him of her love for the theater.

Putting that irritating thought away with her betrothal ring, she pulled on her pinafore, enjoying the familiar smell of paint. At least when she was in her studio, no one thought she was less than a lady. She had mastered ladylike subjects such as roses and rabbits.

A half hour later, she was staring blindly at her canvas, a paintbrush dripping burnt sienna onto the floor, thinking about the outcome of their wrangle the night before. Dom had given her one of his rare smiles, pulled her into his lap, and said, “Can’t you guess why we argue so much, darling?”

“Because you are wrong?”

“Because I want to claim you as my own. To toss you onto a bed and lick you until you are hoarse with pleasure.” He kissed her. “And you want the same,” he added, his voice dark with anticipation.

Of course Torie’s mouth had eagerly opened to his kiss. To her surprise, every kiss seemed more intimate than the last, as if they carried memories of all the previous kisses with them.

Her fiancé only had to look at her, and the feeling of his hands caressing her breasts made her breath catch. A whiff of his citrusy soap made her legs quiver. She tasted his mouth and stopped thinking altogether.

When she was in his arms, the rest of the world fell away; she could imagine herself married, able to kiss him wherever she wished, rather than in carriages and dark corners. In truth, kissing was the backbone of their relationship, the only activity during which Dom stopped being argumentative and snobbish and became abruptly enthralled, looking at her with utter fascination.