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“What?”

“It’s not that we didn’t take pleasure in each other, but I was a job, wasn’t I? I thought she deserved a lover of her own.”

Torie rolled closer, tracing his mouth with her finger. “Is this like you thinking that I had the right to jilt you?”

“No. Because I was desperate to stop you, and I didn’t care what Gianna did. I did hope that she’d find a different protector, but she enjoyed the notoriety of being my mistress.”

Could it be love that made her admire Dom so much? Made her think that he was the most ethical, fair man she’d ever met—the antithesis of her father?

It couldn’t be love.

And it wasn’t, because Monsieur Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois arrived the next day, ushering in a week that culminated in Torie’s realization—once again—that her husband was an arrogant, condescending ass.

Not precisely unlovable, but she refused to consider the matter further. The smolder in his eyes when they sat at dinner together? The sweetness of his kisses? His muscled thighs? The way his sweaty chest heaved after he rolled onto his back beside her?

She loved all those things.

But the man himself?

Absolutely not. Not if she wanted to keep her self-respect.

When Flitwick came to her studio and informed her that Dominic was at the House of Lords and unable to greet their new tutor, Monsieur Langlois, Torie pulled off her pinafore and hesitated.

Perhaps she ought to go to her chamber and put on an elegant gown rather than a plain dimity. She’d met French painters. They were debonair, Gallic in their effusiveness and their elegance. At Royal Academy exhibitions, they were invariably clothed in satin, their buttons embellished with gold leaf and their lips with red salve.

They firmly believed that English ladies were not only inept painters but inelegant to boot. Given Langlois’s aristocratic father, his breeches were sure to be silk and his hands free of paint.

Monsieur Langlois had been hired to teach the wife of an aristocrat and two schoolchildren how to paint “anything other than rabbits.” He would be roguish and nimble-fingered, likely to be even more patronizing if she didn’t head off some of his criticism by appearing as well-dressed as a French lady.

No matter how condescending he became, she had to keep in mind the rule she’d made up as a child: she could learn from anyone.

Each and every conversation offered an opportunity to learn something.

Given that it was easier to learn when one’s teacher wasn’t entirely scornful, she had to do a grand toilette. “I have need of Emily,” she told Flitwick. “I must change my gown. Please escort monsieur to the nursery to meet the twins.” She paused. “Does he appear to have particularly fine sensibilities? Hopefully his English is somewhat deficient, and he won’t understand everything they say.”

Flitwick’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I could not speak to his command of the language, my lady, but I judge Monsieur Langlois able to take the young master and miss in stride. My understanding is that the French are less devoted to decorum than we English, even finding outright vulgarity to be extremely humorous.” He smirked. “The same is not true for our Queen Charlotte, of course.”

“Certainly not,” Torie said.

An hour later she was clothed in a gown of thick, lustrous white silk, with a transparent gauze overskirt embroidered with an enchanting assortment of forget-me-nots. The bodice was low, with puffed sleeves fashioned from the same gauze that also formed a curious roll at her neck, rather like an informal ruff. With it she wore her emerald ring and a pair of emerald earrings that she had inherited from her mother.

“You are exquisite,” Emily declared. “Would you like me to accompany you, my lady?”

Torie was perfectly aware that her lady’s maid wished that she would dress elegantly every day, paying calls to everyone in polite society so that her costumes and grooming could be admired. Esteem from a Frenchman was better than nothing.

“That would be very kind of you,” Torie said. “I would be grateful if you could carry my reticule and fan, Emily. I’m worried I’ll rip this overdress as we climb the stairs.” She carefully plucked up the translucent gauze and headed down the corridor from her bedchamber toward the nursery stairs.

Now that she was properly attired, Torie was prepared for anything, from a testy Parisian who would have to be flattered into his tutoring duties to a standoffish maestro who offhandedly threw out pearls of wisdom.

When she and Emily entered the nursery, the twins were standing by the window, focused on their easels. Langlois apparently wanted to start with fundamentals; they were scribbling with charcoal on foolscap. The Frenchman stood between them, looking intently at the twins’ efforts. He was young, with a distinctly leonine yet careless beauty: tawny eyes and hair of the same hue, tied back in a simple queue.

Their new nanny rose, holding a pair of Valentine’s breeches that she was mending, and dropped a curtsy. “My lady.”

Torie smiled. “Nanny Grey, I do hope those are not the breeches that visited Smithfield Market.”

“I’m afraid that I had to send those to be burned in the furnace, my lady. Master Valentine’s velvet coat was salvageable, but Miss Florence’s went to the furnace as well, along with her gown and boots.”

“I’m amazed you could save anything,” Torie said.