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Viola frowned at him. “Your Grace, I suggest you return to the ballroom and find another candidate to marry other than my sister.”

“Why not Joan?”

“I won’t have it,” Viola said. “She won’t have it either. You’re not the sort of person whom . . . whom one would want to face over the breakfast table for years on end, to use your own criterion. Although,” she added, “you must know that married ladies are allowed to eat from trays in their bedchambers.”

Despite herself, envy leaked into her voice.

“Do you not care for the breakfast table, or are you simply a champion of breakfast trays?” the duke inquired.

“I can’t imagine why you’re interested, but the truth is that my nerves have often gone to my stomach, making a public breakfast an uninviting proposition,” Viola admitted.

“More at breakfast than at supper?” he asked, looking as if he was actually interested.

“My aunt used to force me into the breakfast room to test my nerves,” Viola said with a little shudder. “You can’t imagine how many times I have come close to vomiting on a gentleman’s shoes when he had no more temerity than to ask me if I was enjoying the sausage.”

“Should I be worrying about my shoes?”

She frowned at him. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the fact you’re laughing silently, because I have.”

“Not at your distress,” he said immediately. “Perhaps at your phrasing. You are very funny, in a quiet way. What changed, Miss Astley? How were you cured? Because here you are, talking to an eligible duke, and you show no signs of gastric distress.”

“You aired my opinion of me—that I’m not a real Wilde—before I had the chance to worry about whether you thought I wasn’t a real Wilde. It was refreshing.”

They were nearing the great doors to the ballroom.

“Goodbye,” she said. “I should find my partner for the supper dance, even if I have missed it.” She bobbed a curtsy.

He didn’t bow. “You could take me with you. I am a fellow sufferer,” he said instead. “Think of my nerves. You could support me, just as milky Marlowe supported you.”

“No, thank you,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll get over it. Jangled nerves are not a life-long affliction. I can assure you that if you had met me last fall, I would have been miserably contemplating your shoes at this moment.”

“What changed?” he asked. And: “Oh, bloody hell.”

She looked around him to see Caitlin barreling toward them. “Hello!” Viola cried, waving.

Caitlin stopped before them, only slightly out of breath.

“Lady Caitlin, His Grace was just telling me of your graceful dancing,” Viola said. “He has offered to accompany me to supper, but I’m afraid that I have torn my hem and I’ll need to retire for repairs.”

Wynter was staring down at her as if she were abandoning him to a conquering army.

“If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace,” she said, giving him a smile, “I’ll find my mother and ask for her assistance.”

“Her Grace is just inside the ballroom,” Caitlin said, showing her eagerness all too evidently. Ophelia had emphasized that there was nothing a gentleman disliked more than being stalked.

But Cat was like her namesake in that.

“I’d like an answer to my question,” the duke said. “What changed, Miss Astley? How did you conquer your nerves?”

Rather than answer, Viola dropped another curtsy. “Your Grace, it has been such a pleasure.”

“You could join us,” the duke said, showing remarkable persistence. “I would consider myself most fortunate to escort two lovely young ladies to supper.”

Caitlin had attached herself to the duke’s side like a limpet, and she gave Viola a direct look that begged her not to accept the duke’s invitation.

The Wildes thought of Joan as the actress of the family, but Viola hadn’t watched her perform all these years for nothing. She fluttered her eyelashes like a butterfly in a storm and said, “Would that I could, Your Grace! But . . . my gown.”

“Your hem,” Caitlin chimed in.