Page 33

Lady Knowe shuddered. “I’d prefer to return to Cheshire myself than live with that woman. And Ophelia would never agree. You know how amiable Ophelia is, and yet she’s taken a strong dislike to the Pettigrews.”

“Then you know what to do.” Lavinia held up a bright square of printed red calico. “How do—”

“No,” Lady Knowe said. “The crushed beetles are your triumph for the day. I’m sorry, dear, but I must speak to the housekeeper. I promised I’d join her a half hour ago.” She stopped in the door and blew a kiss. “Where would we be without you?”

“Naked and ruined,” Lavinia said, grinning.

“Precisely!”

Chapter Nine

The Duke of Wynter’s study, again

For the past two years, Devin and a German mathematician had been exchanging correspondence centering on the number 1,729, a number expressible as the sum of two cubes. They were looking for a new expression. Given the complexity of the problem, the months that passed between delivery of letters was a boon.

He’d barely settled back down at his desk after Otis left, when the door burst open and his uncle trotted in. “Your butler tried to keep me out, but I told him that in times of crisis, the head of the family must rally to the fore.”

Binsey grimaced beyond Sir Reginald’s shoulder.

Devin rose from his desk and walked toward him. “Uncle, I want to apologize for leaving the library last night after I told you I’d wait for you there.”

“Champagne!” his uncle exclaimed, ignoring his apology. “I must say, Binsey, that I’ve never thought much of your butlering, but leaving a bottle open all night—and filthy glasses as well—is extraordinarily slipshod.”

Behind him, Binsey puffed up like an exotic frog, his face turning ruddy with indignation.

Sir Reginald didn’t bother to assess the effects of his reprimand. He picked up the bottle and examined the label. “It’s a crime to allow this to go flat.”

“It’s not flat—” Devin began.

But his uncle had upended the bottle and was sampling the champagne himself. Devin returned behind his desk and sat down. He’d discovered that family members were more likely to leave quickly if he kept a distance.

“More of that mathematical business,” his uncle commented, peering at his figuring. “I can’t imagine why you aren’t satisfied just being a duke, like every other man who has the title. Lindow complains about being up to his eyebrows in correspondence, and here you are, playing about with numbers all day long.”

Devin could have answered that in a number of ways, most of which boiled down to: He hired other people to be the duke for him.

He went to Parliament only when his secretary—who was intelligent, politically adept, and happily took notes on every single speech—insisted that his vote was crucial. Even so, he generally remained in the parliamentary library until the vote was called, allowing him to escape prosy lectures on subjects that any fool could assess in a few minutes.

He had long since hired excellent managers for his estates in Northamptonshire and Wales, giving them plenty of leeway. Consequently, his estates were thriving. Or at least he wasn’t being embezzled more than four percent, which he considered an acceptable margin.

The moment Parth Sterling opened a bank, Devin had moved all the family’s investments there, which meant he didn’t have to think about those either.

His uncle plunked the bottle of champagne back on the tray and smacked his lips. “Still nice and bubbly. Must be something to do with the design of the bottle.”

He wheeled and leveled a finger at Binsey. “Not that it excuses your negligence in leaving a bottle of the best withering away in the night air. Any respectable butler would have drunk it himself rather than allow it to go to waste.”

“We opened the champagne an hour ago to celebrate Otis’s laicization,” Devin said. He nodded at Binsey. “You may go.”

His uncle watched Binsey scurry out of the room before he turned back, folding his arms over his chest. Since Sir Reginald had the approximate shape of a champagne bottle—narrower at the top, wider through the middle—this turned him from triangular to rectangular.

“You,” he growled, giving the pronoun an ominous air.

“Indeed, it is me. Would you like me to find you a glass, Uncle, or do you prefer to continue imbibing from the bottle?”

“Don’t change the subject! I see it now. I thought that Otis had been led astray by those friends of his from Eton, but now I realize the truth!”

Devin raised an eyebrow, knowing from long experience that said truth was about to be served up on a platter, with a sauce of righteous indignation.

“You led him astray,” his uncle announced. “You turned Otis away from the church. You sopped up his best instincts with champagne and . . . and the lures of the flesh!”