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The fact of the matter was that he hadn’t wanted her enough to do that.

She hadn’t paid the price of admission, and if that made the duke a despicable person, so be it. He hadn’t meant the kind things he said, so she’d had a very lucky escape.

“Lucky,” Viola said, which was the moment when Ophelia realized that she was so angry that she had said the last sentence aloud, and fiercely too.

“He’s made his choice,” Ophelia told Viola, kissing her. “You and I will go to the Frost Fair and have a wonderful time. We’ll buy gingerbread, and his children will be home in the nursery. Perhaps he’ll greet them, if he finds time.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that for your father.”

The thought steadied her. It wasn’t just a matter of her mothering the eight orphans; the duke would become Viola’s father as well.

“She won’t take them to the Frost Fair,” Ophelia said. Somehow it felt like vindication. He was choosing Lady Woolhastings because she was related to royalty, and uninterested in bedding him. But there was more to being a mother than the name alone.

By the time they reached the edge of the Frost Fair, a great frozen expanse of the Thames, the sun was out, albeit in a chilly way. Ophelia climbed out of the carriage and took a look, her coachman standing at her shoulder.

It was as if Bartholomew Fair had set up shop on the ice with drinking booths, games to play, food for sale, a bowling alley open to the sky, a skating rink. Red-cheeked Londoners were scrambling about on wooden skates or sliding in their boots, laughing and shouting. Strings of paper lanterns in bright colors were draped between the little shops, or strung between the poles marking the skating rink.

“There’ll be some ruffians in the mix,” Bisquet said. “I’ll send a groom with you to hold your purse, madam. The carriage will be here waiting for you. I’ve brought along blankets for the horses and nice warm mash in case we’re here more than an hour or two.”

“We’ll be more than an hour,” Ophelia said happily. In front of her, a line of small wooden shops wove their way across the ice, creating a curvy road. Bright flags were flying from the roofs, and a lovely smell of mingled pig roast and mulled wine drifted their way.

“On this side, there’s a road for carriages,” Bisquet pointed out. “There are sleigh rides as well, going all the way from Temple to Southwark.”

The ice was dotted everywhere with glowing bonfires constructed inside great metal burners, around which people stood warming their hands. Some burners were outfitted with elaborate spits and one even held an entire roasting pig.

“Aren’t they afraid the fires will melt the ice?” Ophelia asked, turning back to the carriage to pick up a very excited Viola.

“Oh, goodness, no,” Bisquet said comfortably. “I heard as the ice is twenty fathoms deep. Look over there, madam, a horse and six, just as safe as if they were going down the cobblestone of our own street.”

“Where are the sleighs?”

“Beyond the ice-carving palladium,” her coachman said. “There, where you see the crimson awning? Supposedly the finest ice carvers in the kingdom are at work, and the king himself will judge them on Friday . . . if the ice lasts. Yet people are saying it might last two months, just as in the cold snap of ’40.”

Viola was waving her red-mittened hands. “Snow!” she crowed.

Behind them, the horses were stamping their feet.

Followed by Peters, the groom, Ophelia walked down the gentle slope and stepped onto the ice. It was covered by a trampled layer of snow, so it wasn’t slippery, and they set out happily for the row of stores.

They stopped at every stall, Viola clapping at the sight of hot cider, carved wooden horses, gingerbread men . . . Whatever was for sale, she applauded. Since she was an extremely pretty little girl, her sweet face encircled with a halo of white rabbit fur, even the most hard-bitten of London merchants found himself smiling at her and offering free samples.

Ophelia couldn’t allow people to give away their wares for free, so she kept nodding to Peters, following her with a purse. Before long he was festooned with string bags containing everything from apples to a carved dolly and, over his shoulder, a hobbyhorse with a red ribbon.

Now and then Ophelia and Viola met people whom they knew: the vicar and his wife, cheerily walking arm-in-arm; one of her cousins somewhat-removed who told her that he’d just eaten the best roast beef of his life; one of Peter’s school friends, Lord Melton.

He was a robust man with a neatly trimmed beard that turned his chin into an exclamation mark.

He greeted Ophelia with a smile and bow, while she racked her brain trying to remember whether he was married or not. She certainly didn’t want to be courted by Lord Melton. All the same, her arm was beginning to ache, and when he offered to carry Viola, she gratefully agreed.

Viola cheerfully went to him, patting his cheek with her red-mittened hands by way of greeting.

They strolled over together to sample a hot chocolate drink imported from the continent, and then headed toward the ice-carving pavilion. Lord Melton was so obviously admiring that Ophelia felt her spirits, dented by Maddie’s news about the Duke of Lindow, rise.

She might not have been desirable enough to ensnare the Duke of Lindow for more than one heady night, but Lord Melton was showing every sign of considering himself ensnared.

Once they reached the ice-carving pavilion, they began walking about, admiring the carvings taking shape under the busy chisels of master carvers. She rounded a six-foot lump of ice—destined to be a reproduction of St. Paul’s Tower, or so the carver informed them—and ran straight into the Duke of Lindow.

Not just the duke either, but Lady Woolhastings beside him, looking remarkably elegant in a sable-lined pelisse with exquisite butter-yellow gloves with long fringes at the wrist. No one would say that Lady Woolhastings was beautiful, but anyone from the Queen to a scullery maid would have known she was a lady with impeccable bloodlines. Her long face and limpid eyes had the unmistakable stamp of the peerage.

Ophelia realized instantly that her unpowdered hair had freed itself from the braided knot her maid had fixed in the morning. Red curls were waving around her eyes. Her rabbit fur hood, while warm and certainly economical, was hardly fashionable.