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“You didn’t ask Lady Woolhastings to marry you, although she announced that she was your fiancée?” Louisa asked, incredulous.

He finished off his brandy. “Precisely.”

His sister dropped into a chair. “She said it so calmly.”

“I believe it was a simple statement of fact, as she saw it. To be fair, I have escorted her to several events. She must have decided to accept my hand; therefore, my actual proposal was irrelevant.”

Louisa shook her head, dumbfounded. “What is she, one-eighth royal? Purple blood must be enough to poison the brain. You’ll have to have a conversation with her, albeit a painful one, and set the record straight.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She was right to presume that I would propose. And she shared the information with others; she announced at the Frost Fair that we were betrothed.”

“Hugo, you can’t marry a woman simply because she decided to take you.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Hugo said, getting up and pouring himself more brandy. “I did decide to marry her, although I hadn’t got around to a proposal. Ophelia won’t have me, Louisa. She said no.”

“Of course she said no the first time, you idiot!” his sister snapped.

“After I thought about it, I realized she was right,” Hugo said. “I can’t offer Ophelia what she already has. She doesn’t need money or status. I bring along a sullied name, eight children, and the endless trouble that comes with the dukedom. She has no wish to be a duchess.”

“You are the only thing that matters,” his sister said. She pulled off her hat and threw it on a chair. “You, Hugo.”

“Ophelia refused my proposal.”

“Oh, for—” But she bit off the words. “Where do your children come into this? Did you pay attention as Yvette’s three asked their questions to Edith over tea?”

“Louisa, couldn’t you have asked what the questions were before allowing them to blurt them out? It didn’t help that the older boys were roaring with laughter at the idea of false teeth.”

“I had no idea what their questions would be before they asked Lady Astley.”

“Lady Woolhastings was greatly offended, particularly, I think, by the question of whether she had false teeth,” Hugo said. “I can’t blame her for that.”

“I expect that Edith is sensitive about her age. She is certainly a woman who is trying to stop the clock. I don’t say this to put you off, Hugo, but did you observe her hair, or rather lack of it?”

“What hair?” Hugo was aware of a leaden misery in his stomach that he hadn’t felt in years. The moment he saw Ophelia walking beside Lord Melton, he was swamped by a surge of possessiveness so acute he wanted to throttle the man.

“Edith’s wig,” his sister said. “Your fiancée’s wig.”

“What about it?” Ophelia’s hair had escaped in silken curls that he longed to tame. Why hadn’t he remained in her house and refused to leave in the morning? In retrospect, walking away had been the most stupid action of his life.

“Edith shaves her head, one must assume,” his sister said. “Her hat was pinned to her wig, and at one point the wind blew it to the side and I caught sight of bare skull.”

His stomach churned. “I planned to marry a woman whom I wouldn’t bed. You agreed!”

“We were wrong,” Louisa said flatly. “Your supposed fiancée may claim not to have a false tooth—though based on her rather startling rage at the question, I would bet a guinea that she has at least one. That’s neither here nor there. She isn’t the right person to mother your children.”

“Because she doesn’t like rats? No one likes rats.”

“She’ll make you bitter,” his sister said. “Another woman who doesn’t love you, and whom you cannot love? We were idiots to think that was a possibility, Hugo. Can you see her at Lindow Castle? Do you think she’ll tolerate the way Fitzy screams at all hours?”

“Peacocks do scream.”

“She’ll gild his beak and serve him for New Year’s dinner,” Louisa said. “The stuffed alligator in the drawing room? Dispatched to the attics. The armor in the entry? The dust heap.” She hesitated. “Me?”

“She daren’t ask you to leave,” Hugo stated.