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“Best send two,” Hugo advised. “My sister is as tall as I am, and unless she is completely alert, one groom will find it difficult to steer her into the house.”

“Excellent,” Ophelia cried, jumping from her chair. “I don’t know why everyone is asleep. I don’t feel tired in the least.”

They no sooner entered the carriage than Ophelia launched herself at him and kissed him, more clumsily than expertly, but with more than enough passion to make up for it. The feeling when her tongue met his made Hugo start shaking all over.

Perhaps it was age, he thought dimly.

Perhaps he felt things more fiercely, because time had a different meaning for him now. He knew that loved ones could die. He knew that time was finite. Perhaps that was what made a simple kiss feel like a conflagration, like no kiss he’d ever shared before.

Even with Marie.

For her part, Ophelia wrapped her arms more and more tightly around his neck, pausing only to murmur husky words that he couldn’t quite make out. His body was tight, blood thumping through his loins, head fogged by the scent and the taste of her.

By the time the carriage shuddered to a halt, his breath had become a harsh noise in his ears, his heart pounding in his chest. He had his hands inside her cloak now, running over her breasts.

“I will marry you,” Ophelia said to him, as Hugo pulled his shaking hands from her cloak and tried to straighten her hair. It was hopelessly disordered, hairpins scattered all over the carriage floor.

“Thank you,” he said, shocked to hear how guttural his voice had become.

He could not take her inside and seduce her, in the drawing room, in the corridor, in the butler’s pantry: anywhere with a roof.

It wouldn’t be gentlemanly. Not right.

She’d had too much champagne. A whole bottle, if Lady Fernby was correct.

“You are not going to feel well tomorrow,” he said, running a finger down her perfectly trim little nose. “God, we’re going to have beautiful children. If you want children,” he added hastily.

“Do you want more children?”

He shook his head. “Not in the general way, but with you? Hell, Ophelia, I would love to have a child with you. As long as your first birth wasn’t difficult?”

“Extremely easy,” she said, dimpling at him. “Well, Duke, I suggest we go to my bedchamber and try to make a baby. Your sister assured me that I would be carrying within the week, so that means a special license.”

Hugo’s eyes widened. “You discussed children—having children with me—with Louisa?”

“She brought up the subject and I thought it was a good idea.” She blinked at him. “Not a good idea?”

He shook his head. And then nodded. “You can discuss whatever you wish with Louisa.”

“Louisa,” Ophelia said. “I like her name. She has promised to stay with us. Yvette’s children are really hers, you know.”

“I do know,” he said. “Marie’s are shared with her as well. Marie would never have wanted to leave them, but I am certain she approves of how Louisa has mothered them.”

“I suspect my Viola will be won over immediately,” Ophelia said. “By you as well. She’s never had a man in her life, although she’s fond of our butler. So, will you please come into the house with me, Your Grace?” A sensual little smile played around her mouth.

“I can’t.”

Her brows drew together. “Because of Lady Woolhastings? I was hoping . . .”

“Did you think that I was gone for two hours because she was clarifying her disinclination to marry me? She cleared that matter up in the first five minutes. After that we shared a carriage in silence for forty-five minutes, as there was a traffic snarl around Shepherd Market. It took me equally as long to return.”

“I’m sorry,” Ophelia said, not looking in the least sorry. “But truly, Hugo, you would have been very unhappy with her. She was not interested in being a mother.”

“I thought she would be helpful with the girls’ debuts,” Hugo said, and shook his head. “I was wrong, precisely the kind of mistake I made when I chose Yvette.”

Ophelia leaned forward and brushed her mouth over his. “Come inside.”

“I can’t, because you’ve had too much champagne,” he said. Or at least he said most of that before they started kissing again and he lost track of words.