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After drinking several cups of tea, Stella sang in French for the queen and her ladies-in-waiting. When she sat back down, the ladies-in-waiting twittered and fluttered like tulips in a stiff breeze, until finally the queen roused herself and declared that she hadn’t been so moved since Lady Merlin sang that ditty she wrote about love.

One of the ladies-in-waiting whispered something.

“Just so,” the queen snapped. “I forgot the foolish woman ran off with a piano tuner. You don’t have plans to run off with anyone, do you?” She glared at Stella.

Stella felt herself turning pink. “No, no, not at all.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t,” Her Majesty said. “You caught the prettiest cock in the yard, didn’t you?”

Stella couldn’t wait to tell Silvester that particular comment.

“Sing me something else,” Her Majesty declared. “I can’t say I like your spectacles.”

“If I didn’t wear them, I couldn’t read the music,” Stella pointed out.

“I suppose I’ll have all my ladies peering at the world through little circles of wire in the future.”

The following week, Mrs. Quimby had to hire another seamstress, because three of Her Majesty’s ladies-in-waiting visited the Emporium to demand gowns that were flattering rather than fashionable. Others demanded the same of their modistes, so waistlines across London promptly dropped a handbreadth.

As for society’s view of the new Duchess of Huntington?

It was astonishing how quickly ladies forgot that freckles weren’t attractive. Or spectacles. Or curves. Or lack of height.

By the end of the month, no French tutors were to be found in London for love or money. Every anxious mother with a young daughter was forcing the girl to practice singing in French so that when the new Season began, she could warble in the language.

Silvester watched bemusedly as his new duchess became the rage. Every afternoon, the street before the ducal townhouse was crowded with carriages as footmen delivered cards in the hope that Her Grace would declare herself at home.

The same matrons who had snubbed Stella now adored the new duchess’s witty comments and her gowns, so fresh and unconventional. It wasn’t merely ladies. Gentlemen clustered around her, begging her to waltz, especially the French ones.

They wanted to gape at her breasts, in Silvester’s opinion.

No one but his mother realized that while Silvester had been unmoved by Lady Yasmin’s suitors, he became distinctly grumpy when his young wife was whirled around the floor by any man other than himself.

“Stop staring at your wife like a beef-witted buffoon,” the dowager hissed one evening, as Stella circled the floor with Harold—for the second time.

“My cousin is trying to seduce my wife,” Silvester said through clenched teeth. He turned his back to the dance floor and met his mother’s mocking gaze.

She snorted. “Harold? Harold is about as seductive as a mayfly. I thought that nothing could shake you free of that gentlemanly composure.” She grinned at him. “As I told Stella, I was absolutely right to select her for your wife.”

Silvester couldn’t stop thinking about that revelation. His mother had told Stella about that long-ago breakfast conversation?

His mother’s command had nothing to do with his marriage, as he had told Stella himself. But he found himself wishing that his mother had settled on Yasmin, and he had chosen Stella. It would have been . . . easier.

Still, his mother had been right about Stella, not to mention his buffoonish behavior, staring at his wife as she danced with others.

He asked the first woman he encountered to dance with him.

“Your duchess is so original,” Lady Corbyn said, simpering at him.

“Yes, she is.”

“Some foolish chits have started dotting their noses with a mixture of saffron power and water to give themselves freckles,” she reported.

“Indeed.”

“I suppose you have heard that the Earl and Countess of Lilford are visiting Bath. Lady Yasmin is reported to have taken the waters.” She twittered, so presumably that was supposed to mean something.

He shrugged.