“Roberts,” Quin said. His deep voice sent shivers down her spine. “Her Grace doubtless has some use of you in the back of the house.”

Roberts was too well trained to show even a flicker of curiosity. He bowed and left as quietly as Quin had entered.

Only then did Olivia turn.

He was magnificent: wide shoulders, appearing even larger in a dark blue superfine coat that brought out the green of his eyes.

The look in those eyes had her retreating a step. “Quin!” she squeaked, breathless, silly, like a girl of thirteen.

“You summoned me,” he said, direct as always. “And here I am, Olivia. I hope you meant it, because I think I shall never be able to resist you.”

She couldn’t think what to say. He was so beautiful . . . lean and powerful and muscled. Even his hair was extraordinary.

Whereas she was plump and ordinary.

He closed the space between them in one stride. Having him so close just made the contrast between them even more obvious. This was impossible. He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips, sending another shiver down Olivia’s spine.

“I’m fat,” she blurted out.

“You are not fat. You’re the most beautiful, voluptuous woman I know.” His eyes moved down her body, deliberately, slowly, then back to her face. What she saw in them sent fire squirming through her stomach and lower.

“I want every inch of you,” he said, growling it. “I want to fall on my knees and worship at your hips.” He reached out, shaped her curves from breast to hips with a burning sweep of his hand that a man was allowed to give only his wife.

But Olivia couldn’t bear it if he found himself regretful later . . . if she ever saw the disenchantment in his eyes that she saw so constantly in her mother’s. She hurried on.

“I won’t make a very good duchess. I don’t think the dowager likes me very much. She would prefer that you marry Georgiana. In fact, I’m fairly sure that she would be appalled by the very idea of your marrying me.”

“That’s precisely why my estate came equipped with a dower house. I am not marrying my mother. I am marrying you.” Quin’s gray-green eyes were so . . . she’d never dreamed a man would look at her like that.

But she had a list, a mental list, of characteristics that disqualified her for the position of Duchess of Sconce. “I make coarse jokes. That is, my sense of humor is not very ducal.”

His eyes laughed, even though his face was composed. “I know only one such poem, which my cousin Peregrine taught me when we were boys. There once was a lady from Bude, Who went swimming one day in the lake.”

He paused, waited . . . an invitation. Olivia could feel herself turning pink.

“A man in a punt,” she said softly, “Stuck his pole in the water . . .”

He picked up the verse. “And said: ‘You can’t swim here—it’s private.’ The truth is that I never really understood it. Am I right in thinking that the lady is from Bude because she’s swimming in the nude rather than a lake?”

“Yes.”

“I do understand the pole. But once you have to explain it, the verse is not very funny. Are you certain that you want to be with someone who not only can divest every bawdy pun of its humor, but must, in order to see the point?”

“Are you certain you want to be with someone who doesn’t share your love of science? I’m afraid . . .”

“What, dear heart?”

“You’ll be bored with me.” She said it in a rush. “I can’t talk about the quality of light, and if you tell me about mathematical functions, I truly will fall asleep. I have a very trivial mind.”

“You understand emotion; I don’t. That doesn’t mean that my mind is worthless. We like different sorts of things. Why should I bore you with talking about mathematics? You can teach me to laugh instead.”

Something like a sob rose up in her throat.

“Will you teach our children bawdy verses as nursery rhymes?” he asked.

She considered. “Perhaps.”

“Then you will have to teach me some first. I’m sorry to say that Alfie never learned a single verse of poetry.”

His hands curved around her shoulders, slid up into her hair, teasing strands apart with his fingers. “Do you know that I find myself wanting to talk about Alfie for the first time since he died? I’ve said his name aloud to you and I don’t feel as if I were falling into a black pit.”

She swallowed hard.

“Perhaps,” he said delicately, “we might bestow one of our children with the miserable doorknocker of a name, Alphington? Just so that he’s . . . remembered?”

“Oh Quin,” she whispered. Then, because his question didn’t need answering, since he knew the answer as well as she: “Just how many children do you think we will have?”

“Many?” His eyes were steady on hers. “I always wanted the nursery to be full of children, so many that no one could be lonely.”

Olivia’s heart ached, for two lonely little dukes-to-be, Quin and Alfie. “Is that why you flew kites, so that Alfie wouldn’t be lonely?”

“Evangeline refused to have any more children. She was horrified by the way that her body changed. Even more so because I loved how she looked.”

“You did?”

“I thought she had never looked more beautiful; she thought she had never looked more repulsive. She wouldn’t let me touch her, or even see her unclothed, for two years.”

Olivia blinked. “So she wasn’t unfaithful the entire time you were married?”

“She was.” He said it calmly, as if he were discussing the weather. “She felt differently about me than she did about her lovers.”

Olivia thought, not for the first time, that there was no point in expressing aloud what she thought about Evangeline.

“I don’t want to talk about my former wife,” Quin said. “In fact, I’d just as soon never speak her name again.”

“Are you sure? I’m so ordinary compared to you, Quin.”

The look of complete perplexity in his eyes could not be feigned. “What the hell do you mean? You’re beautiful, and funny, and everyone in this house loves you. With,” he added punctiliously, “the possible exception of my mother, but she will learn to care about you.”

A sob came, bringing a tear or two along with it.

“No,” Quin said, pulling her into his arms. “No tears.” He started kissing them away, brushing her face over and over with his lips in the softest of caresses.

Olivia nestled into his arms.

“Do you mind telling me what exactly brought you into this room?” Quin whispered between kisses. “When I saw you an hour ago, you were ready to sacrifice me for your honor.”

Olivia laughed shakily. “I do feel terrible about Rupert. But Georgie says that we will find him the right wife: someone understanding, strong, and kind.”

“Ah, so your sister saw the truth.”

“She told me there is no spark between you.”

“Just as I told you.” There was deep satisfaction in his voice. “You know, your sister would make an extremely capable scientist.”

“She is an extremely capable scientist, and she will be a brilliant one, once we buy her all the books she wants. Father never would, you know. He thought that books were unladylike, and Mother agreed.”