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Berwick—­”
    â€œDon’t ever call me that again,” he said with sudden violence. “My name is Oliver. It’s actually Oliver John Berwick. I am a second son, but I inherited money from an aunt, and I have managed to turn that into a great deal more money. I am not a bad prospect for marriage.”
    Lizzie’s mouth closed. “We have digressed,” she said with a gulp. “The Countess of Mayne will not have the faintest interest in marrying you; by all accounts, she is very much in love with her husband, and divorce is difficult to obtain in England.”
    â€œYes, isn’t it a good thing that I didn’t meet you before Troutt died?” Oliver said, adding, “I might have had to kill him.”
    â€œKill him?” Oliver’s future wife squealed. “What on earth are you talking about, Mr.—­” She stopped, catching the look in his eye. “Oliver.”
    â€œSay it again.”
    â€œWhat—­”
    Oliver succumbed to temptation and pulled her into his arms. “Say my name again.”
    â€œWe shouldn’t do this,” she breathed.
    He looked down at her. “We should.”
    â€œ Oliver ,” she said, frowning at him. “I can see that you are—­you are—­well, I’m not sure what you’re doing.”
    â€œPlanning to marry you.”
    â€œAbsolutely not!”
    â€œSeduce you?”
    She looked rather horrified, which made Oliver grin.
    â€œMay I kiss you?”
    â€œNo! I think you have lost your mind.”
    â€œThat is quite possible.” She had the most delightful, straight nose he had ever seen. They would have beautiful offspring, as long as the poor scraps inherited her nose, not his. “Do you truly loathe the idea of children?”
    â€œThis conversation has gone far enough,” she said, pulling out of his arms and trotting off toward the other side of the room as if the furies were at her shoulder.
    Oliver followed her, thinking hard.
    He’d never had any faith in fate, but he was obviously wrong.
    Fate had put both women he’d wronged in his life in the same house, together with the woman he was meant to marry.
    And have children with. Or not.
    He didn’t really care.
    The only thing he cared about was making certain that Lizzie Troutt was his, within the day, if possible, but definitely before Benjamin Jagger darkened the door of Telford Manor.

 
    Chapter Nine
    L IZZIE LAY AWAKE a long time that night, staring at the ceiling. Oliver Berwick had flirted with her. No man had ever flirted with her before this evening, but she had no trouble recognizing it.
    What’s more, she was fairly certain that he meant to seduce her. For one thing, he told her that he meant to.
    And for another, he compared her to a peach.
    She spent a certain amount of time feeling happily peachlike. Still, she truly didn’t want to be in Oliver’s fruit basket, even if he had laughed at her joke about babies and plums.
    Hopefully, he wouldn’t repeat her comment to her sister, because Cat might take offense at the idea that her baby boys had resembled plums.
    They looked better now, of course. At four and five, her nephews had fairly intelligent faces, and asked interesting questions. Yesterday she’d had a long conversation with the future Lord Windingham about whether ­people would recognize each other in heaven.
    â€œMama said that your husband died,” he had said, in that straightforward way that children had. “But you won’t die for years. When you get up there, you’ll probably have white hair and a cane and all that sort of thing. How will he possibly know who you are?”
    â€œIt’s quite possible that Lord Troutt won’t recognize me,” she had said, feeling quite happy about that prospect.
    â€œBut I want Mama to know who I am!” His bottom lip began wobbling.
    â€œYour mother will always recognize