“If your mama loves him so much, she should marry him,” Zoë said.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Milly snapped.
“Actually, it’s not so ridiculous,” Izzy said thoughtfully. “I bet the marquess enjoys leering at your mama’s bosom quite as much as he does yours. In fact, her bosom is even bigger. He could marry her, and then everyone would be happy.”
“Marry Mama?” Milly said, shocked. “But he wantsan heir.”
“Leaving it a bit late, isn’t he?” Izzy said sardonically.
“You don’t understand. Mama told me his late wife was unable to bring a child to term.” Milly added in a whisper, “She had several miscarriages.”
Clarissa leaned forward. “Your mother is still young enough to have a baby.”
Milly stared at her. “She is not!”
“She is,” Izzy agreed. “Didn’t she give birth to you when she was seventeen?”
Milly nodded.
“And you’re twenty now, which means she’s only thirty-seven.”
“And with proven fertility,” Clarissa added. “Lady Tarrant was almost forty when she gave birth to little Ross, Lord Tarrant’s heir. And she’s expecting another baby soon.”
Milly stared at them for a few minutes, as if considering it, and then dolefully shook her head. “No, Mama would never agree to it.”
Exasperated at the girl’s fatalism, Zoë said, “How do you know if you don’t try?”
Milly just looked at her. “You don’t know Mama. The marquess is everything she ever dreamed of for me, and besides—”
“Forget your mama’s dreams—he’s going to beyournightmare,” Zoë said brutally. She sat back, watching as Clarissa and Izzy tried to encourage Milly to stand up to her mother. She never would, Zoë thought. Not without a good reason. Which, Zoë thought, she had—if she could only be forced to admit it.
“What does your gentleman friend say about all this?” she threw casually into the conversation.
Milly blanched, then blustered, “What gentleman friend? I don’t have a gentleman friend.”
“Yes, you do.” Zoë grinned. “I’ve seen you with him in Hatchard’s.”
“You haven’t. I mean, I don’t have a gentleman friend, so you can’t possibly have seen—”
“I have,” Zoë insisted. “And also in that little park at the end of the street, the one where Jeremiah walks Lady Scattergood’s dogs. You were holding hands.”
“Holding hands with a footman! I wouldnever—”
“Not Jeremiah, your gentleman friend.”
There was a short, defeated silence.
“Not up to Mama’s standards, is he?” Zoë said gently.
“He’s a cit,” Milly said in despair.
Zoë wrinkled her brow. “A what?”
“Not one of the ton,” Clarissa explained. “No title, and he works for a living.”
“He’s actually quite well off,” Milly said defensively. “He owns a very nice house and he has several prosperous businesses. And his father is a wealthy manufacturer. But Mama said he was impossible.”
“But you like him.”
