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seven or eight years. You could have been married twenty times over.”
    â€œI know,” she said. “I suppose I am just not the marrying kind, Edmund. Perhaps there will be someone quite irresistible at the duke’s ball, and I shall live happily ever after with him.”
    â€œI thought you were already interested in Colonel Huxtable,” the countess said.
    â€œI am,” Madeline said. “At least I am interested in his uniform. I am quite in love with it, in fact.” She laughed and returned her attention to the baby.
    The earl put down his papers when he felt his son tug at the leg of his breeches. “Are you getting impatient for your tea, tiger?” he asked, scooping the child up into his arms and getting to his feet. “And that wicked Uncle Dominic is late. I think perhaps I hear him coming, though.”
    The child shrieked with laughter as he was tossed toward the ceiling and caught again.
    â€œYou had better go and meet him,” the earl said, setting his son down again and watching as he scurried across the room to meet Lord Eden.
    The child was soon being tossed in the air again.
    â€œI should have asked before I did that if you have had your tea yet,” Lord Eden said. “You aren’t about to toss bread and jam all over my uniform, are you, old pal?”
    â€œNo, old pal,” the child said, laughing merrily.
    â€œAny news?” Lord Amberley asked.
    â€œMore troops and artillery arriving daily,” Lord Eden said. “And the duke apparently bellowing for more. The usual.”
    â€œWill it really come to war, Dominic?” the countess asked. “Surely Bonaparte could not be that foolhardy. The British are here, the Dutch and Belgians, the Prussians. And more arriving daily. And promise of troops from Austria and Russia.”
    â€œI wouldn’t count on those last,” Lord Eden said, “and there aren’t enough of the former. And those soldiers we have are Johnny Raws, half of them. It’s a pity most of the veterans were sent off to America. It will be touch and go whether they will be back in time.”
    Madeline surged to her feet, the baby held to her shoulder, contentedly sucking on the muslin of her day dress. “I hate all this talk of war,” she said. “Can we talk of nothing else here?”
    â€œYou should not have left England,” her twin said unsympathetically. “You have done nothing but grumble ever since you arrived, Mad. You should have stayed in London with Mama as she wanted you to do. And with Uncle William and Aunt Viola. Anna is making her come-out this spring, is she not?”
    â€œAnd bemoaning the fact that you are not there to see her,” she said. “But you know I could not have stayed. Not with you here, Dom. Why did you not sell out when you came home from Spain, as I begged you to do? I think you enjoy all the killing and all the danger to your own life.”
    â€œIf you really think that, you must be stupid,” he said. “No one willingly puts himself into a position to stare death in the face. There is such a thing as loyalty to one’s country and belief in certain principles.”
    â€œI just think you have done enough,” Madeline said. “It should be someone else’s turn now, Dom. And you don’t have to bring talk of war into the house, anyway.”
    â€œI have come from Charlie Simpson’s house,” he said. “Mrs. Simpson has just come back from England with Charlie’s young daughter. You should be more like her, Mad. Charlie and I sometimes sit and talk for hours about military matters, and I have never heard one word of complaint from her or one hint that perhaps her husband should sell out. And he has been in for longer than twenty years.”
    â€œThen she must be a very foolish woman,” Madeline said. “Perhaps she does not care for him a great deal.”
    â€œDon’t argue in front