But he was grinning at her. Really grinning! “As I told you earlier, it’s a pleasure. I no longer have family of my own other than my heir, a second cousin who’s more trouble than he’s worth.” He looked around. “And I have no plans to marry. So this house and everything in it…no one is enjoying it except me. I much prefer it like this.”

Tess looked down the table at her sisters, trying to see it through his eyes. Annabel was sparkling, her eyes alight with the pure joy of flirting with the Earl of Mayne. Imogen was glowing with a more subtle happiness; her eyes drifting to Lord Maitland’s face, then jerking away. Tess only hoped that Lady Clarice didn’t notice.

“This is what the dining room was presumably like when my parents were alive,” the duke said. “I’m afraid that I’ve become something of a solitary man, without realizing it. I must say, I am enormously pleased to find that my wards are of an age to converse, rather than lisp nursery rhymes.”

“Why did you—” Tess asked and hesitated. Was she right in thinking that proper English ladies didn’t ask personal questions? But she had to know. “Why did you say that you’ll never marry, Your Grace?”

Then she realized that he might guess that they had discussed marrying him, or even think that she had the ambition herself. “Not—” she added hastily—“that I have any personal interest in the question.”

But Holbrook was looking at her with all the oblivion of an older brother. It was clear that he had never even considered the possibility that he might make her, or one of her sisters, for that matter, a duchess. Annabel would have to look to one of the other seven dukes if she wished to be a duchess. Or perhaps—Tess looked down the table again and caught Annabel laughing at the earl—perhaps she could simply turn to their guardian’s friend.

“There are a few of us who eschew the whole process,” Holbrook said. “And I’m afraid that I’m one of them. But it’s not due to misanthropy, Miss Essex.”

“Do, please call me Tess,” she said, drinking a bit more champagne. “After all, we are family now.”

“I would be more than pleased,” he said. “But you must call me Rafe. I loathe being addressed as Your Grace. And may I say that I am tremendously happy to have acquired a family?”

She smiled at him, and there was a moment of perfect ease between them, as if they’d been siblings for life.

“I’ve never had a sister,” he said, nodding to the footman who wished to refill her champagne glass. He was drinking a large glass of something golden and quite without bubbles. “I believe it’s quite a different relationship from that one has with a brother.”

Their Debrett’s may have been two years out of date, but it did list the duke’s brother, with a little note, “deceased,” beside it. Tess’s champagne sent tingling chills down her throat; the very idea of losing one of her sisters was inconceivable. “I know that you once had a brother,” she said rather haltingly. “I am sorry, Your Grace.”

“Rafe,” he corrected her. “To be honest, I think of myself as still having a brother. He simply isn’t with me any longer.”

“I know just what you mean,” Tess said impulsively. “I keep expecting Papa to walk in the door. Or even my mother, and she’s been gone for years.”

“A maudlin pair of us, then,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

But Tess could see the sadness at the back of those gray-blue eyes, and felt a sudden surge of liking for their unkempt, rather lonely guardian.

“Now tell me what it’s like having sisters—and so many of them,” he said, drinking from his glass again.

“Sisters are very good at keeping secrets,” Tess answered. “My sisters and I keep reams of them amongst ourselves.”

“Of what sort, pray?”

“These days, they are mostly to do with matters of the heart,” Tess said, wondering if perhaps she had had rather more champagne than was entirely wise.

“Ah,” he said. And then: “Should I be expecting a group of Scottish suitors to arrive at my doorstep, then?”

“Not for me, alas,” Tess said, devoting herself to a piece of plaice in a delicate cream sauce. “In fact, not for any of us. Papa had great plans, you see. Once he won a truly large purse, he was going to bring us to London for the season. He wouldn’t listen to the suits of local gentlemen.”

“If you’ll forgive the impertinent question, did any of you ever develop an affection for any of these suitors? For surely they existed, your father’s permission or not.”

“Here and there,” Tess said airily, “one developed a tendresse. But it was a bit difficult, you understand, due to Papa’s strictures as concerned the local nobility.”

His face was alive with interest, which was a heady pleasure for Tess. When was the last time that someone besides her sisters showed an interest in her opinions?

“Did you ever gain acquaintance with one of these inappropriate men? Is that one of your many secrets?”

“If I tell you,” she said with a small hiccup, “you must needs tell me a secret as well.”

“The only problem will be thinking of one,” he said, “for I lead a tediously proper life. So is some Scottish lad fair slain for love of you?”

“I did fall in love once, with the butcher’s boy,” she told him. “He was called Nebby, and he was truly an enchanting young man although not precisely eligible.”

“I should think not. What did Lord Brydone do on learning of this remarkable attachment?”

“My father encouraged it,” Tess said, giving him a small grin.

Rafe blinked. “Really?”

“He thought it was a most useful connection, because Nebby brought me cuts of meat as a sign of his affection. We were,” she added, “both eleven years old, and so my father had little fear of permanent affection between us. The truth is that Nebby cast me off, married at a young age, and is already the father of two spanking young future butchers.”

“Young Nebby was the last to have captured your affections?”

“The very last,” Tess nodded.

Rafe had managed to shovel down his supper, whereas she kept forgetting and allowing the footman to take away untouched plates of food. He touched his glass of golden liquor to her champagne. “I believe that you and I are of a type. Untouched by matters of the heart.”

“Alas,” Tess said. “Love doesn’t seem to be my forte. I find courtship rather tedious, if the truth be known.” Then it occurred to her that he would likely take that news with dismay, given the idea that his guardianship extended until she married. “Not that I am averse to the idea of matrimony,” she hastened to tell him. “You needn’t worry that I shall plague your household forever; I fully intend to marry.”

“You relieve my soul,” Rafe said, laughing.

“Now,” she said, leaning toward him, “you’ll have to tell me a secret. I would like to know what’s turned you into such a misanthrope about marriage.”

“Why on earth would you be interested in such a triviality?” Rafe asked. Unless he was much mistaken, his new ward was just a tiny bit muzzy on champagne. Likely a guardian wasn’t supposed to allow his wards to become chirping-merry. Perhaps he should substitute lemonade for champagne? But he loathed a hypocrite, and he had no intention of giving up his brandy. He drank half the bumper on the thought.