Certainly his.

She demonstrated; raising both hands, long slender palms and delicate fingers encased in fine black pigskin, she gripped the edge of the black veil and lifted it, setting it back over her piled hair.

So he could see her face.

Finely drawn features, a pair of ruby lips sculpted by a master, the lower lush and full and tempting. Large, almond-shaped eyes, their color an infinitely changeable medley of greens and golds, set above high, chiseled cheekbones. Lush dark lashes, a straight, patrician nose, all set in a oval of perfect porcelain skin.

The catalog of her features didn’t do her face justice; it was the epitome of feminine aristocratic beauty not solely because of its composition but also because of her animation. In repose her face was serenely beautiful; awake, her expressions were startlingly vivid.

That afternoon, however, her expression was…contained.

He frowned. Stepping into the room, he closed the door. “Your father?”

He’d assumed the full mourning signified that her father, the Earl of Nunchance, had passed on. But if the head of the House of Vaux had died, the ton would have been abuzz with the news. Not only had he heard not a whisper, but Letitia’s face, naturally pale, held no hint of sorrow; if anything, she seemed to be reining in her temper.

Not her father, then. Regardless of the familial disruptions that were commonplace among the Vaux, she was sincerely fond of her eccentric sire.

Her perfectly arched dark brows drew down, a slight frown that informed him he was being slow-witted.