Harry grinned. “Your fervour has raised a good few brows. I don’t think anyone expected such a transformation-profligate rakehell to responsible landowner in a matter of months.”

Jack grunted. “You’d have changed, too, if the responsibility had fallen to you. But there’s no question about it, I need a wife. One like Lenore.”

“There aren’t many like Lenore.”

“Don’t I know it.” Jack let his disgruntlement show. “I’m seriously wondering if what I seek exists-a gentlewoman with charm and grace, efficient and firm enough to manage the reins.”

“Blond, well-endowed and of sunny disposition?”

Jack shot his brother an irritated glance. “It certainly wouldn’t hurt, given the rest of her duties.”

Harry chuckled. “No likely prospects in sight?”

“Nary a one.” Jack’s disgust was back. “After a year of looking, I can truthfully inform you that not one candidate made me look twice. They’re all so alike-young, sweet and innocent-and quite helpless. I need a woman with backbone and all I can find are clinging vines.”

Silence filled the room as they both considered his words.

“Sure Lenore can’t help?” Harry eventually asked.

Jack shook his head. “Eversleigh, damn his hide, was emphatic. His duchess will not be gracing the ton’s ballrooms this Season. Instead,” Jack continued, his eyes gently twinkling, “she’ll be at home at Eversleigh, tending to her firstborn and his father, while increasing under Jason’s watchful eye. Meanwhile, to use his words, the ton can go hang.”

Harry laughed. “So she’s really indisposed? I thought that business about morning sickness was an excuse Jason drummed up to whisk her out of the crowd.”

Grimacing, Jack shook his head. “All too true, I fear. Which means that, having ploughed through last Season without her aid, while she was busy presenting Eversleigh with his heir, and frittered away the Little Season, too, I’m doomed to struggle on alone through the shoals of the upcoming Season, with a storm lowering on the horizon and no safe harbour in sight.”