Several years ago he’d finally given in to her complaints and bought her a pretty house just around the corner that was smaller, lighter, warmer and more modern. She’d had it entirely redecorated, and happily moved in, all the while confiding sadly to her friends that her son had callously thrust his mother from her family home.
He himself had been living in bachelor apartments at the time and had shut Everingham House up. But last year, when he’d decided to take a bride, he’d reopened it, had it redecorated and some parts of it modernized—the kitchens and the plumbing in particular—and moved back in.
Naturally his mother had conceived a desperate yearning to live there again.
She sighed again, and when he showed no sign of putting aside his correspondence, she said in a plaintive voice, “It utterly exhausts me to venture out into the world, you know.”
“Then why bother?”
“Because I am in despair, Redmond, utter despair!”
He kept writing.
“Despair about you and your situation, Redmond!” Seeming to realize the waspish tenor of her speech, she added, “Dearest.”
He didn’t look up. “Don’t worry your head about me, Mother. There’s no need.”
“But there is need, my son. That frightful aborted ceremony, the gossip, the scandal, the disgrace! The horrid slur on our family name! I am nigh on prostrated with mortification.” She shuddered, unstoppered the tiny vial and took a restorative sniff.
Hart said nothing. There was no point. They’d had this conversation numerous times. Yes, there was gossip, but gossip never lasted. And if she didn’t go to so many parties—forcing herself, naturally—she wouldn’t have to hear it.
“Do not fret yourself, my son, I shall try to weather the storm,” his mother said, rallying bravely. “It’s you I worry about, my dearest. I thought that you were all settled at last, and that finally I could go in peace.” She sank back feebly in her chair and closed her eyes.
“Go where, Mother? Off to Bath again, are you?” He blotted the ink of his letter, folded it and reached for his seal. “Or perhaps a sea-bathing treatment this time? I’ve heard that a bracing dip in the cold salt sea does people a power of good.”
She shuddered and clutched her vial feebly to her bosom. “Such a thing would kill me.”
“Only if you drowned, and I believe there are muscular females at the dipping sites whose job it is to prevent that. It’s perfectly safe.”
She sat up and glared at him. “Don’t be so obtuse, Redmond—my darling boy. You must know that the only thing that keeps me alive—the only thing, dearest—is the desire to see you settled. Married.”
“Then I shall postpone my nuptials indefinitely and provide you with a long life.”
“No! No—oh, but I see you are teasing me, and you really must not.” She waved the smelling salts feebly but with delicate emphasis. “Dr. Bentink says my constitution is extremely fragile and any shock, even a small one, could carry me off.”
Hart didn’t bother responding. Dr. Bentink knew which side of his bread was buttered.
Fleming entered then, followed by a footman carrying a tea tray, containing a teapot, two cups, a glass of barley water, a dish containing several almond rusks and a plate of luscious-looking cream cakes.
The duchess waved them away. “Oh, how pretty, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t eat a thing.”
“You must keep your strength up, your grace,” Fleming murmured. He produced a small table and placed it on the other side of the duchess. He poured out the tea, added milk and two lumps of sugar, stirred it well and placed it, the glass of barley water, the dish of rusks and a plate containing two small pink cakes oozing with cream on the duchess’s table. Then he poured black and sugarless tea for Hart and set it pointedly next to the chair opposite the duchess.
“I’ll just finish this.” Hart blotted, sealed and addressed the letter. When he looked up there were still two cakes on his mother’s plate, but there were now several fewer on the larger plate. As always, Fleming had calculated his mother’s tastes exactly.
Hart left his desk and sat down opposite his mother. He sipped his tea.
“I couldn’t eat a morsel, Redmond, I am in such distress.”
Hart drank his tea.
“Perhaps a rusk. One must force oneself for the sake of one’s loved ones.” She picked up a rusk and toyed with it. “Dear Lady Salter—”
“Came the other day and delivered your latest suggestion for a bride. I sent her off with a flea in her ear.”
His mother gasped. “Don’t tell me you were uncivil to her, Redmond! Apart from being my godmother, she is one of my dearest friends.”
“I was blunt rather than uncivil, and I’ll tell you what I told her. Stop meddling in my life, Mother, or—” He broke off, as his mother fluttered back in her chair, gasping in apparent distress. He waited.
After a few moments she registered his indifference and stopped gasping. “Or what?”
“Or one of these days I’ll return the favor.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps I’ll give my consent to one of those puppies you encourage to hang around you. They’re always pestering me for your hand.”
She sat up. “You wouldn’t!”
Hart shrugged. “Jeavons has approached me three times already.”
She patted her hair complacently. “The dear sweet boy, but of course it would never do.”
Jeavons was several years younger than himself, an impressionable puppy.
“I should think not. He’s barely out of leading strings.”
She sniffed. “Hardly.”
“No, Bullstrode would be far more suitable.”
She stiffened. “Bullstrode! That arrogant bully! He’s an oaf! A ruffian! He’s, he’s . . . vulgar. Ungentlemanly!”
“He adores you, Mother. He has several times importuned me for your hand.”
“Then you must refuse! What am I saying? I refuse!”
“Ah, but Bullstrode is the kind of man who would take your refusal as a kind of flirting from an indecisive female. I’m sure you’ve heard his views on the inability of females to know what is good for them.”
“I’ve heard! And I’m not indecisive. I loathe the man!” There was nothing helpless or fluttery about his mother now.
In a thoughtful voice he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Bullstrode decided to kidnap you and force a marriage—if he thought he had my blessing, that is.”