Her Grace of Haverford enters the side door at Fournier’s. No one, not even her husband, would remark on her calling into a restaurant outside of opening hours, particularly one owned by protégés. Still, she does not wish to call His Grace’s attention to her visit. Her servants, she is certain, would keep her secrets — but it would be unfair to put their loyalties in conflict.

She spends a few minutes asking the restaurateur’s wife questions about her children. Though she is anxious to begin her private meeting, politeness is always important, and Cecilia and Marcel Fournier are very dear to her. Soon, though, Cecilia ushers her to the private room she was instructed to ask for.

Grace is already there. “Eleanor! You came.”

“Of course.” Eleanor hugs this dear friend. They have known each other since they were children, grieved together when Grace’s brother was exiled and believed dead, supported one another through the miseries of marriage to selfish brutal promiscuous men, rejoiced in one another’s children, worked together to better the lot of women whose marital unhappiness was made worse by poverty. They shared so much history, and now the respective heads of their families had decreed they must be enemies.

They both sit, and Grace turns to the waiting tea service and the calming ritual of afternoon tea.

“How are you managing, my dear Grace? How are the twins?” Eleanor asks.

“Better than I had hoped. You assured me James would not have changed. He is older, of course, and much more commanding. I can imagine him as the king the papers call him. But he is still the kind man you remember from our first Season. He promises that the girls and I will want for nothing, and may live wherever we please when Winshire finally releases our reins.”

Eleanor looks down at her cup. “I have seen him. Just in passing, at the Monteforte Ball, before Haverford decreed that none of us may attend any event attended by Sutton and his children. Sutton looks well, Grace. He had two young men and a young woman with him.”

“Elfingham, his eldest, and Drew, the fourth son. They are fine young men, Eleanor, even if they are part-Persian. Sutton brought six of his children with him. The two sons you saw, plus two sons still in the schoolroom, and two daughters. The youngest is of an age to be presented, but we — Georgie and I — suggested she wait until next year. By then, all this nonsense will be over.”

“I hope so. What Sutton must be thinking!” James, now Earl of Sutton and heir to his father the Duke of Winshire in place of two deceased older brothers, faces having to prove the legitimacy of his marriage and his children to a committee of the House of Lords. Thanks to Eleanor’s husband, who is claiming that the foreign-born wife was a mistress and the half-breed children an abomination that must not be forced on English Society.

Grace gave a short laugh. “James just smiles, and says the marriage was legal, his children are legitimate, and Haverford is an ass. I beg your pardon, Eleanor.”

Haverford is being an ass, which is not unusual. Eleanor is not going to say so, even in private to this dear friend. She takes another sip of her tea.

“Winshire is in a rare taking, and declares that none of us may speak or even acknowledge any of you.” Grace sighs. “It will be very awkward.”

Eleanor echoes the sigh. “We must decide how to manage our committees, and how to make managing the conflict easier for hostesses who would normally invite us both.” She met her friend’s eyes, a twinkle in her own. “Co-ordinating our social calendars so we obey our respective tyrants may require weekly meetings, dear Grace.”

Grace chuckles. “After all,” she says, “making sure our families don’t mingle is a sort of obedience, is it not?”

***

This is a background scene that won’t appear somewhere at the beginning of To Win a Proper Lady: The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. Haverford’s attempt to have Sutton’s marriage declared invalid is part of that book, which I’m currently expanding into a novel from the novella that was in Holly and Hopeful Hearts. Haverford’s motivation is that he and Sutton were once rivals for Eleanor’s hand. Eleanor preferred Sutton, and Haverford conspired with Sutton’s father to have him exiled. Haverford won a wife, but never her heart.