“Mama,” said the Duke of Haverford, strolling into his mother’s private parlour, “I have come to ask a favour.”

”Sit down, Anthony, and let me pour you a cup of tea,” the Duchess of Winshire replied. Since she abandoned widowhood to marry again, she did not see nearly as much of her son as when they lived in the same house. “What can I do to help you?”

Haverford accepted tea, prepared just the way he liked it, and two of the three tiny iced cakes that his mother adored. She had a standing order with Marcel Fournier, the proprietor and chef at Fournier’s Tea Rooms. Haverford thought of suggesting that his darling wife also placed such an order. They really were delicious.

Mama waited patiently until he had eaten the first cake, then raised one eyebrow in question. “It is for Lion, Mama—the Earl of Ruthford. Or, rather, for one of his exploring officers and the man’s wife.”

“Is this to do with that man who calls himself the Kingpin?” Mama asked. “Dorothea, Ruthford’s countess, was telling our ladies about it just a few days ago. Lion and his men think the villian is one of us, Anthony. Dorothea wanted to know the names of men who had suddenly came into money without a known source.”

“It is the same case, Mama. They have reason to believe that Lady Blakeley is involved in some way, and they want to set up a situation in which they can talk to her without the villain knowing. The couple I mentioned? The Kingpin is threatening their child.”

Mama was too polite to snort, but her expression said clearly that she thought the plan misguided. “I am quite prepared to believe that Margaret Blakeley is involved in villainy, but I very much doubt that she is a minion. That woman doesn’t take orders from anyone.”

“Be that as it may, the plan is to give her a titled neighbour who invites her to tea. Something quite normal and casual that neither she nor any of her friends will regard as suspicious. They need a genuine person. Someone who is in Debretts but isn’t well known in London, preferably isn’t in England ,and won’t mind if Lion’s man’s wife pretends to be her.”

“That is easy,” replied Mama. “Eloisa Ormond. My second cousin on my mother’s side. She has not been in England since we were girls. Her father married her off to the Earl of Ormond the year before I married your father, and lived in Scotland until she was widowed ten years ago. She has been travelling ever since. Her last letter was sent from a place called Bali, which is, apparently, in the East Indies.”

“Cousin Eloise,” the duke repeated. “Mama, that is perfect.”