Her Grace of Haverford answered a question about her plans for the evening, while watching her younger son prowling her private parlour, picking up ornaments and putting them down, smoothing out a crinkle in a linen mat, twitching a flower out of a vase to smell it and put it back in the wrong place. He clearly had something to say, and was barely pretending to listen as he tried to decide whether to come out with it.

“What is on your mind, my dear?” she asked, after he had tossed out two more conversational sallies, neither of which related to the other.

He flopped into a chair opposite to her. “I need something to do, Mama. His Grace stops everything I try, and Aldridge thinks I am complaining about nothing.”

So that was it. The duchess knew that His Grace refused to allow his back-up heir to take up any worthwhile activity, but she had not realised that her older son had also proved unsympathetic.

“You know what happened when I tried to join the army,” Jonathan complained. “His Grace refused his permission. So I joined under a false name. His Grace had me hunted down, bought me out, and confined me until I gave my word not to do it again.”

“I am rather glad about that,” Eleanor confessed. “It is cowardly of me, but I hate the thought of you risking your life in the struggle against Napoleon.”

“I am not afraid,” Jonathan insisted, completely missing his mother’s point. “At least I would have a purpose.” He continued his litany of things he’d done. “I went to work for an architect. His Grace had the man beaten. I changed my name again, and found work as a factory clerk. He threatened to ruin the man if I wasn’t fired. He told me that if I tried it again, he’d throw my old nanny out of the cottage she has retired to.”

Eleanor had purchased the cottage, and Jonathan’s nanny now owned it outright, but the duke would find another stick with which to threaten his son into compliance.

“Don’t tell me to speak to Aldridge. He doesn’t understand. I can’t live this life—this meaningless, idiotic life. He has work. I am allowed none. He has purpose. Mine is to simply exist until he marries and has children. After that, I’m redundant. Aldridge thinks I should be happy to drink and gamble and swive — I beg your pardon, Mama. And indulge myself until I’m silly, then get up the next day and do it again. He can’t believe I’m not. But he wouldn’t like having nothing useful to do nearly as much as he thinks. Can you talk to him, Mama?”

“Of course I will.” It would not help. The duchess knew His Grace had forbidden Aldridge to involve Jonathan in the many duties of the duchy that burdened the eldest son. Still, she would speak to Aldridge, and suggest he explain that to Jonathan, so at least the young man’s ire would be directed at the proper target. Meanwhile, she would try to give his mind another direction. “Perhaps, my dear, you might consider being of use to me?”

He looked up from the fist he had been punching into his other palm. “With what, Mama?”

“I understand you are friends with Miss Lilly Diamond,” the duchess said. Jonathan blushed. So those particular rumours were true, then. Eleanor discounted much of what she heard about her sons, but clearly Jonathan was at least acquainted with the famous demi-mondaine. “My friend Lady Sutton is concerned. Apparently Lady Georgiana is a frequent visitor at Miss Diamond’s house.”

The young lord sat up straight, his face grave, “I do not think it the part of honour to be your spy, Mama.”

Eleanor hid a smile at the indignant rebuke. “Nor do I ask you, dear. But Grace thinks, and I agree, that something odd is going on in the circles where your friend Miss Diamond presides. It may be nothing to do with her, of course. But will you keep your eyes out, Jonathan? And will you watch out for Lady Georgiana, if you can? I would hate to see her hurt.”

“I can do that,” Jonathan agreed. His eyes lit, and he shot her a devilish grin. “I see what you are doing, Mama. You are making it my job to drink and gamble and– other things. Well, a man has to do what a man has to do.”

Lord Jonathan Grenford is carrying out his mother’s commission when the courtesan, Lilly Diamond, is poisoned. Gren (as his friends call him) finds himself helping his half-brother David Wakefield to investigate the murder, in Revealed in Mist.