Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire, had called into Haverford House to have tea with her son, the new Duke of Haverford and her daughter-in-law Charlotte–or Cherry, as the whole family had taken to calling her (at least in private).
“Anthony will be joining us shortly,” Cherry assured her, after they had greeted one another, commented on the weather, and shared the most pressing of the family news. “He had a meeting.”
Even as she spoke, the Duke entered the room, another young man trailing in his wake. Haverford greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek and gave another to Eleanor. “You are looking well, Mama. Marriage to His Grace of Winshire clearly suits you.”
It certainly did. Eleanor could not help a smug smile.
“But allow me to present my guest,” Haverford continued. “Lord Diomedes Finchley, Your Graces. Lord Dom is heading to York later this week, and has been kind enough to offer to carry out a commission for me while he is there. Dom, these wonderful ladies are my mother, the Duchess of Winshire, and my darling wife, the Duchess of Haverford.”
Lord Dom bowed, flushing a little as he looked at Eleanor. She knew what was troubling him and hastened to put him at ease. “Dom, how pleased I am to meet you. May I call you Dom? We are, after all, in some sort related, since you are half-brother to my sons and to my wards.”
He flushed still more. “Your husband did not acknowledge the connection, Your Grace,” he pointed out.
“My deceased husband did many things he should not, and left undone many things that were his duty, Dom. We do not need to perpetuate his errors.”
“Please sit down,” Cherry suggested. “Will you have tea? I know Anthony would prefer coffee.”
The young man sat, looking very uncomfortable at first. But Eleanor and Cherry exerted themselves to make him feel welcome, and soon they were talking about the charitable foundation the duchesses supported that found work and offered medical care to returned soldiers and sailors. Dom, who had been a captain in the Hussars during the recent wars, was very interested and offered to make a donation.
“And what is at York?” Eleanor asked, after a while. “If my question is not intrusive.”
“Not at all,” Dom told her. “My mother’s brother apparently died while I was overseas with the army. The solicitor’s letter has only just reached me. I have apparently inherited his estate, which is not far from York. I’m off to see whether it is a place I can make into my home. And I have promised Haverford to look into how people are feeling about the reform movement, while I am up there.”
“The York Season will be in full swing in a month or so,” Cherry commented. “I know my brother used to attend from time to time, mostly for the races, which are in early May.”
“I do not know if I will be there that long,” Dom said. “It depends how I find the estate.”
“Keep it in mind,” Eleanor advised. “Every single young man in possession of an estate, should be on the lookout for a wife.” She smiled again, thinking of her own recent remarriage. “And love. Love, I have discovered, is the best of all reasons to wed.”
Dom Finchley, alias Lord Cuckoo, is the hero of my “Lord Cuckoo Comes Home”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.
