Today’s Monday for Tea post belongs between To Wed a Proper Lady and To Mend the Broken Hearted, and is referred to in A Baron for Becky. It follows on from a post I wrote just over two years ago, from the point of view of the new Duke of Winshire.

Eleanor was tempted to fan herself as she waited. From Aldridge’s expression, he regreted impatiently following the butler to be announced — undoubtedly he expected his mother to be embarrassed at breaking in on three gentlemen in dishabille. In their shirtsleeves, or at least James’s two sons were in their shirtsleeves. Their father — Eleanor’s lips curved — was naked from the waist up, and his knitted pantaloons hugged hips and thighs that made no account of his decades and owed nothing to padding.

As a woman in her fifties, Eleanor came from a bawdier time than this mealy-mouthed generation, and was well accustomed to listening as her contemporaries assessed the bodies of the young men who pranced the drawing and ballrooms of Society. She had never contributed when such conversations turned salacious. She could admire male beauty of form in flesh, stone, or paint, but it left her cold. She was not cold now, and it hadn’t been the younger men who moved her.

The entry of servants with refreshments forced her to compose herself and turn her attention to the purpose of her call. Would James sponsor the bill she intended to propose? She marshalled her arguments, and was cool and composed by the time he entered the room.