Aldridge put down his cup. “Wales is not best pleased with His Grace at the moment. A matter of a loss at cards.”

Eleanor and her elder son grinned at one another, and her younger son perked up, looking from one to the other.

“Should one be grieved by the loss of a fosterling,” Eleanor mused, “and take one’s sorrows to, let us say, a Royal princess who might be depended on to scold her brother for the behaviour of one of his favourites…” Eleanor stopped at that. Jonathan did not need the entire picture painted for him. He gazed at her, his eyes wide with awe.

“His Grace will not dare make a fuss. If His Royal Highness finds out that the very man he sent to save him from the offended citizens left a cuckoo chick in the nest of an esteemed leader of the community…”

“Precisely,” Aldridge agreed. “Mama, you are brilliant, as always.”

The duchess stood, leaving her cup on the table, and both boys. “Let us, then, go up to the nursery, and make sure all is well with your new baby sister.”

***

Haverford Castle, Kent, November 1812

Haverford had not even hinted at coming to her rooms since Jonathan had brought Frances to join her nursery—the little girl a greater gift than her son could ever know. The scandal of the child’s existence was a secret Haverford needed to keep from his royal cousins, and she had been able to use her knowledge of that secret to secure her wards’ future under Haverford’s reluctant and anonymous protection, and to ensure her continued freedom from his intimate attentions.

It had been an unpleasant negotiation, determined on her part and rancorous on his—not that he much wanted his aging wife, but he resented having his will forced. In return for his agreement, she had promised to continue as his political hostess, and to maintain the myth of a perfect Society marriage.

Why was she spoiling a perfectly good afternoon thinking about His Grace? She came up here to explore quite different memories.