Edwina looked up from her oyster bisque. “It is his house now, Irene. He may use it or not use it as he chooses and there is nothing you or I can do about it.”

“Of course you may always stay there overnight if you go up to town to a show or to visit friends, Mama,” Cedric said. “But that is very different from Irene wanting to set up home there with her brood. Where does she intend to find servants to run it properly? She has no money to pay them, and I certainly don’t want her to take any of our servants. Nor do I want to pay for servants for Irene. It’s not my fault that she made a bad decision in her choice of a husband. I warned her that foreigners are always trouble and can’t be trusted.”

“I object to that remark, young man,” Princess Charlotte said. “Prince Orlovski and I were extremely happy and well-suited.”

“Until he was murdered by peasants and you barely escaped with your life,” Cedric said. “And Aunt Virginia’s husbands all died under mysterious circumstances. Doesn’t that prove that foreigners cannot be trusted?”

I thought it proved that someone should have questioned Countess Virginia more thoroughly, but Irene waved this aside and went on. “This is all beside the point, Cedric. All I am asking is to stay at the house at Eaton Square with my children—the house I grew up in and where I have many happy memories. This does not seem unreasonable to me. I have already asked you to help send your nephew and niece to decent boarding schools and you have refused. So my only alternative is to move them to London, where at least they can go to good day schools. It is not healthy for them to be stuck out here with only a tutor and no friends their own age.”

“There’s a school in the village,” Cedric said. “They can always go there.”

“A village school?” Irene’s voice rose dangerously. “Are you mad? You want them mixing with ordinary village children?”

“Since we’re led to believe the future Duke of Eynsford’s mother was a barmaid or something equally lowly, it might be a good idea to prepare them for what this title may become in the future.”

Jack rose to his feet. “My mother was not a barmaid,” he said in a voice that was icy cold. “She was a decent woman who earned an honest living to support me.”

“Doing what, may one ask?” Cedric said, his voice laden with sarcasm.

“If you must know, she was a schoolteacher in an outback school. You’ve talked down to me from the moment I walked in, but you’ll not insult my mother. If you weren’t such a sorry, flabby excuse for a man, I’d invite you to step outside right now to settle this.”

“Really,” the dowager duchess said strongly. “Well, really.”

“Really what?” Jack asked.

“Really,” she said again. “This is not acceptable conversation for the dinner table. And, Irene, you were wrong to introduce this subject in the first place. Eaton Square is your brother’s house. You are fortunate that he gives you a home at the family seat and a tutor for your children. We are all fortunate that he allows us to continue to live here. Let us never forget that. Now, we will go on with the meal like civilized individuals. Is that clear?”