“Beside the toast.” Stapleton was being petty, forcing Harmonia to either remain at home on a sunny day or take the second coach and advertise to all and sundry that Lady Champlain was a tolerated fixture in her father-in-law’s household.

“Don’t frown, Harmonia. It emphasizes your wrinkles.”

“I have dimples, not wrinkles.” Champlain had assured her of that many times.

“Whatever they are, they are unattractive. If you insist on behaving disagreeably, perhaps you ought to remove to the dower house.”

The dower house was a moldering wreck on the Yorkshire dales. The dowager marchionesses of Stapleton went there to die in peace. Harmonia had been forced to spend the entire Season at the family seat in Yorkshire, because Stapleton had decreed that Nicky ought to learn to appreciate the ancestral pile from a young age.

“During Nicky’s minority,” she said, “I am to have the use of a London property of my own, should I decide to leave Stapleton House. The settlements are quite clear on that, and so was Champlain’s will.”

Stapleton put down his knife and fork and patted his lips with his table napkin. “Shall I have the solicitors find you a house? A woman dwelling alone won’t need much space.”

Meaning, a mother forbidden to live with her son. “And what would you do for a hostess, my lord? All those political dinners don’t plan themselves, and you would have a very hard time without the gossip and rumor I collect on your behalf. As you’ve aged and become unable to manage the grouse moors and hunting parties, your reliance on my intelligence has only increased.”

Harmonia never felt so much like a whore as she did pouring out for the wives of other peers, particularly the political wives. They all played a game, exchanging opinions on fashion while subtly conveying questions about this bill or that report. A question could hide a potential concession on an important vote, while a smile might signal acquiescence in some complicated exchange of favors.

The whole tedious, fraught dance bored Harmonia witless, but political gossip was her only means of exercising any influence over Stapleton. For the sake of Nicky’s future, Harmonia would pour oceans more tea and preside over hundreds more gossipy dinners.

“I can still sit a horse, Harmonia,” Stapleton muttered, finishing his ale. “And I’ve seen enough of Yorkshire of late. I really am considering opening up the dower house. Nicholas will be ready for public school in a year or two, and your role in his life will all but end. What Champlain saw in you, I do not know.”

Nicky would not be among the poor little wretches sent off to Eton to starve and shiver his way through a brutalized childhood masquerading as an education.