He nodded to her. She was some kind of distant cousin. Harriet? Henrietta? He couldn’t remember her name. His mother changed her companions so often it was hard to keep up. They all started off devoted, but after a few months, they became “impossible” and Hart was instructed to pension them off.

The companion produced a number of little bottles and vials and arranged them on a small table next to his mother’s chair. Smelling salts, hartshorn, feathers for burning, and various potions guaranteed to revive the feeblest invalid: Mother’s battery of armaments.

Not that his mother was an invalid. The Duchess of Everingham was said by some to enjoy ill health. Hart would have said that far from enjoying it, his mother positively relished it. As far as he was concerned, she was as strong as a horse.

The medicines were there purely as a silent warning that any opposition to his mother’s wishes would have dire, possibly fatal consequences. He’d learned that lesson young.

The companion pulled a shawl from the seemingly bottomless reticule and arranged it around his mother’s knees. Her grace had a horror of drafts.

“Oh, stop fussing, Hester.” His mother kicked impatiently at the shawl. “Go. Leave us. I wish to talk to my son.”

Handing a dainty crystal vial—probably smelling salts—to his mother, Hester turned to Hart and said in an undervoice, “Try not to upset her, your grace. She’s feeling very poorly today.”

When was she not? Particularly when she wanted something. But he didn’t say it aloud. He glanced at the doorway where his butler still hovered. “Tea and cakes, Fleming.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly,” his mother said. “Just a little barley water. With honey and a slice of lemon. And perhaps a rusk. I need to keep up my strength, such as it is.”

Fleming bowed and left, taking the companion with him. Silence fell. Hart turned back to his correspondence. His mother sighed. He kept writing.

“I miss this house so much.”

Hart ignored her. All his life his mother had complained about the inconvenience and old-fashioned furniture of Everingham House, saying it was too big, too grim and too cold. His late father had spent a fortune trying to please her, but nothing ever did.

Papa had never learned that lesson. Hart had.

Several years ago he’d finally given in to her complaints and bought her a pretty house just around the corner that was smaller, lighter, warmer and more modern. She’d had it entirely redecorated, and happily moved in, all the while confiding sadly to her friends that her son had callously thrust his mother from her family home.