She smiled. “Tell me about your meeting with Lady Katherine, in her bedchamber.”
He didn’t have to wonder where he’d honed his negotiation skills. Clearly, it was at the duchess’s knee. “You make it sound like some lurid novel. My purpose was not to ravish her.”
“I should hope not. I did not raise you to ravish women—unless they ask nicely, of course.”
Henry wondered if he could send for Mrs. Murray to put him to bed. His head had begun to ache.
“Don’t look like that, Henry. I am two and fifty. That may seem elderly to you, but I assure you it’s not so old that I don’t have an appetite for—”
“No!” Henry covered his ears. “You do not exist below the neck.”
His mother rolled her eyes, then motioned for him to lower his arms. “Did you at least kiss her?”
“No! What do you take me for? I’m no rake.”
“I don’t know what’s worse—a rake or a gambler for a son.”
“Well, at least I don’t have the pox.”
“A point in your favor, Henry. It’s too bad, though. That gel needs kissing. I’ll wager she’s never been kissed.”
Henry’s heart sped up slightly at the wordwager, but he tamped down his excitement. Controlling his impulse to gamble was becoming harder and harder by the day. “I wouldn’t take that wager even if I were still a gambling man. I don’t wager on young women’s virtue, and I know a losing bet when I see it. She has not been kissed. No doubt at all.”
“You should do it.”
“No, I should not.” Henry supposed he should be shocked by his mother’s conversation, but she’d always spoken her mind, controversial as it might be. He supposed that was because she was the daughter of an earl who had married a duke. Who was to tell her what to say? Still, he did have his own boundaries, and discussing his romantic preferences with his mother was one of them.
“Don’t tell me you are put off by her birthmark,” his mother said.
“I don’t want to examine this with you, Mama. I’m not put off by anything about the lady except that she’s the daughter of my enemy and hates me with the fire of a thousand suns.”
His mother nodded, seeming to consider as the maid brought in the tea tray and another tray laden with sandwiches. Henry took one in each hand.
“When you kiss her, call herKatie.”
Henry coughed, all but choking on his sandwich.
“I have heard that is what her friends and family call her.”
Henry swallowed. “I will not be kissing her or referring to her by pet names. I am meeting her in the library late tonight when we will not be disturbed, and she can explain why her father hates me.”
“Good. We will finally have some answers. That is, if she knows and deigns to tell you.”
“She knows something, and I think she’ll tell me just to get rid of me.” He took another sandwich. He had to return this conversation to neutral ground. “What were you saying about a fiasco?”
“Ah. Just some gossip I heard from my lady’s maid, who heard it from the staff at Carlisle Hall. A handful of the servants there came with Lady Katherine from Town.”
“I always forget how much servants know about the lives of the people they serve. I suppose that’s how you know she’s calledKatie.”
“Mmm-hmm. Do you want tea?”
“Not particularly, thank you. The fiasco?”
His mother took her time pouring her own cup of tea and doctoring it the way she liked. Then she sat back and eyed him over the rim. The ruby glinted at her throat, giving her an almost calculated look. And she was calculating. Any woman who had been a duchess for more than five minutes knew something about how to manage people and society. Georgiana Lewis had been a duchess much longer than five minutes.
“Apparently, Lady Katherine’s last companion was let go quite abruptly and without references.”
Useful information. “Why?”
