How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,40

Stapleton to die.

How was it Harmonia could miss such a frivolous, self-indulgent husband more each year? She aimed a smile at the liveried footman standing at the sideboard—Wilbur, and a lovely fellow he was too—and Wilbur set the toast rack at the marquess’s elbow.

“I can ask de Beauharnais to take on a second commission,” she said, “of me and Nicky, but I am having my own portrait done first.”

Stapleton looked up from his steak. “You aren’t exactly in the first blush of youth, Harmonia. Why memorialize the ravages of time?”

When the marquess peered down his nose like that, he looked like an arrogant ferret. “I am barely six-and-twenty, sir. You are twice my age, and you had your portrait done last year.” De Beauharnais had pronounced the result flattering and workmanlike, for he was too much of a gentleman to criticize a fellow artist.

Endymion was nothing if not diplomatic, which was why Harmonia—who was closer to eight-and-twenty, truth be told—wanted him doing her portrait. That, and he doubtless needed the money.

“I could remarry,” Harmonia said, pouring herself a second cup of chocolate. She ought not to indulge—her dresses were still larger than they’d been before she’d carried Nicky—but joys in her life were few, and a cup of hot chocolate was prominent among them.

“Remarry?” Stapleton chewed his steak. “Yes, I suppose you could. Remarry whomever and wherever you please, in fact. Marry an American. They’re a lusty bunch, I’m told. The boy stays with me, though. The boy will always stay with me.”

Stapleton’s authority over Nicky was not quite absolute. Champlain, bless him for an occasional flash of rebellion, had proclaimed before witnesses that Nicky was to grow up under his mother’s loving guidance, and in her household. He’d specified in his will that during Nicky’s minority, Harmonia was to have a London residence if she so desired, but he’d failed to spell out details other than that. Stapleton was the child’s guardian, and thus Stapleton held the legal reins.

Harmonia loved her son to distraction, but much more of Stapleton’s dismissiveness and meddling and she would be tempted to do Papa-in-Law an injury.

“I’m taking the carriage out this afternoon,” she said. The weather was still fine enough to enjoy a day of shopping and paying calls.

“No, you are not. I have committee meetings to attend. Where’s the butter?”

“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