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Eleanor didn’t bother to tell him to sit. She did herself, though, on the settee on the other side of Grandmama. “Then you have already forgotten that the women in my family are notorious for their ten-month pregnancies.”

“Don’t try to pull such a cheap lie.”

She was getting a headache. She shouldn’t have been surprised. “My mother told you herself. At the wedding. She told you to pamper me in the tenth month and let me lie about eating bonbons. It’s a family tradition.”

He frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“Are you sure this is your grandson?” Eleanor asked Grandmama. “How can you be certain?”

Giving her hand a pat, Grandmama grinned. “I have known him a bit longer than you, my dear. I knew him long before he let himself become soft at that school.” Then, without even drawing breath, she whipped around on her grandson and glared. “Please tell me you are not trying to accuse your wife of being unfaithful to you.”

Funny how a grown man can suddenly look like a disgruntled boy. “Why else would she make sure I was taken up by the press-gang?”

Now, even his grandmother was staring slack-jawed at him. For Charlie’s part, he sank into a chair across the room with the look of an audience watching an excellent farce.

“Press-gang?!” the old woman echoed, staring at him. “What are you talking about, press-gang?”

“Just what I said.” Finally surrendering, he rested his cane next to the couch and sat on an armchair next to her just as Jenkins bustled in with a cup of tea and handed it to her.

The countess smiled up at her butler and accepted. “Timely, Jenkins. Thank you. I fear my sensibilities have taken a shock.”

He bowed. “Indeed, my lady.”

“Do you remember Phillip?” she asked, patting the younger man’s hand. “We thought we’d lost him.”

Jenkins bowed again, even though his expression wasn’t quite sanguine. “Of course, my lady. My felicitations.”

As he backed out of the room, Grandmama turned back to…to… Eleanor couldn’t acknowledge it. She wasn’t ready.

“Now then,” Grandmama said, sipping at her tea and then setting it down. “What is this nonsense, Phillip?”

Taking a breath, he ran his hand through his now-shorn locks. “Just what I said. I was grabbed off the streets of Brighton by members of the press-gang who made it a point to tell me that my wife had been the one to point me out.”

“And you wound up in the navy? Good lord, you get seasick in a bathtub.”

His grin was wry, and Eleanor’s stomach did a surprise little flip. “I have since managed to overcome it,” he said. “One must when he spends six years at sea.”

“Yes,” the countess said, lifting her hand to run her fingers down his tanned cheek. “I can see that. But how? Why? Did they hint?”

Phillip’s attention strayed toward the back of the house where Jaimie had disappeared. Before he got a word out, his grandmother slapped his hand. “And do not try to malign your wife again. You have no idea what she has gone through these last years.”

“And the boy?”

Surprising everyone, she laughed. “You really didn’t look closely enough. Just to be certain, however, Eleanor? Why don’t we share some birthday cake with your son?”

Eleanor jumped back to her feet. “No. He’ll say something…something awful. And I can’t just give Jaimie back his father like a magic trick only to have that father hurt him. He has faced enough.”

She took another look at the countess, who nodded. “Your word, Phillip. That is a five-year-old boy in there. You will disappoint me so much if you hurt him, no matter your concerns.”

Phillip’s response was just to glare at his grandmother. Eleanor was having no more of it. She did not want anyone to overset her son. But she knew exactly what Grandmama was up to. “Say one vile thing in the presence of my son,” she warned the man who claimed he was her husband, “and I will pull the gun back out again. And this time I will bury you in the backyard.”

From his seat across the room, Charlie let out a bark of laughter. “You didn’t,” he challenged.

Her alleged husband actually flashed another grin. “She most certainly did.”

It was Grandmama’s turn to laugh as she let him help her to her feet. “I knew you had it in you, girl,” she said to Eleanor. “If he’s that monumentally stupid again, I’ll help you.”

With that, Charlie got to his feet. “I suspect I am now de trop. Will you be back tonight, Phillip?”