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“That’s all right, Harriet,” said Mrs. Finch. “You go and get your things.” She beamed up at Jack.
“I think, Mama, that we might…”
“We will have a chat while you do that,” interrupted the older woman.
Jack was careful to show no reaction as Harriet frowned, then turned and went out.
“Do sit down, Lord Ferrington.”
He did so.
“I’m so happy you will be joining our family.”
She sounded sincere and kind, which made a nice change. Jack looked at her closely for the first time, this small, brown-haired woman who didn’t much resemble her daughter. She was more like her father, Winstead, he realized, though without the man’s glower and choleric temper. He had thought of her as plump, but she wasn’t. In fact, she looked wan and quite weary. Jack wondered if she’d been ill. “Thank you, Mrs. Finch,” he said.
“Oh, you must call me…” She cocked her head like a sparrow. “Now, what shall you call me?”
He caught a glint of humor in her tired eyes.
“Mama-in-law perhaps,” she went on. “Nothing that would offend your own mother.”
Jack remembered Lady Wilton’s searing disapproval of his lineage. And then he thought of his feisty, red-haired mother. She would have been offended by many things he’d encountered since coming to England but not by Mrs. Finch.
“Will she be coming over for the wedding?” that lady asked.
Fleetingly he thought she meant Lady Wilton. But of course, she was referring to Mam. “She died several years ago.”
“Oh, I am so sorry.” She leaned over to press his hand briefly.
The warmth in her voice and the touch of a sympathetic hand moved Jack. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. He thought he heard a sound in the corridor, but no one appeared. “I could call you Milady Mother,” he suggested. “Or what about Materfamilias?”
***
Standing outside the open parlor door, Harriet listened to her mother laugh. It was a sound she hadn’t heard for some time.
“Is that Latin?” Mama asked the rogue earl.
“Yes, it means the female head of the family.”
The fact that he knew Latin struck Harriet as another deception. She remembered the ridiculous accent he’d put on for the duke. Had Ferrington been laughing at them the whole time?
“Oh, that name would not be proper for me then,” replied her mother.
“No? You must educate me in English proprieties.”
“I didn’t mean… It is just that I am not… Our family does not…”
“I’m sure you can tell me just how to go on,” said their visitor, interrupting Mama’s fumbles. He sounded warm and encouraging. Harriet was struck by his gentle tone.
“Oh, no. I have been living quite out of the fashionable world for many years.”
“Not as out of it as I was.”
“Over in America.”
“Yes. Where my father was sent.”
From the corridor, Harriet heard a sound rather like a snort. It took her an instant to realize her mother had made it. “I’ve heard Lady Wilton tell that tale,” Mama said. “I found her actions absolutely unforgivable!”
