Page 28 of Romancing Daphne

He knocked lightly on Mother’s bedchamber door. Her lady’s maid opened it a moment later. “Good afternoon, Jenny. I’ve come to bid my mother welcome.”

Jenny nodded, pulling the door open. James stepped inside. Mother satwith her feet up on the room’s fainting couch. Her coloring was poor, evenmore so than usual. She looked up as he stepped nearer.

She held her hands out to him. He took them, then sat beside her on the couch.

“Oh, James. What a journey I had. Never have I been so thrown about in all my life.”

“I am sorry, Mother.” James didn’t at all like the redness he saw in her eyes. “You are not feverish, are you?”

“No,” she answered. “But I am exhausted. The puppy did not at all care for the carriage ride.”

“Puppy?”

She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.“I have taken in a puppy.”

Again? James had spent the better part of a fortnight searching out a home for the last pup Mother had saved from some horrific fate or other.

“He is a little terrier,” Mother continued. “The most adorable little puppy and so very well behaved. He does jump about a lot and likes to chew on things he really rather shouldn’t. And when he gets it in his head to bark,nothing can dissuade him from it. But otherwise, he is perfectly lovely.”

“A terrier, you say?”He sounds far more like a terror.

“Mrs. Allen threatened to have my little pup banished to the stables. All he’d done was chew up a leg on one of the dining room chairs. Only one leg on one chair.”

Mrs. Allen was the long-suffering housekeeper at the family’s country estate. She had endured a long line of Mother’s destructive puppies.

“I was quite distraught,” Mother said. “My poor little puppy would have been so very lonely in the stables, and Mrs. Allen would not listen tomy pleadings. You were not there to talk to her. She only listens to you.”

“I was here in Town, Mother.”

“I know, dearest. And I do not fault you for that. You are a young gentleman with social obligations. I am so happy you have found your footing in London Society. Not everyone does, you know.”

Father’s account of her disastrous attempt to find her own footing returned with force to his memory. “I do know, Mother. I know.”

“My little pup has been such a comfort this past week as I have endured a sore throat. I simply couldn’t bear to leave him behind, so he has made the journey here. I do hope he takes to Town and isn’t too miserable. But Iknow you will know precisely what is to be done.”

James nodded. He’d deal with the puppy eventually. The sore throat was the more pressing matter. Mother’s health had always been uncertain, her throat being particularly vulnerable. He would speak with an apothecary. Cook could be counted upon to provide a warm posset. As always, James would see that all was well.

“This journey must have taken a toll on your strength,” he said.“Iam certain Jenny will have a bath drawn at once, then you can rest for the remainder of the afternoon.”

Jenny made a quick curtsy and left to draw the bath. Alone at last, Jamesstruck at the topic he knew he must broach with his very sensitive mother.

“Bennett told me why you have come,” he said. “I wish you had spared yourself the effort, Mother. I would not see you ill for the world.”

“And I would not see you unhappy for the world,” Mother answered. “I needed to see for myself that you are making a wise choice in courting this young lady. I need to know you are happy.”

“Father was a bit hasty in his letter,” James said. “There is no understanding between Miss Lancaster and myself, no determined course for ourfuture. I am coming to know her, and Father, in his eagerness for a beneficial match, has chosen to interpret that as something just shy of a betrothal.”

He left unspoken his obligation to move in that direction. Mother worried greatly over even the smallest of things. He had learned long ago not to burden her with his troubles.

“Your father said he meant to invite her family to take dinner with us,” Mother said.

It was the first James had heard of this plan. “I shall have to ask Father about that,” he muttered.

“How did you meet this Miss Lancaster?” Mother asked. “You haven’t mentioned her before.”

“I have a very slight acquaintance with her brother-in-law.” James intended to do his utmost not to be any less forthright than was necessary. “I had met her briefly on a few occasions before. This is her first Seasonand the first time I have spent any length of time with her.”

Mother’s brow drew inward. “Do you like her?”

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