“What is this I hear about Mr. Gladstone refusing to let his cabinet participate in the drafting of the Home Rule bill?” asked the dowager duchess.
She was a matron of the most distinguished appearance, her hair a perfect silver, her black dinner gown the best Japanese silk, and her diamond necklace worth possibly the price of Stuart’s entire house. She was also that rare woman who became more handsome as she aged. The uncharitable might attribute that to her having never been a beauty, but Stuart, who admired the dowager duchess, felt it to be due to her fine intellect, her iron will, and her leonine grace, qualities too often overlooked in a younger woman in favor of a pair of sparkling eyes and a smooth pink cheek.
“I’m afraid your intelligence is as good as mine, Madame,” said Stuart. “And it’s not only the cabinet that has been excluded, but the Irish MPs too.”
Tin shook his head. “Has he learned nothing from the debacle of eighty-six?”
Stuart voiced no judgment. The opening of parliament was still two months in the future, the first reading of the Irish Home Rule bill even further away, but already dissent brewed in the ranks—hardly an auspicious sign.
“What does the cabinet propose to do?” asked the dowager duchess.
“Persuade Mr. Gladstone to agree to a consultation, if we could. And if we cannot, then get our hands on the finished bill as soon as possible.”
The dowager duchess accepted a dish of Bavarian cream from her footman. “Anything that concerns you particularly?”
The entire matter concerned Stuart deeply, for it was his responsibility to shepherd the bill through the lower house. Serious flaws in the bill would make its passage an even greater uphill battle than it already promised to be.
“The money, Madame, always the money,” he said.
How much would everything cost? What was to be Ireland’s contribution to the Imperial Exchequer? Dared he hope that Mr. Gladstone’s calculations contained no mistakes when there was no one to check the Grand Old Man’s work?
The dowager duchess smiled slightly. “Of course, the money.”
Stuart took a spoonful of his serving of Bavarian cream. Like the rest of the meal, it was good, but far from divine. The dowager duchess prided herself on having the best of everything. He wondered how she’d react when she realized that Stuart now had the best private cook in England.
Almost as if she’d heard his thought, Her Grace said, “There is word in town that you’ve inherited your late brother’s cook, Mr. Somerset.”
“I have.”
“A problematic woman, from what I’ve heard.”
It didn’t surprise Stuart that the dowager duchess would know about Madame Durant. But it did surprise him that she’d speak of her. The dowager duchess was not a loquacious woman and rarely conversed on frivolous topics. He’d have thought the subject of Bertie’s cook to be quite beneath her. “She is not the perfect servant, but her food is good enough for the queen and the pope. For that I’m willing to tolerate an artistic temperament.”
The dowager duchess took a sip of her sauterne. When she spoke again, it was to ask him about legislative matters that he planned to have out of the way before the first reading of the Irish Home Rule bill.
But later, at the conclusion of dinner, as she rose to withdraw, she called Stuart to follow her. He glanced at Tin. Tin shrugged. His mother did as she pleased. Stuart caught up with the dowager duchess outside the dining room—she was waiting for him.
“There is something you should know about your cook,” she said.
Again his cook? “You speak of Madame Durant, Madame?”
“Ten years ago, your brother came close to marrying her.”
Stuart said nothing. He was shocked.
“I cannot divulge my source, but you may trust me that it is reliable.” The duchess had a brief, ironic smile that faded into a moment of harsh void. Then her expression was once again astute and elegant.
“I see,” said Stuart.
“Your brother had one of the best tables in all of England. So I understand that you’ve come into quite an asset in acquiring his cook. But I advise you to be leery of having such a woman in your household.”
“Thank you, Madame. I shall proceed with extreme prejudice.”
She nodded and withdrew.
For most of his trip home, Stuart was preoccupied with the dowager duchess’s revelation, that Bertie had come close to marrying Madame Durant. It was only as the carriage turned onto Cambury Lane that he began to assess what precisely Her Grace had been trying to warn him away from. It was not as if he would marry Madame Durant, under any circumstances.
He was not Bertie. Bertie’s ancestry could not be challenged. Bertie could marry down and remain every inch the gentleman. Stuart, who must prove at each turn that all the commonness of his mother’s blood had been eradicated from him, could only marry up—as in the case of Lizzy, whose maternal grandfather had been a viscount.