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father and I was, and continue to be, very happy with my decision,” she said, giving him a rather impatient look.
    She did not sound very happy with her decision. She always called him Kit when she was impatient with him. He had learned early in life that the best way to manage things was to embrace the situation and run with it; he had taken the name Kit and embraced it, telling everyone he met that is what he preferred being called. He had found the Harlow family and thrown himself into their midst, leaving his mother little choice but to follow him. He had found Emeline, the only sister in a tangle of brothers, and he had joined that tangle, becoming yet another brother to her.
    Sometimes, things learned early in life did not stand the test of time.
    “I think Lady Eleanor is too young to marry,” he said, thinking of Emeline. They were the same age, weren’t they?
    “If she is Out, then she is not too young to marry. Surely her father, the marquis, is responsible for decisions of that sort.”
    The Marquis of Melverley, the dissolute and debauched Marquis of Melverley. “You know of Melverley?” he asked.
    His mother stood up, her skirts barely moving as she walked to the front window. The house was well-appointed, well-situated, and had the unusual feature of a bright red door in a veritable ocean of black lacquer London doors. He had come to rather enjoy that red door.
    “I know he is a peer. I know he has a marriageable daughter. I know that we shall never meet as we don’t travel in the same social set. What more is there for me to know?”
    She sounded quite chilly. It was nothing to him. Mrs. Harlow sounding chilly was a veritable blizzard in comparison.
    “I should think you might be concerned that Emeline, now that she has been taken under Lady Eleanor’s wing, as you imply, will be traveling in Melverley’s social set. I, for one, am alarmed by the prospect. You and I both know that Emeline is a country girl and no match for the sophisticated life Eleanor Kirkland has lived. How is Emeline to manage in such company?” he said, coming to stand next to his mother at the window, studying her profile in the waning light.
    “That is for Mrs. Harlow to manage,” she said.
    “Emeline is like a sister to me,” he said, meaning it and knowing he was lying as he said the words. “I feel as responsible for her as if I were a male relative.”
    “Do you?”
    “Naturally.”
    His mother turned to face him, the light from the street highlighting the faint lines around her eyes and down her throat. His mother was a fine looking woman of middle years, her hair not yet gone gray, her eyesight not yet dimmed by needlework. His mother detested needlework.
    “I do not believe you have any cause for concern, Christopher,” she said. “I think it highly unlikely that Emeline will make a match this Season. I also think that Mrs. Harlow knows exactly what she’s about in encouraging the connection between Emeline and Lady Eleanor. The benefits to such a connection, however tenuous, simply must be pursued. As to connections, how did you find Lord Raithby?”
    Kit responded to the question as if he’d been slapped. “You believe I think well of Raithby for the value of his exalted social connections?”
    “I think no such thing,” she said, walking away from the window to take a seat upon the small sofa facing the fireplace. The sofa was done up in pale green brocade. The fireplace was done up in pale pink marble. “I think you too fine a man to foster friendships for such an obvious cause. I do, however, think that, as you and Lord Raithby are friends, that he may, in the course of your friendship, introduce you to a wider array of acquaintances.”
    “You make it sound quite innocent.”
    He did not sit. He stood over her, feeling quite adversarial.
    “It is quite innocent. How else does one get about in the world except by social connections? Really, Kit, you would look for conspiracies under