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can send a bank draft along with the bonnet.”
    The viscountess scowled. “This one is for closer to home.”
    “The church bazaar? I thought that was just past. Of course, no reason you cannot work ahead.”
    “It’s for your infant, you gossoon! At the rate you are going, my fingers will be too stiff with the arthritics to see the boy dressed according to his station.”
    “With flowers?”
    She held the fabric out to him and, unthinking, Chas reached out with his splinted arm. The other, after all, held his coffee. It had, at any rate. No matter that his biscuit pantaloons were ruined, or that his privates were so scalded he might never be able to father a child at all, or that his injured wrist was flinging fireballs of hurt through his lordship’s eyeballs, a drop of coffee had landed on the baby bonnet.
    Lady Ashmead screamed as if she’d been the one boiled alive. She kept screaming while footmen rushed into the room. “So that’s what you think of me and all my efforts on your behalf. Nothing I do is good enough for you, and you never listen to my advice. All I have ever wanted is my children’s happiness, and this is the thanks I get!” She stalked out in a cloud of spilled threads, scattered needles, and scowling servants, knowing they’d be the ones to suffer now that her nibs was in a snit.
    While the footmen worked around him, Chas contemplated the tiny garment he still held. Could an infant truly be so small that its head fit in this scrap of cloth that was almost lost in his hand? He turned it so he could see the intricate needlework on the bonnet’s brim. Those flowers were the roses of the family crest, by Jupiter. What a heavy weight for such a poor little mite to be born carrying... if he was ever born at all.
    * * * *
    It took the staff a few anxious hours to restore the viscount and baby bonnet. The little cap was soaked, soaped,sponged, and pressed, and looked as good as new. The viscount looked only slightly worse than he had before. By lunchtime, however, he was actually hungry, and able to present the pristine bonnet to his mother.
    At least the viscount’s knees were not injured; he could still grovel for the sake of domestic harmony. “I do appreciate your efforts, Mother, and I swear to try to be a more dutiful son.”
    Lady Ashmead tossed the cap aside in her eagerness. “Then you’ll let me speak to the Westlake chit about a betrothal?”
    “Zeus, no.” Chas wasn’t that repentant. “Ada and I have agreed to remain friends, nothing more.”
    The viscountess bit into her veal pie with gusto. “Good.”
    Chas was being more cautious about his meal. He put down the buttered roll and repeated, “Good? I thought your life’s mission was to see me in parson’s mousetrap.”
    “Do not be vulgar, Charles. I wish to see you wed, naturally. What mother wouldn’t, especially when there is the question of a succession? But I am quite pleased you have decided not to pursue that particular connection.”
    Chas lost his appetite again. “Oh?”
    “Yes, I cannot like the blood in that family, you know. The gamester baronet, now that hey-go-mad youngster with no sense of responsibility to his family name. That impossible Lady Westlake who is forever acting above herself.”
    “I don’t think you can blame Jane Johnstone on the Westlake blood, Mother.”
    “Sir Rodney married her, didn’t he? Bad taste, bad blood, it’s all the same. You wouldn’t want that greedy female hanging on your sleeve, anyway, and you can rest assured she would be if you wed the sister-in-law. Then there is Tess, of course.”
    “I am quite fond of Tess, ma’am,” Chas said in a tone of voice seldom heard by his mother.
    “As I am fond of organ-grinders’ monkeys. That does not mean I would enjoy having one in the family. I should not like having a grandson who believes he is the reincarnation of some dead Austrian composer.”
    “I believe it is a dead Italian sculptor this week, but I could be