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“Could it be that I merely wanted to see my favorite grandson?”

“I am your only grandson.”

“Details.” Euphemia made herself comfortable.

James sat across from her and studied her. He let his body relax on the soft chair and stretched out his long legs in front of him.

She was nervous, and he was ready to alleviate her stress when another knock sounded at the door and a servant bearing a tea tray walked in.

James sprang into action and served his grandmother, who watched him with a mix of pride, love and guilt.

Whatever she was here for was going to spoil his mood, and she wasn’t in a hurry. He grabbed the decanter and poured himself a measure of whiskey. He would need alcohol to face whatever brought Euphemia Bolton to his study at this hour.

They drank quietly for a while, the crackling of the fire the only sound in the room.

“So, Grandmother.” He smiled. “What it is you wanted to tell me?”

Euphemia looked at him over her cup. James nodded. They had an understanding.

“Your father wants to re-enter Society.”

James downed his drink.

“Lord Ashford is an old friend of his, and when he found out he was back in London, he extended a personal invitation to Solomon for the ball.”

“And he thinks it’s a good idea to accept it?”

James’s voice was icy, and Euphemia was not going to pretend that she didn’t hear the strain in it.

“It would be good for him to get back to normal.”

“Normal?” James chuckled. “I think we have all forgotten what normal is.”

“You are being cruel, my boy.”

James tapped his fingers on his glass once before he set it down with deliberate care. His grandmother’s words hung in the air between them, thick and heavy, pressing against something deep in his chest that he had no desire to examine.

“No less cruel than what was done to me,” he said sharply.

Again, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire.

“What happened was indeed cruel, James,” his grandmother acknowledged in a soft voice. “You lost the woman you loved most, a mother who was a rare jewel, one who truly and deeply loved you and your father.”

James got up and refilled his glass. It’d been years, but the pain flared anew each time memories of his mother flooded him. He was three-and-ten when she died. He had full recollections of her, all of them fond and soft and warm. There were times when he wished he had never met his mother, when he wished he had lost her younger, but his memories of her were the most precious thing in his life.

“But to lose your father on top of that…” Euphemia trailed off.

“I didn’t lose him.” James stood up and started pacing to tamp down his anger. “Hechoseto abandon me.”

“James.” His grandmother looked at him with tearful eyes. “You are not the only one who lost her.”

“I was a boy!”

Euphemia leaned back. Not out of fear, but resignation to the truth of his words.

“I am not asking you to forgive him. That is between him and you. But he wants to go to the ball, James. But we all know he might not be ready for that. The ton can be?—”

“Cruel?” James cut in, conveying that he hadn’t forgotten about her accusation.