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Yes, he hadn’t yet managed to furnish her with the next generation of Harrowbys as he had stupidly promised all those years ago as a fresh-faced viscount, but he had hardly held her back either.

His mother wasn’t so much a social pariah as she was a social whirlwind.

Each time the post arrived, Guy had to wade through all her piles and piles of invitations to find his own correspondence.

He was lucky if he received two letters a week.

His mother received so many she kept the local post office in business!

“Which of the seasons did you miss, Mama?” He glanced around the dining room as if searching for one.

“Because I cannot recall a single season in my entire living memory where you have remained here and not disappeared to Mayfair for months on end. Why, I barely saw you all last spring because you insisted on attending so many soirees in town!”

“There is a big difference between attending and attending, Guy. When, as the mother of an eligible viscount, I should have been attending because of you and not in spite of you! How are you ever going to beget any heirs if you refuse to meet any equally eligible young ladies?”

“I’ll meet one in my own good time!” Guy wanted to hurl his eggs at the wall but had too much respect for all his hardworking servants to do that, so had to make do with slapping the table only hard enough that the crockery rattled. Not that his protest registered with his mother.

“This year’s crop of debutantes is particularly good.”

Debutantes!

Lord, give him strength!

As if he, a very jaded ancient with almost three decades of life and a satirical cartoon under his belt, had the patience to spend all eternity with a vapid and giggling girl of eighteen.

He hadn’t spoken to a single debutante since he’d been turned down flat by the last one and he was a very different man now from the idiotic, green milksop he had been then.

Now he knew how the world worked, and more importantly, he had grown some common sense.

Anticipating he was about to take issue with the vast difference in his “milestone” age compared to this year’s latest crop of calculating husband-hunters, his relentless mama pivoted before he could raise his own outraged finger and get the words out.

“If you’d prefer a more mature young lady, there are some promising candidates from the previous few seasons still single too.

A couple of which I would have high hopes for if you ever agreed to meet them, as they are clearly sensible and discerning young women who are waiting for the right gentleman to come along.

” As she lowered herself back into her seat, she treated him to the yearning expression of a homeless puppy.

“Young women you could meet if you’d allow me to throw a party for you in town… ”

“Mother, I—”

She cut him off with a raised palm and alarmingly watery eyes.

“You might still be in your prime, Guy, but I am not getting any younger and now that my health is in rapid decline, I will not live forever.”

“You suffer from heartburn, Mama, not heart failure.”

“Well, it often feels like more. It’s hard to tell when my poor heart is broken to begin with and hasn’t mended since your father died.” She idly rubbed her chest in the vicinity of that organ, her eyes suddenly far away. “I miss him so much.”

Guy knew that to be a fact, so reached across the tablecloth for her hand.

“We both do. He was taken too soon.” And too fast. One minute he had been a hale and hearty force of nature, until the persistent, niggly cough he had had for the better part of six months had morphed into something much more serious.

Then his seemingly infallible, larger-than-life papa had spent his last six weeks bedridden in frightening and rapid decline.

“He has left a big, gregarious hole in our lives, the wretch. I am still furious at him for leaving me like that when he had promised me faithfully that we would grow wizened together. Instead, he left me a widow at fifty.” Close to tears, his mother grabbed her teacup again as an excuse to compose herself.

For all her histrionics, she had never been one for weeping and wailing.

One small mercy, he supposed, that stopped him from strangling her.

“In the decade since, I had hoped for the welcome distraction of grandchildren by now. But alas…” She rubbed her chest again, pulling a face.

Her voice uncharacteristically small. “Such is life.” She said that as if hers really was ebbing away.

“There is still nothing whatsoever on the barren Harrowby horizon to look forward to that might keep me going.” She stared off at an imaginary horizon with a wistful but worryingly resigned expression.

Then she flapped that away. Stoically. Her forced chuckle hollower than he had ever heard it.

“With so much disappointment in my life, is it any wonder I have constant acid?”

Constant? That couldn’t be good! “I’ll summon the physician again today and—”

“There is no point, darling.” She flicked that offer away too, refusing to meet his eyes. “He is adamant there is nothing else to be done for my… condition. Beyond reducing my motherly anxieties over you, of course. He is convinced my malaise is aggravated by stress.”

“I thought Dr. Arden said that it was your overindulgence of cheese that set it off?”

“That is what I told him to tell you, dear, because I didn’t want you upset.

” The blame for all her suffering now firmly laid at his door, she sipped her tea while rubbing her chest once more for good measure, looking thoroughly pained and pale in the process.

Could one feign paleness? “Despite your lack of concern for ruining my life, I have never wanted to ruin yours. You would understand the power of parental sacrifice if you had children of your own.”

Guy was certain she was playing him like a fiddle, just as she had played him and his father all their lives with her meddling and manipulations, but the alarming ring of truth to that comment still plagued him exactly as he suspected it was supposed to.

She had protected him from his father’s dire prognosis until it could not be hidden. Which obviously made him wonder if the heartburn the physician was currently treating her for was in fact something else. Something more sinister that she was keeping from him.

But on the other hand—she had always been as sharp as a tack.

So she must have noticed the way his concerned eyes had followed her fingers to her chest where they still rubbed and, to get her way, he would not put it past her to milk his concern for all it was worth.

She might draw the line at weeping and wailing but she was a better actress than most of the lauded thespians who trod the boards on Drury Lane.

But she was unusually pale…

As if she read his mind, she martyred some more.

“Before I leave this mortal coil, I want to honor the promise I made to your father on his deathbed… that I would do everything in my power to see you happy.” A statement guaranteed to exacerbate all his new worries and smother him in guilt. “Which I have failed to do thus far.”

“Mama, I can assure you that I am quite—” And now he was talking to her palm.

“What? Bored? Restless? Unfulfilled? Miserable? Lonely?” Accusations a little too close to the bone for comfort.

“It isn’t healthy to cut your self off from people in the way that you do, my darling.

Your withdrawal from the world has become out of hand and you are a shadow of your former self.

You used to be such fun. As gregarious as your dear father but all work and no play has made Guy a very dull boy indeed. ”

“I do have an estate to run. A hundred and forty-four employees and tenants who depend on me. Papa raised me to take those responsibilities as seriously and as diligently as he always did—and I do. He taught me my strict work ethic. I learned it at his knee, and I promised him faithfully on his deathbed that he was leaving it all in safe hands.” If she was going to use his paternal guilt so shamelessly against him, then what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose.

“Or would you have me dishonor his legacy—his life’s work—by putting myself first instead? ”

Her eyes narrowed and for a moment, he took that as a sign that he had won. Edward Harrowby had been the epitome of excellence as a landowner and master. Not even his mother, who could argue pink was blue in perpetuity, could get out of that one.

“How dare you use your father’s legacy as an excuse to live like a social pariah!

” Her cup clattered to her saucer for a second time.

“Yes, he worked his fingers to the bone—but he also lived his life to the fullest! He never did anything by half measures, irrespective of whether that was getting the harvest in or being the life and soul of the party. These walls used to ring with the sound of gaiety and laughter—even when he was ill—the guest bedchambers upstairs were rarely empty and our London parties were legendary. The Harrowby Ball was the invitation of the season. Everyone came to it. The preparations for that ball, I might add, he insisted on being involved in because he adored hosting it so. He had such fun coming up with the themes. Choosing the music. The most difficult dances. The bizarre food. Causing havoc with the seating plans just to enjoy watching old foes attempt to make polite conversation or, even better, give each other the cut direct.”

A smile pulled at the corners of Guy’s mouth at those memories.

“Papa did have a warped sense of humor.” And the loudest, most inappropriate laugh.

Especially when he played a practical joke on Guy’s mother—which was often.

Almost as often as Guy had played them on her.

Back when he had been gregarious and fun.

And a blitheringly stupid romantic idiot.