“Fancy meeting your fiancée at someone else’s ball!” she cried. His mother always cried. In fact, she even whispered in exclamation points.
“I wasn’t aware that you were hosting a ball this Season. Has that changed? What are your ideas this year?” It was his only hope: distract her with her plans, her ideas, her anything but him. Or Mellie.
Sadly, she wasn’t completely stupid. And she’d set her sights on his fiancée.
“You are the most unnatural of sons! To think that I had to wait to meet this dear woman!” She reached out to Mellie. “Come, my dear, let us converse without—”
“Oh no!” Damnation, now she had him talking in dramatic accents. “Mother, Mellie and I are about to dance. You cannot drag her away now.”
“Drag her away? Drag her away! How you think!”
Which was a sure sign that she had absolutely intended to drag Mellie aside and eviscerate her somehow.
“Mother—”
“You must tell me, Miss Smithson, how you managed to trap my son! All the ladies—”
“Mother!”
His mother blinked innocently at him.
“She did not trap me. We are in love.”
She patted his cheek. Like he was still in short coats, she patted his cheek and then made it worse by leaning forward to kiss him. He couldn’t back away without appearing completely obnoxious—not that he didn’t consider it—but he knew his duty. He stood still as she condescended to him in front of the entireton. Then when she finally straightened, she turned a dazzling smile on Mellie.
“Trevor has always been prone to wild flights of fancy.”
“Really?” Mellie interrupted. “I’ve found his mind to be extremely logical. His scientific papers are very sound, especially his Elementary Histological Study of Sheep—”
“Good God, don’t say that in public!” his mother gasped.
Mellie looked taken aback, but no more than he. She’d read his paper? She thought it very sound? Damn, but she was a smart woman. Sadly, that had little impact on his mother.
“We should have met earlier,” his mother said with a dramatic sigh. “That way I could have educated you on polite discourse.”
Then the delightful Mellie tilted her head and looked politely confused. “Which word do you object to? Elementary? Sheep? Histological—”
“Don’t say it!”
“—means relating to tissue.”
His mother puffed herself up as large as the woman could make herself, which given that she was of slightly above average height was merely…puffy. Then she deflated with an exhausted sigh. “My dear, if you are to be my daughter-in-law, I insist you come to me for lessons. Tomorrow afternoon. We need at least four days of education before Trevor’s tea party.”
His mother then nodded as if that settled things, but Mellie simply frowned at him. “Are you having a tea party?”
He shook his head slowly, knowing better than to argue, but doomed to say the truth nonetheless. “I am not aware of a party.”
“Of course you aren’t!” his mother cried, heaving her admittedly way above average bosom. “It’s because you refuse to read my correspondence. I have been trying and trying to gain your attention since the announcement in the paper. And to think that is how you treat your own mother!” She turned to Mellie. “I must warn you now because your blessed mother cannot: if you wish to know how a man will treat you after you’re married, just look to how he responds to his mother.” She pressed a handkerchief to her lip. “You are doomed, my dear. Doomed to a forgotten and neglected—”
“I should be happy to attend Trevor’s tea party,” Mellie said, smiling up at him.
Oh damn. Not the thing to say, but she didn’t know that. Because his mother would take that one small admission and run with it until it spiraled out of control. “Er, Mellie—”
“Excellent!” his mother cried, clapping her hands. “Thursday afternoon. All the important people already know, but invitations will be sent tomorrow. It will be so much fun! Really, the event of the season. I think I shall set my butler to catching crickets in your honor.”
“God, Mother—” Trevor began, but the woman just kept talking.
“Come tomorrow precisely at two. Invitations and the like don’t write themselves. And we must discuss your dress. I’m sure feathers are all the rage in Russia, but we can’t have you trailing the things around. The dogs will eat them and then…”