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The sound of an object smacking wood rang out. At least Fletcher hoped it was wood and not poor Wofford.

“Move aside, you great buffoon.” A familiar strident female voice echoed along the corridor and filtered into the salon. “I already told you. I shan’t be turned aside by a mere servant. I mean to see my son.”

Fletcher’s Mother’s voice rose in pitch and volume, and he winced inwardly.

God save him.

“Rayne…?”

Before he could warn her, his mother, resplendent in a violet-and-black walking gown with matching slippers and bonnet, cruised into the room like a schooner in full sail.

Was that another new gown?

After he’d explicitly warned her to curtail her reckless spending? Damn my eyes. The woman refused to listen or consider anyone else’s wishes but her own.

Her green-blue eyes, so like his own, narrowed to unbecoming, wrathful slits. The movement pleated the corners and displayed ever-deepening creases, resembling a folded fan. Her nose quivered in well-controlled rage as she took in Rayne’s hand in his.

Bloody hell.

Instead of letting go, Rayne tightened her fingers around Fletcher’s and jutted her adorable chin out at an endearingly mulish angle.

Had his overbearing mother at last met her match in this sweet lass?

“What is the meaning of this, Kincade?” Mother pinned her flinty, censorious glare upon Rayne and stabbed her parasol in their general direction. “Who, might I ask, is this chit?”

Ask all ye want, but I dinna have to answer ye.