"I shall see what I can arrange," he said.
"Will you, Mama?" Dark and pleading eyes gazed up at her from beneath soft auburn curls.
"Will you, Judith?" Lord Denbigh's eyes smiled into hers. "Will you make it unanimous? It is already three against one."
“One thing I have noticed about you from the start,'' she said, "is that you will quite unscrupulously get to me through my children."
"Guilty," he said.
"And it works every time," she said.
"Does it?"
"Yes."
"This time too?"
"Yes."
"You will marry me?"
She smiled broadly at him.
He sighed. "Kate," he said. "Stand back if you will. And watch carefully. This is going to happen to you one day. And you watch too, Rupert, my lad. You are going to have to do this one of these fine days. I am about to get down on one knee to propose to your mama."
"My Christmas beau," Judith said fondly, smiling down at him as he suited action to words.