In the morning, he rose early and went for a bruising ride with his friend, Lord Perry Cavendish. He’d been stuck in Town for months, and it was good to get out into the country. Thankfully it wouldn’t be for much longer. In fact, he planned to be on his way to Winterbourne Abbey on the morrow, and to avoid coming back to Town for a good long while.
After a hearty gallop, Lysander and Perry partook of kippers and ale in their favourite inn, then drove Perry’s curricle out along the Brighton Road to watch a boxing match being held in an open field.
A quantity of ale was consumed—mainly by Perry—and they were very lucky he didn’t overturn his curricle on the way back to Town. By the time Lysander rolled back home, it was almost six o’clock.
“His Lordship has asked that you attend him in Her Ladyship’s private drawing room,” Quincy, his father’s humourless butler, informed Lysander. He delivered the news in a doom-laden tone, as though the purpose of Lysander’s father’s request was to deliver some terrible news, but Lysander had known old Quince for too many years to worry much about that.
When he entered the sitting room, it was to find his mother, Lady Jemima, reclining on a chaise longue, reading a novel, while his father sat, somewhat incongruously, at his wife’s dainty escritoire, reading a letter, a frown on his face.
They both looked up at Lysander’s entrance.
Lady Jemima, who at one-and-fifty was still beautiful, albeit somewhat rounder than the willowy subject of the portrait on the wall behind her, smiled warmly at him. He was her favourite child, the youngest of the family. Lord Winterbourne hadn’t worn quite so well as his wife. Too many good dinners were stretching the limits of his plum-coloured waistcoat, and the blue eyes Lysander had inherited were rheumy from too many brandy-fuelled late nights at the tables.
“Lysander, darling,” Lady Jemima said, putting down her book. An inveterately lazy woman, she made no move to rise but merely held her hands out, and Lysander stepped forward to take them, bending his head to press a quick kiss to each set of fine knuckles.
“Mama,” he said. “You look lovely today.”
It wasn’t a lie, and besides, she loved compliments. His words made her beam with pleasure.
“Thank you, darling. Have you had a nice day? How is dear little Perry? Did he mention his mother? It’s simply years since I’ve seen Annabelle Cavendish.”
Lysander chuckled. “‘ Dear little Perry’ is six foot two and weighs fourteen stone, Mama. And it’s difficult to get more than a grunt out of him, never mind news of his mother.”
Lady Jemima looked surprised. “Really? It doesn’t seem so very long since the two of you nearly set the stables at Winterbourne Abbey on fire.”
“For goodness sake, Mimi,” Lord Winterbourne sighed. “That was ten years ago.”
Lady Jemima looked comically surprised.
“Quince told me you wanted to talk to me,” Lysander said to the earl, taking the chair next to the escritoire and stretching out his long legs. “Was it something in particular?”
“Ah,” said Lord Winterbourne. He cleared his throat. “Yes, it is rather.”
He sounded so serious that Lysander was struck by a sudden worry that this was going to be a repeat of their discussion from last week. Recently his father had taken it into his head that Lysander needed to be settled in life. His eldest brother Alexander would inherit the title—for what it was worth these days—and Hector was in the army. Lysander was the only one of the Winterbourne boys who lacked a neatly mapped-out future—though not for want of ideas on his part. He wanted nothing more than to help manage the estate he’d grown up on and had firmly told his father so last week.
In response, the earl had raised the prospect of Lysander taking orders in the Church of England. When Lysander had protested that he had no calling whatsoever, his father had waved his objections away—who needed a vocation to join the Church of England? Especially when one’s cousin Henry (once removed) was a bishop? But Lysander had argued and begged and cajoled and pleaded until, eventually, his father had reluctantly agreed to allow Lysander to return to Winterbourne Abbey and to try out working with Mr. Holmes, the estate manager. And finally, tomorrow, Lysander was due to leave.
“I need your assistance with something,” the earl said. “It won’t take more than a day or two.”
Lysander’s immediate reaction to those words was a wary sort of relief. This didn’t sound like a repeat of their last conversation at any rate.
“Oh yes?”
“It’s nothing difficult,” the earl went on in an airy tone. “I’d just like you to spend a day or two with Mr. Freeman. Show him around Town a little. Help him get a bit more comfortable in Society.”
For a moment, Lysander just stared at his father, trying to make sense of what the man had just said.
“Simon?” he asked, puzzled. “Why would he need showing around?”
Simon Freeman had become engaged to Lysander’s sister Althea two months before. The earl had been part horrified, part delighted by the match. On the one hand, as the son of a mill owner, Simon Freeman was tainted by commerce and was a humiliatingly low match for Lord Winterbourne’s eldest daughter—the earldom was four hundred years old after all, and Lysander’s mother’s ancestors had come to England with William the Conqueror. On the other hand, Simon’s family was outrageously wealthy, and the earl needed money desperately. Before Simon had come along, he’d even been considering selling the Abbey.
It wasn’t going to be a one-sided bargain. Simon had political ambitions. Marriage into the Winterbourne clan would considerably smooth his entry to the inner circles of political power.
“No, not Simon.” The earl sighed impatiently. “He hardly needs anyone to show him around—no, I mean his brother, Adam Freeman. He’s come to Town for a few weeks.” The earl grimaced. “Unfortunately, he’s staying on till May for the wedding.”
Lysander blinked, trying to remember what he’d heard about Adam Freeman. He was Simon’s older brother and the head of the Freeman family. It was Adam who held the purse strings, not Simon. Simon might be independently wealthy thanks to a generous settlement in his late father’s will, but Adam was the one who had taken over the running of his father’s businesses and who continued to grow the Freeman empire. And crucially, it was Adam who’d bought out the mortgages over the earl’s estates and cleared his towering pile of debts. The earl had complained bitterly of the unpleasant afternoon he’d recently had to spend with the man, going through them all.
“Insufferable money-grubber,” he’d said. “You should’ve seen how much he enjoyed rubbing my nose in it.”
And now he wanted Lysander to squire the man around?
“Well?” the earl prompted, interrupting Lysander’s tumbling thoughts.
“I thought we were agreed that I could go back to the Abbey for a few months?” Lysander answered carefully. “I was planning on leaving tomorrow. Holmes and I were going to sit down together on Friday to discuss some of the alterations that are needed to the dairy and what can be done about improving the tenants’ cottages—now that we’ve got some funds, I mean.”
Funds from Adam Freeman, that was.
The earl’s lips thinned with displeasure. “Well, that was before Simon asked that you show his brother around. Keeping Freeman happy is rather more important than mending a few cottages, Lysander.” He turned back to the papers on the desk and began to fiddle with them. “Besides, on reflection, I think it best that you—well, step back from estate business.”
For a few long beats, Lysander just stared at his father in silence, his heart beginning to pound, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.
“What do you mean?” he said at last, hating the break he heard in his own voice. The unmistakable edge of disappointment. “Father, I—I don’t understand. I thought we agreed that I would work with Holmes for a few months, start learning how to manage the estate—”
“Yes, well, I’ve been reflecting on that, and I’ve co
me to the view that I should never have agreed to such a plan,” the earl said. He kept his gaze averted, refusing to meeting Lysander’s eyes. “Ultimately, the Abbey’s going to Alexander. He’s the one who needs to learn to look after it.”
“But he’s not interested!”
Alexander was just like their father—he’d squander everything at the tables, and it would all go to rack and ruin if someone else didn’t manage the place—preferably someone with the ability to put their foot down with Alexander from time to time.
“Nevertheless,” the earl bit out, “Alexander is—”
“I don’t want to be in charge, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Lysander interrupted desperately. He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, trying to catch his father’s eye, but the earl kept his gaze stubbornly averted. “I don’t mind just managing the estate for Alexander!”
“It’s not that,” the earl snapped. “The point is this: your brother is the heir. He will deal with the estate as he sees fit. Your path in life will be different. I’ve spoken with Henry—”
“I told you I don’t want to join the church!”
“Yes, you said so. Nevertheless, I’ve spoken to Henry and invited him to dine with us next week. I want you to hear him out.” The earl paused, then added flatly, “It’s a respectable, proper career for a younger son.”
“And it’ll improve your marriage prospects, darling,” the countess put in. “I would so like to see you married to a nice young lady.”
Lysander felt like he couldn’t breathe. He tugged at the neck of his cravat. “Mother,” he said. “Please. You know how I feel about this.”
Lady Jemima made a sympathetic pout. “Oh, darling,” she said. “Yes, you always did love being outdoors, but there’s no reason you couldn’t ask for a position in some pretty village somewhere! Some of the houses the Church provides are really very sizeable—just the thing for a young married couple. Why, the old vicarage near the Abbey must have five bedchambers at least!”
“That’s not what I meant—” Lysander began, frustrated. So typical of his mother. Thinking of what she wanted for him, rather than what would make him happy. As if he wanted to be married!
“I know, dearest,” she said, her tone dripping with sympathy. “You’ve always liked mucking about with horses and mud, haven’t you? Just like when you were a little boy. But you see, you can’t be a boy forever . . .”
Mucking about with horses and mud. That was what she thought he meant.
She’d never understand. No more than the earl did. In their minds, the world was fixed. Immutable. As was his place in it.
Distantly, Lysander realised that he’d been expecting this. Waiting for it. He’d known during his conversation with the earl last week that his father wasn’t happy with what they’d agreed.
This had always been coming. He was just as trapped as he’d always been. Dependent on a father who couldn’t stay away from the gaming tables. Fit for nothing but whatever occupation his father might obtain for him by grace and favour.
“So,” the earl said briskly, interrupting Lysander’s thoughts. “Can I rely on you to show Freeman around? Simon did particularly ask that it be you. He probably thinks that if people believe you like Mr. Freeman, they might warm to him a little more themselves.” He gave a humourless laugh. “As if you’d ever respect a man like that. He practically reeks of his filthy mills.”
Lysander couldn’t bring himself even to look at his father or acknowledge his vitriolic remarks.
“Well, Lysander?” the earl prompted sharply. “Will you do it? God knows, we’ll probably have to go back to the man with a begging bowl soon enough. I’ve just had a letter from Holmes to say the roof on the west wing of the Abbey is leaking badly.”
A small, disloyal voice in Lysander’s head whispered that if the earl hadn’t squandered the family fortunes at the gaming tables and had instead mended the roof of the west wing ten years ago when it had started leaking, they wouldn’t have been having this conversation now. But he didn’t say anything. There was no point—it wasn’t as though anything he said would change the earl’s mind.
“All right,” he said flatly, not really caring anymore. “I’ll do it.”
It wasn’t as though he would have any better use for his time, was it?
The earl nodded, pleased at last.
“Good man,” he said heartily. “I won’t pretend it’ll be an easy few days—Freeman’s a thoroughly disagreeable fellow, but if anyone can manage him, it’s you. You always could charm the birds from the trees, my boy.”
Adam Freeman scowled at the front door of the Winterbourne townhouse. It had recently been painted in bright bottle green. A lion’s head door knocker gleamed at him with brassy impudence.
Adam wondered if Lord Winterbourne had actually paid the painter yet. Another sheaf of bills had been delivered to him yesterday, some of them shockingly old and for tragically small amounts—bills that should have been given to him already. Did the earl ever think of the tradesmen and suppliers who waited months on end for payment? Did he spare a thought for their wives and children? Did it occur to him that his actions might force some of them into a debtors’ prison?
What manner of man lived like a king and didn’t pay his bills?
Lord Winterbourne’s approach to life was entirely at odds with how Adam had been raised. His father would be turning—whirling—in his grave right now, to see his sons cultivating such a man.
Damn Simon and his ambitions. Simon and his “If I want to change things, I need to be accepted by these people.”
Sometimes it seemed to Adam that Simon was changing before his very eyes, turning into the sort of man he’d always professed to despise. Was that what compromise did to a man? And if so, what did that say about Adam himself, who had come here today to spend the day with Lysander Winterbourne, the youngest—and arguably most useless—of the whole sorry Winterbourne clan?
Firming his lips, Adam took a hold of the brass lion head and delivered three sharp raps. The door swung open almost immediately, revealing the lugubrious countenance of Lord Winterbourne’s miserable butler.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “His Lordship and Mr. Winterbourne are expecting you. Please follow me.”
The butler’s invitation was delivered in accents that could only be described as tragic—Adam half expected to be shown into a room containing Lysander Winterbourne on his deathbed, the earl weeping at his side, but instead the unsmiling servant led him to a bright and sunny drawing room.
The earl was pacing in front of the fireplace, wearing a hole in the rug. He looked up at Adam’s entrance with an expression Adam had come to loathe. A flicker of dislike, quickly disguised by a fawning expression that turned his stomach. He walked forward to greet Adam.
“Mr. Freeman,” he said. “How good to see you again. May I introduce my son?”
It was only then that Adam noticed the second occupant of the room. He’d been sitting in the corner, reading a newspaper, but now he was standing and tossing his reading material aside, stepping forward with a ready smile to greet Adam.
“Lysander Winterbourne,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Freeman.”
His elegantly cut coat was dark blue, his neatly tailored waistcoat and trousers fawn. The starched white linen about his throat was tied in a complicated arrangement that somehow didn’t make him look in the least bit dandyish. He looked altogether . . . perfect. The sole bit of untidiness about him was a single unruly lock of golden hair that flopped over his forehead, and even that only served to make him more appealing. He was the very picture of easy English privilege.
And looking at him made Adam’s cock stiffen uncomfortably in his breeches.
Adam had no choice but to take Winterbourne’s hand. He’d removed his gloves as he followed the butler down the corridor—he hated wearing the damn things—but now he wished he’d kept them on. He felt stupidly aware of the
warmth of Winterbourne’s skin, the pleasant strength of the man’s grip.
Adam pressed his lips together and tried to lock his wayward reaction to Winterbourne away, forcing himself to give the man a curt nod.
“Winterbourne.”
Winterbourne’s smile faltered a little. Their hands fell apart, returning to their respective sides, and a brief awkward silence descended.
The earl was the first to break it. “I gather you’re going to be staying in town for a little while, Freeman?”
Adam nodded. “Till after the wedding,” he said.
“Simon thought it might be nice—if it’s not too boring for you—if Lysander showed you around Town a little. Introduced you to some more people, that sort of thing.”
The earl was smiling like a damn fool, a hopeful, ingratiating look on his face that didn’t quite mask his lingering resentment towards Adam. Adam felt like telling him in no uncertain terms that he had no wish to meet another single member of the bloody aristocracy, thank you very much, but he didn’t. Simon had pleaded with him to make the effort.
“Please try, Adam. Just this once. After the wedding, you’ll never need to bother again.”
He wasn’t entirely sure why Simon wanted him to bother now. He’d offered to stay away altogether, but for all Simon’s complaints about Adam’s scowling countenance, he seemed determined that Adam should not only be at the wedding, but that he should take a prominent part in it.
“Who else would I have stand at my side on the most important day of my life than my own brother?”
And that was all it took, apparently, for Adam to give way.
“I’m sure it won’t be boring at all,” he replied dutifully. In fact, he was quite sure it would be more boring than he could possibly imagine. He turned his attention to the son. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Winterbourne?”
The perfect English gentleman cleared his throat.
“Well,” he began, “I thought we could pay some calls this afternoon, if you’re agreeable?”
Calls. Yes, Adam remembered how well the last ones had gone, with the collected cream of Society all looking at him and Simon like a couple of talking dogs. Lovely.