In retrospect, Lee did not know why Thomas kept sending him an allowance at all. But that money was the one regular link they’d possessed. There was no letter to accompany it. No correspondence. In the end, his brother was as much of a puzzle to him as he was to his brother.
“Dr. Sands, I would converse with you further, but as I am sure you can understand, I am not in a position to overextend myself. Perhaps Mr. Mason can escort you out?”
Lee looked at the valet with pleading in his eyes.
Mason took the wordless hint and said, “Dr. Sands, your expertise has been most appreciated…” gently steering the lanky doctor toward the entryway. Lee relaxed as they walked off.
*
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so drunk. Even last night, he had not been so deeply in his cups. But he was savoring his last night of anonymity and relative freedom.
It was exquisitely painful sitting here in The Wilted Rose with Paul, knowing it might be the very last time he could do it. At a minimum, if it was not the last time, there would be difficulty in trying to return in the future.
Wee Sue, an associate of Slim’s, was talking their ears off. She was known for her impersonations and comedic timing, not her eloquence or elegance. Lee liked her very much but could not abide more than a few minutes’ conversation with the petite redhead, purely because her will to speak was as vast as she was small. Usually, whomever else he was with took the brunt of work in conversing.
Her hair was not naturally red or ginger. Somehow, she dyed it and furiously guarded her proprietary secret. As Paul had once said—nowhere within her hearing, because he was sincerely fond of her—she needn’t have worried. No one would want their hair to be the shade of a ladybird’s wing with roots that matched its black spots. Nature had given Wee Sue a dark brown or black mane, which made its transformation to cinnabar all the more extraordinary. She may as well have been an alchemist.
“A stableboy told Lord Randall that, last week, he saw the merry widow with none other than—”
Paul interrupted Wee Sue excitedly. “She was with Lord Holdhurst! I know!”
She pouted. Or pretended to pout. “How is it that you know everything?”
“You can’t expect me to give up my secrets.”
“As though I need them,” said Wee Sue. “I can find out anything about anyone.”
Lee begged to differ. But he stayed his tongue. She had not discovered all there was to know about him.
“I know you can, you minx,” said Paul, offering her a wink. “But what I don’t know is where this indiscretion took place. It cannot have been immediately after the Dysons’ musicale, for I was there, and they rarely allow anyone to linger.”
“They probably found a room somewhere else,” Wee Sue said.
“It would be extremely risqué for Lord Holdhurst to fornicate with a widow in a peer’s house,” drawled Lee. He drank deeply from his glass. “Where would they have managed? A cupboard?”
“If they were determined enough,” said Paul. “I’d imagine they could.”
Wee Sue reached for Paul’s bottle of wine. He’d given up using a cup or glass an hour ago. He surrendered it to her, smirking.
She said, “Have you, then?”
“Have I what?”
“Have you fornicated in a cupboard?” Wee Sue took a long gulp, waiting for his answer.
Lee arched an eyebrow, pausing to hear what he had to say.
Thoughtful, Paul really did appear to be trying to account for every shocking thing he had ever done.
“I…” he narrowed his eyes. “I… no. Not a cupboard.”
“That’s a shock,” said Lee.
“Perhaps I should try, one day.”
Giggling, Wee Sue shook her head. It was so warm that a tendril of her hair escaping from its pins stuck to her forehead. “Perhaps you shouldn’t. Don’t you ever worry about some husband cornering you? You’ll end up murdered.” She knew who Paul indeed was. His adventures between the ton and the demimonde were an endless source of amusement to her.
Still smiling, but a little tightly, now, Paul said, “I don’t take married women.”
Lee discerned why. His vixen of a sister-in-law and the havoc she’d brought onto his brother always loomed large in his mind.
Wee Sue said, “That’s very kind of you.” She must have known the more salacious aspects of Paul’s family history, for Lee knew she could read at a basic level, and the scandal sheets often focused on Lord Hareden. Besides that, she could surely listen. And talk. Scandal sheets were spoken about. It mattered little if you could read, and even what your status was.
“Is it kind?”
“Why, yes,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes rimmed with ebony. “I think so. But you know… I don’t take married women, either.”
Both Lee and Paul snickered. It was not an apology, but it was her way of defusing Paul’s uneasiness.
“Quite so,” said Paul. “That’s as it should be.”
“Well. As lovely as this is, I’ve got to see Slim,” said Wee Sue, eyes moving through the swarm. “He said he would be here by now.” She stood from her seat on the bench next to Paul.
“He’s hard to miss,” said Lee. “Perhaps he’s ’round the other side.”
“Evening, gentlemen,” said Wee Sue, taking Lee’s suggestion and wading into the throng.
Wistful, Lee confided, “I’m going to miss her.” Quick words, Glaswegian accent, and all.
“You’ll see her again.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ll will it to be so.”
“Then it will surely be done,” said Lee.
“Of course it will.”
“I would have been better off using an alias for the rest of my life. Pretending Lord Emilian Valencourt died in Spain.” He really almost had, at any rate. For Lee did not spend much time at all among his social equals and had not attended any ton events for an age. Why, he could not remember the last time he’d gone to a ball.
Paul sighed and took the last drink from the bottle between them. The Wilted Rose was their favorite watering hole, and no one cared if you used a drinking vessel or not. First, it had been Lee’s favorite, introduced to him by one of the managers who’d taken the earliest chance on him back when he wanted to try his hand at acting onstage. That seemed like an eon ago, and it was before he’d met Slim. Then Lee brought Paul to it.
Both of them thought it rather lewd and disorienting, but thrilling, at the time.
Now, it just felt like a home.
Lee couldn’t come back to it as the Duke of Welburn. He would have even been pushing his luck if he’d tried to go as Lord Emilian. Even Paul, who might have been the sort of younger son who visited The Wilted Rose, patronized the place as Mr. Fell.
“Not necessarily, you know. And I’m glad you’re not dead,” he said. “But I am frightfully sorry that you have to deal with the estate as it is, now.”
“It isn’t your fault, and I know I shouldn’t talk like this when your own brother was put through…”
“I count myself very fortunate that I have not experienced what both of you have,” said Paul. He was, for a moment, very subdued. “And it should have been me, not him. I’m the disposable one.” He said it without melancholy, as though it were a fact.
“Well, you’re useless with a hammer. I don’t see how you could be trusted with a weapon.”
“That is an excellent point.”
“It isn’t all it’s said to be, either,” said Lee, more seriously. “There’s no romance, no excitement for the soul… I couldn’t even think of it as serving my country. Every moment I was in peril, I was a coward. I only wanted to come back here.”
Where he belonged.
“I’m so angry at Thomas that I could spit on his grave,” declared Paul. “When he has a grave.”
After Lee was able to leave the townhouse and retreat to safer waters, he’d had a feeling Paul might be waiting for him at the Albany. H
e was right. Paul now knew all about Thomas’ cause of death, about the extent of how bad and tangled the Welburn estate’s affairs actually were.
Clyde had explained in level, simple terms, but Lee was still shocked by the amount of debt Thomas had managed to cast himself into. He’d kept much of it secret. Although Clyde said he’d been suspicious for months, he had not been able to confirm his thoughts until the morning of the duke’s death. He’d located several ledgers secreted away in the townhouse’s study, obscured halfheartedly by books. It was almost like Thomas had hoped someone would find out how desperate things were, and fish him out of them. But as Clyde had lamented, you couldn’t help if you didn’t understand a situation.
The steward mentioned that he had tried to protect Whitwell as best he could. Lee was unsure of what that meant, precisely. Whatever Clyde had done, he would not know if his efforts were successful enough until he paid the place a visit. For now, it seemed quite clear: dedication and strategy were needed to save the Welburn coffers.
“I shan’t think about any of it for tonight.”
Trying to distract himself, Lee smirked as a young barmaid leaned over Paul’s shoulder to place a new carafe of house wine on the table. She whisked away the empty bottle they’d only just finished. She was a lovely thing with a bright smile, and she knew she was beautiful. For all her charms, Paul was intent on the wine. He thanked her out of his usual gallant politeness, and Lee was astounded that he left it at that.
“Don’t mind me—if you wish to abscond for the evening, you have more than done your duty by your friend.”
Paul had bought the wine, after all.
He smiled and said, “Jane is always here, and she is always willing to try me. I shan’t lose out by declining her now.” Jane, by then, had gone into the rowdy throng who populated the small pub’s rooms.
Idly, after he considered what Paul might get up to, Lee wondered what he would do tonight. He suspected that were he to return to his rented accommodation, that would be frowned upon. As it was, he’d told Thomas’—his—driver to wait in an alley nearby to The Wilted Rose, which earned him a disapproving nose-crinkle but no verbal displeasure. Lee would say he couldn’t see what there was to object to, because the pub was not horribly rough. It did have a reputation, however. He deduced that he was not supposed to frequent places with a reputation anymore. But that was rubbish. Thomas had, no doubt, frequented plenty. Perhaps that was what off-put the driver. He probably feared he’d exchanged one unruly ducal brother for another.
Despite saying he would think about it no longer, Lee uttered, “What would you do?”
“How do you mean?”
“If you were in my place. If you were me, and had to solve my problem, what would you do?”
“I… would… honestly?” Paul drummed his fingers on the rough tabletop. “I… would… perhaps I’d look to invest in whatever turned the quickest profit? I don’t know. I would probably have to hire someone to help.”
That was a possibility. But to Lee’s knowledge, no one on his inherited staff had that kind of acumen. Clyde might be able to make a decent guess at it, but he was not confident that even a shrewd man’s guesses would help him enough to make a substantial dent in the debt Thomas had amassed.
He also did not have the time to hire a man or learn himself. Not now.
“That’s not a bad idea. I would need someone knowledgeable in… all of that.”
“And I assume that Thomas sold off—”
“Almost all the land we had that wasn’t around our ancestral home, and anything that wasn’t nailed to the floor of the townhouse. I haven’t been to Whitwell yet, so I don’t know what it’s like… and now the funeral will need to happen…”
Paul was quiet for several long moments, though their surroundings were anything but silent. “You could find a wife,” he said, his eyes serious.
Lee snorted and broke into guffaws before recalling that he’d advised Thomas to find one. The memory abruptly stilled his laughter.
“I told Thomas the same thing when we spoke.” For the last time.
“Well, then? It’s worth considering.”
But Paul would know from dozens of conversations like this one, alcohol coloring their words, that Lee was a secret romantic. That was a very unfortunate trait for the situation, even if it had served him well in the past by winning him roles and, sometimes, paramours. None of whom he’d dreamed of marrying. Part of the reason why he was a romantic was that romance itself seemed all but unattainable. As mythical as a unicorn.
“I haven’t any idea of what woman in the ton would have me. If my brother’s habits were common knowledge, Welburn has a certain name, now. And you would have told me if people knew of my…” Lee waved his hand at their lurid surroundings. “Of this. But still… how in Heaven’s name would I find a rich woman willing to marry me?”
Patiently, Paul listened to this and nodded. “I would have. No one seems to know. And no one knows why you joined the army. I think people merely assume you did what many younger sons do, and you went of your own volition.” He drank deeply from his glass, then said, “Look, I know in the past, I’ve said I’m an ardent believer in love. But I actually think it’s fantastically rare.”
Lee frowned. “I don’t…”
If it was possible, Paul was a more outspoken lover of love than Lee himself. Privately, Lee believed that he could be as whimsical and romantic as he wanted, but it would never amount to his life becoming some grand romance.
Meanwhile, his friend made himself out to be a devil who bedded a new woman every other night. But under all of that, and some of it was true, Lee suspected that he wanted very much to have a love match. It was a shame. He might have preemptively ruined the opportunity for himself.
Paul leaned toward Lee, speaking in earnest. “You don’t necessarily have to fish in the sea of the ton.”
“What?”
“New money. Heiresses these days aren’t just from the old families.”
“I’m sure even their parents read the papers.”
“For what it’s worth, I think there may be a substantial inability to navigate us even if they do. These women haven’t been reared from birth to read the peerage like a book.”
Lee considered that. Paul might have the right idea of how to go about things. It soured something deep within him, but he couldn’t see what other choice he had. He still had his good looks, at least. Women did dote on him.
“So, someone whose family is… in trade?”
“Perhaps trade, or steel, or silver, or… shipbuilding,” said Paul, nodding heavily, pulling words out of the air.
“Shipbuilding!”
“Someone with a fortune, but not someone who has acquired it via family titles and long bloodlines. All you have to do is like her, at the least, or… no, tolerate her. I feel like that might be the best way to solve your dilemma.”
“Is it?”
Paul grinned. “Maybe it isn’t. But one cannot become an expert in banking and trading overnight, correct? Whereas, if you put your thespian’s skills to the challenge, I wager you’ll do quite nicely finding a woman who will marry you. It’s the right time of year for the marriage mart.”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“This seems like it could be incredibly disingenuous.”
“All’s fair in love and war.”
“This is neither.”
“Oh, please, it is. It is war! Your brother sent you to war without letting you know what the terms were.” Paul bit his lip a little. “I don’t want to see you humiliated. You don’t deserve to be tarred and feathered by the tempestuous mob that passes for the ton.”
“Humiliated?”
His friend must have been exaggerating. But Paul nodded. That made Lee think to Paul’s brother. Bowland had been humiliated, even without fanning the flames, himself. Reluctantly, he said, “Thank you. Your concern does you credit. But… even if I were to begin this… en
deavor, how should I do so?”
The Wilted Rose might be chaotic, but it felt so much more welcoming than anything he might have to face tomorrow. He watched as patrons and employees alike got lost in the evening. Upstairs was a brothel, and the ladies often came around this hour to find their customers. He knew the woman who masterminded the entire affair, and she was neither abusive nor conniving. He didn’t know her real name. She was a tiny brunette who called herself Lady Nell. Then again, she did not know his name, either.
Lady Nell, behind the bar with the landlord, glared at a man who became too handsy with one of her compatriots.
Paul followed Lee’s eyes and chuckled. “If he tries touching Amelia that way again, Lady Nell might actually backhand him. I’ve seen her do it. It’s hilarious watching someone who is about half my size humble a grown man.” He cleared his throat. “But in answer to your question, there are a number of public balls in the coming days. Some are quite illustrious in their way.”
“I’ve no clothes for a ball.”
“You’re a duke, now. Go to your brother’s tailor and tell him the matter is most urgent.” Paul drank a bit more wine. “Wait, never mind. Yours probably hasn’t been to a tailor in months. I’ll send you to ours. Mr. Kilgrave. He’s phenomenal, he is. And he’s quick.”
Helpless in the face of yet another enormous upheaval that he could not mitigate, Lee sighed and looked to his wine for comfort. This was all like limbo. Like Purgatory. He felt as though it were asinine to move forward, but there was no going back, either. As Mr. Judd, he could have abided by meager means. What was ahead for him was neither within his experience nor, really, his comprehension. And now he was to drag some poor woman into it. Potentially.
He did have to survive. The clearing of the estate’s black mark meant little to him, personally. But he tried to think of a reason why he should care. The answer was simple: the many people who depended upon Welburn for their daily bread. Entirely unused to this level of obligation, he grappled for something to care about that wasn’t survival or avoiding the issues brought on by being a debtor.
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