Julia Justiss

by Wicked Wager

  But then, when had the earl ever paid any attention to his only son’s activities, no matter how scandalous? Perhaps because Lord Hunsdon had always been too occupied with even more scandalous activities himself.

  Well, Tony was no longer a stripling waiting with pathetic eagerness for any crumb of parental attention. As heir to the Hunsdon earldom, he had a right to know how things stood with the estate he would one day inherit. Though by all the signs, his father would bequeath him little more than a pack of debts and a soiled reputation.

  Dusting off his beaver hat, he limped out. He’d return early enough to catch his father before the earl began his evening’s celebrations, hopefully while Hunsdon was sober enough to converse with some intelligence.

  Three years ago, Tony had associated with a group of dissolute young men with whom he’d indulged in high-stakes gaming and dissipated revelry. Though during his three weeks of recovery, he had not called on any of them, the fact that he had returned to England would have been speedily telegraphed to the ton through the infallible network of servants’ gossip.

  With a sense of anticipation sharpened by unease, he hailed a hackney to White’s. Would the members there greet him as a lost sheep returned—or see only the black sheep who’d disgraced himself by fleeing England with his debts of honor unpaid?

  Despite his soldier’s service, he suspected that a bad reputation, thoroughly earned, would prove long-lived.

  Certainly Lane Fairchild had shown yesterday in what little regard he held Viscount Nelthorpe.

  Half an hour later, his heart pounding—and not just, he knew, from exertion of having climbed yet another infernal flight of stairs—he stood at White’s, scanning the occupants. Spotting two of his former compatriots seated around a bottle, he limped toward them.

  Lord St. Ives noticed his approach and raised his quizzing glass. “Can it be?” he asked. “Despite that drunken sailor’s gait, the face is familiar. As I live and breathe, I do believe ’tis Tony Nelthorpe!”

  Aldous Wexley looked over in surprise. “Why, so ’tis. Didn’t I hear you’d died after that great battle over in France, Nelthorpe? Watergreen or Watermarket—”

  “Waterloo,” Tony inserted.

  “Ah, yes. Months ago now, though.” Wexley waved a dismissive hand.

  “So, Tony, tell us all about it, do! Soldiering bravely to keep England safe for—” St. Ives gestured with one languid hand “—reprobates like us.”

  “Damme, Grantham told me that after he joined up, he was informed he might travel with only two trunks in his baggage,” Wexley said. “Two! Under such circumstances, how could a gentleman maintain a proper appearance?”

  “There is the small matter of transporting food and munitions,” Tony observed dryly.

  “I hear the mud was dreadful,” St. Ives said. “And the blood! Worse than a cockfight, I should imagine.”

  Against his will, Tony’s mind returned to the battlefield as he’d seen it from his resting place beneath the two Polish lancers he’d killed after a cuirassier cut him off his horse: a sodden, muddy field of fallen men, some still, some writhing, under a pall of smoke reflected in the puddle whose reddened water lapped at his chin…

  A shudder ran through him as bile rose in his throat. “Much worse than a cockfight.”

  “Speaking of,” Wexley said with a broad wink, “have you seen the new dancers at Covent Garden? There’s a brown-haired chit who reminds me of my last ladybird. Such ankles! Such thighs!”

  “You must present me to her tonight,” St. Ives replied. “Or there’s that new hell that just opened on Russell Street. Offers fine brandy and deep play, Nelthorpe, if you’d like to join me there. As I recall, you were a bit under the hatches when you left this sceptered isle.”

  Wexley raised his glass. “To each his own vice.”

  “Let’s broach another bottle before we go our separate ways, gentlemen.” St. Ives lifted his glass to Tony. “In honor of our dear Nelthorpe’s return from the dead.”

  Tony silently returned the salute, the momentary warmth he’d felt at their offering a bottle in his honor swiftly dying. They don’t really want to know what happened in Portugal or the Pyranees or on the plain at Waterloo. Nor would they understand, even if you could find words to describe it.

  As the chat continued through another bottle and then a third, talk of wagers and women punctuated by an argument between St. Ives and Wexley over the proper trimming of a waistcoat, Tony felt more and more isolated.

  Once he had sat here, guzzling and chatting and thinking like these men, oblivious to anything beyond the streets of Mayfair. But the man who’d done so had died somewhere between the barren, windswept canyons of Spain and the bloody fields of Belgium.

  Tony didn’t know who had taken his place. But whoever that man was, he no longer fit in here.

  At length, the group stood to leave. “Which shall it be, Nelthorpe?” St. Ives asked, swaying on his feet. “Gaming with me? Or wenching with this fine gentleman?”

  “I’m afraid I shall have to decline both offers tonight,” Tony said, not at all sorry. “My father awaits.”

  St. Ives nodded gravely. “Matters of finance, of course. Chouse the old gentleman out of a few extra guineas, eh? He ought to owe you a stack of yellow boys for saving his purse by absenting yourself so long.”

  With a final witticism from St. Ives, the men parted. Foreboding gathering in his gut, Tony hailed a hackney to return to the Nelthorpe townhouse—and confront at last his revered father, the Earl of Hunsdon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DESPITE REMINDING HIMSELF that he was a man grown, as he stood outside his father’s chamber, Tony had to quell the urge to straighten his neck cloth. After forbidding himself to do so, he rapped at the door and limped in.

  Sipping from a mug of ale while his valet fastened stays around his bulging waist, the Earl of Hunsdon looked up in surprise. “Nelthorpe? Blast you, cub, how dare you barge in here with me en déshabillé, as if I were some damned theater strumpet you wanted to ogle?”

  Anger welling up, Tony remained silent, subjecting his father, whom he’d seen thus far only from a distance, to a closer inspection. In addition to the increased girth the earl was attempting to conceal beneath a corset, his years of dissipation were clearly written in his reddened face and bloodshot eyes. Little remained of the strikingly handsome, godlike figure who had awed Tony in his youth.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Father,” he said at last. “Had you summoned me any time this past three weeks, I should not have had to disturb you in your dressing room.”

  The earl regarded his only son with disfavor. “I suppose you expect me to say I’m pleased you survived the war. Though why you had to go haring off on such a misadventure I never understood.”

  “There was a small matter of pecuniary embarrassments that rendered my immediate removal from England rather imperative,” Tony replied through tightened lips. Apparently the earl chose not to recall—or had been too drunk that night to remember—Tony’s impassioned plea for funds to stave off disaster until he could make a recover. In reply to which the earl shouted for him to take himself off and not bother Hunsdon with his problems.

  “Taken himself off” he certainly had, catapulting totally unprepared into the midst of Wellington’s army. But now to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  “Let us dispense with the usual courtesies and proceed to the point. I need to know how things stand with our finances—what the current income is, what funds are available for me to draw upon. You must have realized some economies by pensioning most of the servants.”

  Waving away his valet Baines, who discreetly withdrew, the earl replied, “Didn’t pension ’em off, just dismissed ’em. Why should I pay to feed ’em in retirement when they could go make themselves useful elsewhere? Would have sent Carstairs, too, but the old goat wouldn’t go.”

  Though he immediately recognized Hunsdon’s comments for the diversionary tactics they were, his father’s
blatant breach of an earl’s duty to his retainers brought Tony’s simmering rage to a boil.

  “Are you implying you’re no longer paying Carstairs?”

  “Damme, why should I? Told the old relic to leave.”

  “How could someone of his advanced age find other employ? Besides, he has worked here all his life!”

  “And had the satisfaction of serving the Nelthorpes, whose forbears rode with the Conqueror while his ancestors were dirty Saxon serfs living on roots and berries.”

  The satisfaction of serving the Nelthorpes. As he gazed at his father’s bloated face, a succession of images flashed through Tony’s mind: the gritty marble of the entryway…the faded draperies at every window…the parsimony of furniture, most of it dust-covered…Carstairs’s shabby livery and careworn face.

  “Well, why are you still standing there?” the earl demanded. “Take yourself off and leave me in peace.”

  In a rage too deep for words, Tony held his father’s gaze until, flushing, the earl dropped his eyes. With hands that trembled, he seized his ale and drank deeply.

  Tony continued to stare at the man he’d once so admired and feared, whose rare praise he’d previously tried so hard to earn. A man whom, perhaps subconsciously, he’d spent most of his life seeking to emulate. But this aging roué was no longer the man Tony Nelthorpe wanted to see when he gazed into his own mirror twenty-five years hence.

  He might have little idea how to avoid that fate, but he could stand firm against his father today. I fled my responsibilities once at your command, he thought, setting his jaw. I’ll not do so again.

  “I shall leave once I know the status of our funds.”

  “If you’re so concerned about blunt, then by all means do something!” his father retorted. “Since you managed to survive the war—though the devil knows how, as you’ve never been successful at anything before—make yourself useful. Indeed, I had intended to discuss this with you directly upon your return, but I couldn’t abide that revolting limp. Which, I’m relieved to note, has improved.”

  “Thank you, Papa, for your concern about my health.”

  The earl threw him a dagger glance but, to Tony’s surprise, did not deliver the hide-blistering reprimand he’d expected. Clearing his throat instead, his father continued, “Snabble yourself an heiress to restore the family coffers, like I did. Preferably a landed chit. You can send her back to one of her properties when she gets tiresome, while her lovely blunt stays here in London.”

  As you did. For the first time, he began to understand his mother’s penchant for young footmen.

  “Before I begin ‘snabbling,’ I must know just how empty the family coffers are.”

  Giving him a petulant look, his father shrugged. “Talking pounds and pence like some damned clerk! That’s what comes of your overlong association with army riffraff. Hardly a true gentleman to be found among ’em.”

  True men, if not gentlemen, Tony thought. But it was useless to attempt conveying such an idea to his father. “I’ll act the clerk if I must.”

  “Can’t expect me to keep something as vulgar as figures in my head. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” he waved Tony toward the door “—I must finish dressing.”

  “I shall be happy to withdraw, as soon as you sign this document—” Tony drew out a paper from his pocket “—authorizing me to act on your behalf.” Striding to the desk, Tony seized the quill and presented it to his father.

  “Accosting me in my own chamber, preaching like some damned Methodist,” the earl grumbled. But under Tony’s unwavering gaze, he reluctantly took the pen and scrawled his signature. “Don’t come here again until you can tell me you’ve bedded an heiress.”

  Pocketing the note, Tony made the earl an exaggerated leg that sent an immediate shaft of pain through his knee. “You may be assured of that, sir,” he said, and limped out.

  Snabble an heiress, he thought as he traversed the hall. A directive, he supposed, given to sons from time immemorial by profligate fathers who’d run their estates into ruin. Was he supposed to prowl the City, searching for a Cit seeking a title for his daughter and with little discrimination about who provided it? Or travel to India to sweep some Nabob’s widow off her ill-bred feet?

  He had to smile wryly. Only one heiress had ever interested him—a nabob’s daughter, who was now a widow.

  Unfortunately, being the widow of that exemplary soldier and hero, Colonel Garrett Fairchild, she would never seriously consider the hand of a reprobate-turned-who-knew-what like Anthony Nelthorpe.

  No matter how many sparks struck between them.

  Melancholy settling over him, Tony wandered to the library. Though he’d not awakened until midafternoon, he felt unaccountably weary. For three long years of boredom and battle, through fear, privation and pain, he’d cherished the notion that once he finally returned to England, life would resume some normal, satisfying pattern.

  Well, Tony old man, it appears homecoming wasn’t quite the deliverance you’d anticipated.

  Though he’d never really fit in with his fellow army officers, still there had been the bond that comes from shared danger and privation and the knowledge that one is doing something important. As he sat in the darkened library, Tony had never felt more lonely.

  His knee ached and his grumbling stomach reminded him of the dinner he’d not eaten at his club. Neither the beauties in Covent Garden’s Green Room nor the green baize tables of Pall Mall beckoned.

  With a sigh, he limped to the shelves to find his favorite volume of Cicero. He could wait until morning for a meal; Betsy had doubtless already retired for the night, and he’d been hungry before.

  Tomorrow he’d ride into the City to the solicitor’s office and finally discover just how low the Nelthorpe fortunes had fallen.

  SHORTLY AFTER DAWN the following morning, the lure of Betsy’s fresh hot coffee and perhaps a bit of last night’s stew lured Tony down what still seemed an endless number of stairs to the kitchen. After leaning against the door while he caught his breath, he hobbled in and called a good morning to the rotund woman standing before the stove. “Ah, that coffee smells like the elixir of the gods!”

  “Master, ye be up early this morn!” the cook said.

  “Army habits are hard to break, I suppose.”

  “No need for ye to clamber down all them stairs. If’n you was to have rung, I’da sent up your coffee.”

  “But then I wouldn’t be able to try to charm you out of some toast to accompany it—or perhaps something from last night’s supper?”

  “It ain’t fittin’ fer ye to be eatin’ here, not with ye a man grown, but no sense ye takin’ that leg up two flights of stairs. Sit ye at the table and I’ll have ye some kidneys, eggs and bacon ready in a trice.”

  Once, Tony might have thought himself too important to take his porridge in the servants’ kitchen, but after reaching the Peninsula he’d eaten in much humbler venues. Gratefully he took the seat indicated. “What would I do without you to watch over me?”

  “Haven’t I been doing so, ever since you sneaked down here begging more of my gingerbread when you wasn’t but a lad?” She sniffed, her brows creasing in disapproval. “Seein’s how them what shoulda watched ye seldom did. Besides, I’ll never be forgettin’ what you did for my da, may he rest in peace!”

  Uncomfortable, Tony opened his lips to make some light remark, but the cook cut him off with a wave. “Nay, don’t go on about bein’ too castaway to remember all the blunt ye gave me for his medicines. For all yer seemin’ careless ways, ye’re not like him.” Her face darkening, she jerked her chin toward the ceiling. “Ye may tell me I oughtn’t be sayin’ it, but say it I will! I woudda left last winter with the others and took Carstairs with me, too, save fer knowin’ sooner or later ye’d be comin’ home.”

  As disturbed as he was touched by her confidence, Tony searched rather desperately for some teasing remark to defuse it. Don’t be looking at me as if I were some sort of savior, he wanted to shout. />
  “I…I’m afraid your confidence may be misplaced,” he said instead.

  “Stood up to him last night, Baines said.” Betsy nodded approvingly. “’Tis the first step, Master Tony.”

  “I shall certainly try to put things right, Betsy.”

  She nodded again. “Well, here’s yer breakfast now, so tuck into it! Bye-the-bye, if’n ye is to need aught at any hour, ye just ring, and me or Sadie will see to it. Can’t be healing that leg on an empty stomach.”

  He should know by now, Tony thought ruefully, that there was nothing one’s servants didn’t learn. He might have attempted a reproving reply, but at that moment Betsy placed in front of him a plate heaped high with such a delicious-smelling assortment of bacon, eggs, sausage and kidneys that his mouth was fully occupied watering in anticipation of that first bite. To delay would be an insult to Betsy’s skill.

  “Good, hearty food and lots of it—that’ll do the trick,” she said as she refilled his coffee cup.

  “Excellent! Ah, the times out of mind we slept on a soggy field, dreaming of waking to a meal like this!”

  She smiled with gratification. “Thank’ee, Master Tony. Meadows said to tell you your horse be ready whenever you are.”

  Half an hour later, Tony guided Pax into Hyde Park and gave himself up to the sheer pleasure of a hard gallop.

  Good fresh English air did do wonders to clear the mind, and with a full belly, he could almost believe he was capable of anything. By now it was blindingly clear that at least Hunsdon’s London retainers were looking to the heir, rather than the head of the family, to halt the downward slide of the family fortunes.

  But by the time he guided the spent gelding to a walk, his initial euphoria began to fade.

  He was near to thirty, with a face most women called handsome and a tall figure that, in the days before a limp disfigured it, had been deemed striking. He still rode well, played—despite his sire’s disparagement—an excellent hand of cards or dice, could drink nearly any man under the table, and was accounted a witty conversationalist. But he had no profession, little knowledge of estate management, none of handling investments and, most likely, next to no blunt to start with.