by Rose Lerner
Louisa made a pleading gesture. “Mama, pray do not distress yourself.”
But Lady Bedlow spoke as if by compulsion. “Well, he quarreled with Lord Chilcote last night, and a meeting was arranged for early this morning, and what happened is Chilcote shot him. I never liked Chilcote. He jilted your Aunt Hareton, you know. Alex’s brains were all over the carriage-and they wouldn’t even tell me what the quarrel was about-”
Louisa’s hand quivered on Nev ’s arm.
“Mama, don’t.” He tried to conquer his own rush of nausea.
“It was something about money, I daresay!” she said with sudden energy.
“Money?”
His mother avoided his gaze. “He owed Chilcote money, I gathered. But Chilcote will not dare try to collect it now.”
“Mama-”
“And when Bunbury woke me I knew-I saw her face and I knew it was someone, and I thought, Don’t let it be Nate! Your father’s body lying below with half his face away and I thought ‘Please not Nate’-” Lady Bedlow pressed her fist to her mouth and turned away.
Nev could not help being touched beyond measure. “Mama, don’t torment yourself.” He went to her at last and drew her close. From this angle, the light from the front windows hurt his eyes. “Please.”
“I didn’t want to marry him, you know. But after twenty-five years…” She turned her face up to his, blindly, and smiled a little. “Here, Nate. This is yours now.” She drew his father’s signet ring off her thumb- Nev hadn’t noticed it before-and laid it in his palm and curled his fingers round it. It felt heavy and unfamiliar, and Nev wished like anything he could give it back.
When he at last took his leave to go and discuss various arrangements for the funeral, the reading of the will, and the like with Lord Bedlow’s solicitor, Louisa followed him into the hall.
“Will you be all right?” he asked her.
She gave him a tired smile. “Oh, yes. Lucky beast! I wish I had my own lodgings.”
“Mama oughtn’t to speak like that in front of you.”
“You mean about Papa’s brains and all that? It doesn’t matter, I’d already seen them.” She noticed his face, and said, “I’ll be all right, Nev. It’s you I’m worried about.”
Every word she said made him feel worse. “Me? Why would you worry about me? Last night while you were looking at Papa’s brains I was merely drunk and singing too loud.”
She bit her lip. “Oh, poor Nate! You must have a terrible head. I only meant you’ll have to deal with business and everything, and sort out Papa’s finances.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nate, you know Papa was-well, dipped, don’t you?”
Nev relaxed. “Oh, is that all? He always bled a little too freely.” He wished he had chosen a different expression. “That is, I expect I’ll have a few thousand pounds to settle with his creditors, but surely they can wait, and I’ll pay them something down on quarter day-”
Louisa was shaking her head. “I don’t know for certain, but-when’s the last time you were at Loweston?”
“A couple of years ago, I should think.”
“Well-it doesn’t look quite the same anymore. I don’t think the harvests have been very good. And-a man was here this morning, already, from the grocer’s, asking to be paid.”
The cleansing wave of anger was a relief. “Someone dunned you? This morning? With Papa’s body still warm? I’ll kill him!”
“That isn’t the point, Nate.” The poor girl really did look worried.
“It’s nothing, Louisa. The grocer is a vulture, that’s all, and you know Papa always liked town better than Loweston. I’m not surprised it’s been a trifle neglected. I’ll go see Papa’s man of business tomorrow and straighten it all out.”
“But-”
“Don’t worry.” He smiled at her. “I daresay we shall contrive to keep out of the poorhouse, provided you don’t buy another of those outrageously large bonnets you’re so fond of. Wax cherries, Louisa? What were you thinking of?”
The corners of her mouth turned up reluctantly.
“Don’t let Mama nag you too much. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
Nev needed a drink. There were arrangements to be made for the funeral, black coats to be ordered, and a million other things to look after; but for now Nev went to his lodgings and poured himself a glass of claret.
He’d only drunk half of it when a knock came at the door. It was Percy, his dark eyes somber. “I came to see how you were doing.”
Nev shrugged. “I’m all right. Claret?”
Percy took a glass and sat. “Just-I know it’s not pleasant, the funeral, and your grieving mother clinging to you and all that.”
He looked at Percy in surprise, but of course Percy knew. Mr. Garrett had died several years ago. Percy hadn’t said much about it at the time-all the details Nev knew, he had learned from Lord Bedlow, who had been quite put out at the difficulties of finding a new steward who would suit him as well as Percy’s father.
“She kept talking about his brains.” Nev tried not to picture it and found that the image of his mother’s red-rimmed eyes was not much better. “I suppose I shall have to tip whoever got stuck cleaning the carriage.” Was it wrong, to think about that at a time like this?
“At least you know it was quick,” Percy said quietly. “My father was ill for months, and my mother kept sending for new doctors-but it’ll get better. Honestly. There’s still things I wish I could tell him, but…” He sighed.
Nev could have nodded sympathetically and pretended that was comforting, pretended that he felt just as he ought, but he found he couldn’t. Not to Percy. He shrugged. “You knew my father. Remember Louisa’s sixth birthday?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more precise.”
“She’d been telling everyone in sight for months that she wanted a pirate sword, and-”
“Oh, Lord, and your father bought her that enormous doll in a pink satin dress. I never saw a child look more forlorn in her life.”
“He had no idea what was wrong.”
“I can picture that doll perfectly to this day.” Percy smiled reminiscently. “As I recall, I was betrothed to it for a time. Louisa used to commandeer its ship as it sailed to England to be my bride, and I had to duel her for it.”
“Bloodthirsty little creature, wasn’t she?”
Percy chuckled and nodded. “Poor girl. How’s she taking it?”
“You know Louisa, she’s a brick.” Nev thrust away the memory of her anxious face. “She’ll do all right. Percy, do you know what my father and Chilcote quarreled about?”
Percy rubbed at his temple. “It’s not a pretty story, Nev. ”
“It’s all over town, isn’t it?”
Percy nodded. “I suppose I’d better tell you, for there’ll be ghouls enough eager to discuss every detail with you.” He drew in a breath. “Here is it then. Having already lost a considerable sum at faro, your father was playing piquet with Chilcote at White’s. He was losing-I collect he had a run of bad luck recently-and the long and short of it is, he hinted that perhaps Chilcote was cheating.”
Nev groaned. “As if he needed to. My father couldn’t possibly beat Chilcote at piquet.”
Percy’s lips quirked in acknowledgment. “Even I find Chilcote to be more trouble than he’s worth. But Bedlow was only half-serious, from what I can tell, as well as three sheets to the wind, and Chilcote could have played it off. But he was foxed too and responded with something to the effect that even if, as a gentleman, he were capable of cheating, there would be no point cheating your father because-” Percy looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Come on, out with it. I know you didn’t say whatever it was.”
“He said Bedlow was certain not to honor his vowels.” Percy would not meet Nev ’s eyes. “Your father-well, from what I could glean, he nearly went crazy. He would be satisfied with nothing but a duel.”
“Chilcote said what?”
Percy was silent.
“Percy, are you saying you think Chilcote was right?”
“I knew Lord Bedlow,” Percy said slowly, “and I think that he would never fail to discharge a debt of honor if it were in his power to do so.”
Nev stared at him, an unpleasant chill creeping up his spine. His mother had avoided his eyes when she said It was something about money, and Louisa had said, Loweston looks different now. “You think it might not have been in his power?”
Percy shifted in his chair. “I’ve heard rumors he was badly dipped, Nev. We all did. But there wasn’t anything you could do, so-we thought you must know, and if you didn’t-we didn’t want to worry you.”
Nev stood. “I-I think I’d better visit my father’s solicitor.” He looked at his half-drunk glass of claret. Had there still been liquor on his father’s breath when they carried him into the hall with his head half away? His mother’s voice echoed in his ears-He would never have done it if he were sober. He pushed the glass away, queasy.
Percy hesitated. “I’ve never much of the ready, but if you need, I could probably scrape together a couple of hundred pounds.” His shoulders were tense. Two hundred pounds would not go far toward any debts Lord Bedlow had amassed, and they both knew it. But it was a lot of money to Percy, who was saving for his sister’s dowry.
Nev tried to smile. “I expect it’s a tempest in a teapot. Don’t go dooming your sister to a life of spinsterhood just yet.”
Percy let out his breath. “But if you should need any help-”
“I promise you, if I should need anything, you and Thirkell would be the first I’d turn to, as always.”
At the solicitor’s, Nev discovered that his father had been living beyond his means for years.
He and his family were utterly ruined.
Three
Nev climbed the Bedlow House stairs, pushing past the duns who clustered before the door. He felt years older, though it had only been two weeks since his father’s death. He had spent most of that time closeted with his father’s man of business, trying to understand the extent of his difficulties and selling everything he could think of. He had worked far into the night adding columns of figures and trying to organize the stacks of bills in his father’s desk into some semblance of order-then worrying at the cost of the candle, and all too aware that he was like a schoolboy practicing the piano, plunking out the same five notes over and over and entirely failing to turn them into a tune.
And every day, as the news spread around London that Lord Bedlow was dead, more bills arrived-duns from the tailor, the stables, the milliner, the bootmaker, the stationer, the wine seller, the butcher, the jeweler, the glover, and a thousand other tradesmen whose existence had previously been merely theoretical to Nev. There was even a polite request for repayment of a generous loan from a Mr. Mendoza of the City.
And still there were this week’s expenses to be paid-food for his mother and sister, his father’s funeral, oats for the horses, wages for the servants, mourning clothes. Every day, every hour that Nev found no solution put them deeper in debt; and Nev knew very well he could not find a solution. The quarter’s rents had been spent long since-probably years ago. He had come to tell his mother that the town house must be sold.
Lady Bedlow went very pale. She darted a few glances around the room, allowing her eyes to rest for a long moment on the portrait of herself and Lord Bedlow that hung over the mantel. Then she turned her face to the window, presenting Nev with a sorrowing profile. “Will that put us out of debt?”
Nev was unsure how to deal with this display of regal suffering. “Er, I’m afraid not. But it will make up what Papa spent of your jointure. I haven’t quite worked out how to get us out of debt yet. I was thinking of selling the oaks on the drive to Loweston-Papa cut down nearly everything else already.”
Lady Bedlow’s head snapped around at this. “Sell the oaks at Loweston? Those oaks have given your forefathers shade for centuries!”
“But, Mama-” Nev subsided at her glare. “Well, but I don’t know what else is to be done! I’ve already sold the hunting box in Essex and most of the horses and-” He realized that listing everything he had sold to his mother would be an unsurpassed act of folly, and stopped.
Lady Bedlow turned back to the window. “Your father and I honeymooned in Essex.”
“You didn’t sell Blackbeard, did you?” Louisa asked.
Nev smiled for what felt like the first time in months. “No, I didn’t sell Blackbeard.”
She straightened her spine. “I see how it is.”
“Er-how is it, Louisa?”
“You must marry me to some horrid old merchant. That will bring us to rights, won’t it?”
Lady Bedlow was speechless.
Nev tried not to laugh. “Must it be an old merchant, Louisa?”
“I’m not pretty enough to get a young one, I know that. It’s all right. I’m prepared to make sacrifices for the family.”
Nev was abruptly appalled. “Louisa, you goose, you’re pretty enough to have a hundred young merchants eating out of your hand, but if you think I’m going to consent to any such scheme you’re all about in the head.” In fact, their neighbor Sir Jasper Montagu had already offered to buy Loweston for a generous sum and settle the land on Louisa’s children if Louisa would marry him. Nev had refused without consulting her. In his late thirties, Sir Jasper was old enough to be her father; and Louisa, Nev recalled vaguely, had been frightened of the baronet as a child.
Lady Bedlow nodded. “As if I could feel a moment’s happiness living in the lap of luxury, knowing that my child had been sold to some wretched Cit!”
Suddenly, Nev remembered a small warm hand and a sweep of brown hair. His eyes widened. “You know, I think I may have a chance to get us out of debt after all.”
And he bounded out the door and down the steps before his mother could say another word.
Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence-and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury-had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper.
Penelope looked up from her well-thumbed copy of Sense and Sensibility when she heard the great front door swing open. But as no one came to announce a visitor, she decided that it must be one of her father’s business acquaintances. Or perhaps it might be the post; she was hoping for another letter from Edward. She had reread the last one this morning, but somehow it had not told her anything new.
Poor Edward! He sounded lonely in Paris, and always busy working and learning the French that would help him sell his employer’s woolen goods on the Continent. She wished he had been sent to France the following year, so that she might have gone with him-for surely by then Mama would have given over hoping for a lord for her. Mama could be romantical and talk of noble lords and Grand Passions and ancestral art collections all she liked, but Penelope didn’t care for any of that. Mutual esteem and warm affection were good enough for her.
She had to admit it was partly Edward’s own fault. Her parents might have been willing to consider the match if Edward hadn’t left the brewery to work for a northern industrialist. She herself had wished that Edward would stay in her father’s company; she had little desire to live so far from town.
But she was willing to make the sacrifice for Edward’s sake. In the meantime, she would wait patiently, and if Mama wanted her to accept the invitations to ton affairs that Penelope still sometimes received from old schoolfellows, well, there was no real harm in it.
She wished her mother could be made aware of how very out of place they were at the ton’s social occasions-or rather, made to care how out of place they were, for her mother was aware of it. Dear Mama; she thought it a great joke how everyone looked at her, and with true maternal loyalty refused to see that everyone looked at her darling Penny in exactly the same wa
y.
Mrs. Brown had nearly burst with pride when Penelope attracted the attention of a viscount a few weeks ago-waving away Penelope’s most forceful representations that Lord Nevinstoke had merely walked with her for a few moments before sprinting out of the house as if the hounds of Hell were after him. Penelope had not had the heart to tell her mother of the improper way he had looked at her-at least, she was sure from the way it had made her feel that it must have been improper.
Nor had she had the heart to mention that she had seen him a week later at Vauxhall, well on his way to being drunk as a wheelbarrow, and with a woman Penelope would have wagered a hundred guineas was his mistress. A very pretty woman. Penelope had seen her in a production of Twelfth Night the previous month, and she had been a charming and talented actress.
There was no use her mother feeling the pain of disillusion that must follow.
His image rose again before her eyes. There was, to be sure, nothing out of the common way about him. A perfectly ordinary-looking young man, Penelope insisted to herself. He was of middling height, his shoulders neither slim nor broad. His hands were not aristocratically slender-there was nothing to set them apart from the hands of any other gentleman of her acquaintance.
His hair was a little too long, and she thought its tousled appearance more the result of inattention than any attempt at fashion; it was neither dark nor fair, but merely brown-utterly nondescript save for a hint of cinnamon. His face too would have been unmemorable if it were not for a slight crookedness in his nose, suggesting it had been broken. His eyes were an ordinary blue, of an ordinary shape and size.
So why could she picture him so clearly, and why did the memory of his smile still make her feel-hot, and strange inside?
But it was his voice that stayed with her the strongest; the timbre of it was imprinted on her ear, and there was nothing ordinary about it. It was rich and mellow, and there was something graceful in the careless rhythm of his speech.
So strongly had she conjured up Lord Nevinstoke’s image that when the door opened, Evans spoke, and that same gentleman entered the room, it was a moment before she was quite convinced he was real.
