“For an entire month, you’ll be too sick?” Rem asked, folding his hands behind his head. “Christopher and I won’t go home without you, so you’d better tell me what this is about, Dirty Dickie.”
The nickname had been an occasion for fisticuffs when Richard had been younger. He’d spent enough time visiting at the colleges to grasp that everybody had a nickname. Dirty Dickie for a fellow who prided himself on his spotless attire wasn’t half bad.
“This is about me,” Richard said, “trying to learn a few things before I start school next year. Wasting the holidays visiting the ponies for old times’ sake won’t aid in that cause.”
“You’re lying,” Rem said, yawning and cracking his jaw. “Bluster all you like, have your tantrums—Mama certainly had hers—and pretend to enjoy that stinking Greek, but you’re lying to your own brother.”
Mama had had tantrums. Richard could recall that much about her, in addition to occasional laughter and a winsome smile. Her husband, by contrast, had never raised his voice indoors, and had always seemed to Richard to be busy with somebody’s ailing bullock or missing goose.
“You’re jealous because I enjoy Greek,” Richard said, turning a page he had not read. “Go away, now that you’ve tended to the obligatory disruption of my studies.”
Rem sat up in one quick movement. “Stop being an ass. I am your brother. If you got some tavern maid in trouble, then tell me. Christopher and I will do all in our power to help you, and no, we won’t go running to Papa telling tales.”
Richard hadn’t had the opportunity to get a tavern maid in trouble, though he well understood that tavern maids figured prominently on every young man’s list of amatory challenges. The prospect was daunting and alluring at once.
“Would you tell me if you’d got a woman in trouble, Remington?”
“Of course,” Rem said, rising. “You’d become an uncle. Not something I’d want to keep from you. If something happened to me, you and Chris would have to care for the child, wouldn’t you?” He smoothed the wrinkles from the coverlet, his gesture reminiscent of Matthew Belmont, another inherently tidy person.
“Please don’t get any tavern maids in trouble, Rem. I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.” Did Rem ever wonder if he’d inherited his tidiness from his father?
“Neither am I,” Rem said, spearing Richard with a look. “So I haven’t risked the near occasion, so to speak.”
Richard turned another page. “You’re at university. Why comport yourself like a monk?” Why pretend to bury yourself in your studies when you’d rather bury yourself in a willing female?
“Not like a monk, like a gentleman. Papa raised us to be gentlemen.”
And there was the rub, as the Bard might have said. Matthew Belmont, by example and exhortation, had raised Richard, Christopher, and Rem to be gentlemen. If Richard went home for Christmas, all he could promise the man who’d provided him every necessity and more than a few luxuries was a lot of bad manners and silence.
“Oxford is full of gentlemen,” Richard said, closing his book and resting his chin on his stacked fists. “The streets are full of their bastards too.”
“When did you become such a cheery little soul?”
Richard knew when, to the day, but Rem, mercifully, was wandering toward the door.
“I get my excellent disposition from my older brothers,” Richard said. “I really do not want to go home to Sussex.” Not ever, and that hurt too badly to think about. Lots of fellows spent holidays with a schoolmate or a relative. Lots of fellows who didn’t have a lovely home in Sussex and Matthew Belmont writing to them conscientiously every week.
“I want nearly every tavern maid who bats her eyes at me, and a few who don’t,” Rem said. “Wanting means little. Whatever bee has got in your bonnet, Richard, get rid of it. Soon enough, we’ll leave home to seek our fortunes in the wider world, and then you’ll rue the day you disdained a family gathering at your birthplace.”
Richard thought of old Tut, who was stealing treats from some little girl these days.
The notion nearly had him in tears. “Be gone, Remington. I’ll never get to my Latin if you insist on blathering at me the livelong day.”
Rem crossed his arms and leaned ever so casually against the door. Christopher was handsome, but Rem was attractive, while Richard was neither. Not yet. A headache threatened behind his eyes. He set his Greek across the table, beyond throwing range.
“I don’t trifle with the ladies,” Rem said, “because I am yet dependent upon my father’s generosity. Should I get some woman with child, my allowance would be all I could offer for the infant’s care and the mother’s well-being. Many make do on less, but I didn’t. Respect and affection for my own children require that I give them the same advantages I had, at least.”
Respect and affection for one’s own children. Now there was a concept to wreck a fellow’s remaining self-discipline. Richard grabbed a handy boot awaiting a proper polishing and pitched it in the direction of his older brother.
“Take yourself off. Your sermonizing is wasted on a dedicated scholar.”
Rem studied Richard for an uncomfortable moment, gently tossed the boot back to him, and slipped out the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Betrayal, nauseating and familiar, washed through Thomas as he watched his sister swish off hand in hand with his baroness. Panic threatened, a boy’s panic at being closed out, shoved aside, ignored by his elders, and by his only sibling.
If Theresa stole Loris’s loyalty from him—
Belmont’s fist caught Thomas on the chin before that thought could fully form. The pain was welcome, too compelling to dismiss even in the face of Theresa’s latest betrayal.
“Now that I have your attention,” Belmont said, “you will cease fuming and admit that you and the fair Loris did more than kiss in the stable yard when you were courting.”
Belmont was so calm, so bloody composed. Thomas’s smarting chin was the only evidence a punch had been thrown—a very competent punch.
“Belmont, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Answer the question, Sutcliffe. Of all women, all women of mature years and sound judgment, is Theresa Jennings alone to be judged by puritanical standards? You nearly venerate your lady wife for having granted you privileges far in excess of the liberties your sister was just now granting me.”
“My wife is a lady,” Thomas said, spoiling to return fire, though Loris would not approve.
Belmont took out his gloves and pulled them on, his movements casual. “Must I take you in hand, Sutcliffe? Unless I miss my guess, Loris will become the mother of your firstborn something less than nine months after taking her marital vows. This is the same woman who dwelled here at Linden for two years without a chaperone, working as the estate’s steward in all but name. ”
When Loris had found herself living alone at Linden and shouldering her father’s responsibilities, Matthew Belmont had proposed to her. She’d gently rebuffed him, and Thomas suspected the squire had been relieved.
This tirade was not a criticism of Loris, which fact alone allowed Thomas to keep his fists to himself.
Barely. “Loris cannot help that she was abandoned by the very man responsible for safeguarding her welfare.”
Belmont remained silent while Jamie led the horses into the stable. Even when privacy was once again assured, Belmont studied the few yellow leaves remaining on the oak across the lane. He studied the sky, a lovely blue and white canvas despite the nip in the air.
Thomas’s own words hung in the air… abandoned by the very man responsible for safeguarding her welfare.
All over again, Thomas wanted to hit somebody. “Did Theresa tell you I abandoned her?”
Belmont swung a pitying regard on him. “You must cease insulting your sister, else I shall have to thrash you properly, Sutcliffe, in which case the ladies would be wroth with both of us. Theresa defends you at every turn. I cannot hint that your actions in any regard have
been remiss, but most especially she defends your behavior toward her.”
Bewilderment and weariness edged aside temper. “She defends me, then plasters herself to the nearest wealthy bachelor where anybody might see. She’s a conscientious parent, her daughter is a pure delight, and yet, at the first opportunity, she sets her sights on you, who ought to know better.”
Theresa should have known better. “I want her gone, Matthew. I’ve extended the obligatory olive branch to appease my wife, who has no siblings, but at the soonest opportunity, I want Theresa gone, back to Sutcliffe at least, if not consigned to the Yorkshire dales.”
“We have a dilemma then, Sutcliffe. Walk with me?”
For the first time in his adult life, Thomas had looked forward to coming home, to the home he shared with his new wife. After university, he’d had lodgings, even owned property, but he’d never replaced Sutcliffe Keep in his heart as home. Linden was home now, because Loris loved this place, and Thomas loved Loris.
“I’d like to look in on Dove Cottage,” Thomas said. For two years, Loris had resided in the small dwelling at the edge of the home wood. The place stood empty now, unless Thomas was of a mind to idle a day away there with his baroness.
Belmont obliged by ambling off in the direction of the lane that led to the cottage.
“Do you hate your sister, Sutcliffe?”
“I do not hate—” Thomas walked along, wishing Loris were beside him, not this patient, implacable inquisitor. “I’ve loathed what she became.”
“The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. My son Richard could tell me which philosopher said that. The boy has taken me into dislike at present, which assures me he still cares for his old papa in some regard.”
“You’re not old,” Thomas said as they reached the edge of the wood. Thomas felt old, and he felt nineteen, powerless, and revolted by his only sibling. His cousins had been rotten as far back as he could recall, but that Theresa had cast her lot with them—
“I am not old,” Belmont said, “and you, my friend, are no longer a boy.”
In some sense, Thomas had never been a boy. He’d lost his parents early, and his grandfather had been curmudgeonly on a good day. His cousins had been wastrels who’d delighted in shocking Thomas from a young age with their vices and venery.
“I’m not proud of how I feel,” Thomas said, “but she was a good girl, Matthew. Long, long ago, Theresa Jennings was a good girl.”
Kind, bookish, patient, willing to take the blame to spare her brother. Thomas had thought all sisters were like that, until he’d gone up to university and heard some of his schoolmates disparaging their siblings.
“She was a good girl, and now, she is a good woman,” Belmont said. “You’ve admitted that her regard for her daughter is beyond reproach. Sutcliffe Keep has prospered because of her attention to it. You will not insult her again in my hearing without suffering the consequences.”
Belmont was as relentless as the wind on the moor, eroding Thomas’s carefully constructed righteousness without striking another direct blow. Gratitude to the squire, for assuming the role of champion, warred with guilt.
Thomas had once been his sister’s friend and confidant, if not quite her champion. He’d been something worthy, to a sister who’d been worthy.
“Until two years ago, my cousin held the barony,” Thomas said, though the former baron had been a Town man. Thomas had carefully ensured their paths never crossed, which had taken a fair amount of travel and avoiding Polite Society.
“Your cousin was a wenching, drinking disgrace who came with an identical twin. Were these wastrels destined to live long lives, siring many children?”
Wenching wastrels were often unable to sire any children, thanks to the virulent strain of syphilis that had mobilized with the Corsican’s armies. Thomas had managed a brothel, and such knowledge had been unavoidable.
“You’re saying Theresa managed Sutcliffe because she knew I’d inherit it?”
Belmont made no reply. In the wood, the air was quieter, though the carpet of fallen leaves crunched underfoot. The season had changed at Linden in Thomas’s absence, gone from mellow autumn to early winter.
Loris had hinted at the same conclusion Belmont was suggesting—that Theresa had preserved Thomas’s birthright, all the while Thomas had been refusing to open his sister’s letters. The notion was preposterous.
Almost. “Had Theresa allowed Sutcliffe to fall into ruin, she and Priscilla would have had no place to bide, Belmont. Looking after her home was in her own interests.”
Thomas had told himself that lie any number of times. He’d married a woman who knew how to look after a property though, and Loris had effusively admired Sutcliffe’s apiary, the spotless dairy, the tidy wood, the neat stone walls. The family seat was in excellent repair as an estate, though as a household, the Keep itself was… fraying.
“I cannot have Theresa living here, Belmont,” Thomas said, kicking at the leaves as the gray cottage came into view. Without Loris’s flowers rioting about its porch and yard, the little dwelling looked forlorn.
As Thomas felt forlorn.
“Theresa hasn’t asked you if she can bide at Linden, has she?” Belmont kept walking, around to the back of the cottage.
“Not yet, but she’s biding her time, waiting for a moment when Loris won’t let me refuse her. You don’t know what Theresa became, Belmont. She was hell-bent on having her own way, and nothing, not pleading, promises, or threats, could stop her.”
Ugly, was the best word Thomas could put on what his sister had become. She’d sneered at him to run along back to Town, to stop clinging to her skirts, and leave her in peace.
She’d been ugly, but Thomas had been pathetic.
“You managed a brothel,” Belmont said, climbing the porch steps and taking a place on the swing where Thomas had fallen in love with Loris.
“For a time, and under protest.”
Belmont gave the swing a push, and the chains creaked. “That’s all right, then.”
Creak… creak… creak.
“Somebody had to keep the peace among the patrons, sort out squabbles, and—hell.” Thomas had hated every moment of it, hated being cast in the role of both protector and exploiter.
“You ensured that women were intimately available to any man who came along, ensured a profit resulted from what these women did, and assured yourself you had no alternative but to include these tasks in your duties. So helpless, for such a strapping, intelligent fellow. Were these women born wicked, I wonder? When they were Priscilla’s age, did they long to become debauched?”
Creak… creak… creak.
“Belmont, I could kill you and bury your body in my home wood, nobody the wiser.”
“Better to bury your guilt and leave it to rot among the regrets we all collect on the road to adulthood. Theresa had no mother, not an aunt, not even a proper companion, and yet you say, somehow, she was a good girl.”
She had been. Sweet, fierce, a little too bold sometimes, but good.
Thomas settled on the swing beside Belmont and brought the damned thing to a halt.
“I came home from university for the Christmas holidays, and my cousins were holding a house party at Sutcliffe that made the revels of Bacchus look like a tea dance. For some reason, they knew not to inveigle me into their debauchery, but Grandpapa was off at some shooting party. Theresa was not the sister I’d known.”
She’d deserted all decency, all sense, and she’d been barely seventeen years old. Thomas and his sister had fought, loudly and often, with the cousins placing bets as if they’d been ringside at a bear baiting.
“I wanted to take her away,” Thomas said. “I pleaded with Grandfather by letter to send her away from the influence of my cousins, but once my studies were done, the old man sent me away instead. I finished university without spending much more time at Sutcliffe, but I never thought—”
Belmont was a relaxed presence beside Thomas. Did parenting teach a m
an such impregnable calm? Apprehending felons? Sorting through differences in the parlor sessions? Or was it a gift bestowed by the Almighty?
“The feeling of betrayal stains a relationship, doesn’t it?” Belmont mused. “My wife betrayed me, and yet, there was my son, an innocent baby, one deserving of the love and protection of two parents. I held him in my arms, an blameless, squalling, red-faced tiny fellow who weighed little more than a stout puppy. I realized I could do for love of the boy what I might never do for love of his mother.”
Thomas was acquainted with the circumstances of Belmont’s marriage, but what woman would have rewarded her young husband’s gallantry with anything less than complete loyalty?
“What did you do?”
“I forgave her, Thomas. I forgave her for her weakness, and me for my arrogance.”
Thomas was feeling murderous, not arrogant. “You saved her good name and provided for another man’s child. How is that arrogance?”
“Don’t be obtuse. I was seventeen, and in exchange for saving Matilda’s good name, I expected to exercise my conjugal rights. I was owed those intimacies—she’d promised them to me in good faith, though she was in love with another. The poor woman was sorely confused, and I was a clueless ass.”
“You were young.”
“Theresa was young, you were young. We make mistakes, we learn from them. I have been puzzled about Theresa’s situation, though.”
Thomas gave the swing a push. With more weight on the chains, they didn’t creak.
“Say on, Belmont. You’re a clever fellow, and I doubt much puzzles you.” Then too, Belmont was inconveniently competent with his fists, and he’d been right.
Seventeen was miserably young, from any perspective, twenty not much older.
“Wait until your youngest child is fifteen years old,” Belmont said, “alternately raging down the rafters and silently fuming. Your capacity for puzzlement will acquire new dimensions. In any case, I can understand why a young woman would go astray. Wild oats are not the exclusive province of young men.”
“Theresa was bored at Sutcliffe,” Thomas said. “I know that.” Bored, lonely, too smart for her own good, with a grandfather too parsimonious to get her proper tutors or governesses.
Matthew Page 18
