Regency Society

He walked towards it, bumping into the corner and hearing the hollow rap of his cane against its body, running his hand along the side and hoping that she had not wasted money on some gold, heavily ornamented monster of an instrument. It felt simple enough. Rectangular, and with the slightly sticky feel of varnish rather than paint.

So she thought he should keep busy. Clearly, she did not understand what it meant to be a gentleman. His status in society removed the whole point of an occupation. He was not supposed to make work for himself. And many of the things that might have kept him entertained were quite lost to him, now that his eyes were gone. Even gaming had lost its lure. He could no longer read the cards without help, and his need to touch the face of the dice, to feel the spots and assure himself of the roll, was often taken as cheating by his opponents.

He sat down on the bench and laid his hands on the ivory keys, depressing one to hear the tone of it, and depressing his spirit as well. It would need continual tuning, of course. These things always did. But was he expected to know by listening whether it was right or wrong?

He walked his fingers up a scale and sighed, already bored with it in a few short notes. He laboriously picked out a folksong, and then a familiar hymn. The tunes were thin, and he was sure that a talented musician would be searching for seconds and thirds, and chords, finding harmonious combinations by trial and error.

What had he taken from the few music lessons of his youth? Damn little. While his mother had thought it a good idea to give him some understanding of the arts, his father had thought it a waste of time. The clock on the mantel chimed a quarter past the hour. It was just as it had been when he was a boy. He had been sitting at the instrument for only a few moments, and already he was stiff, bored and aching to leave it behind.

‘A visitor to see you, my lord.’ Abbott had entered with the announcement, and Adrian looked up with eagerness, forgetting for a moment that he had not accepted a guest in months as his condition had deteriorated.

‘Mr Eston.’

‘Damn and hell.’ Emily’s brother, and the last man on the planet he wished to see. ‘Put him off. Any excuse you like, I do not care.’

‘He will not be denied. He says that he means to wait in the entry until he meets with you, either coming or going.’

It sounded very like his old friend David, who in comparison to Adrian had both the patience and morals of a saint. ‘Give me a moment, and then show him in.’

When he heard the door close, he hurried across the room to the brandy decanter, filling a glass with such speed that he spilled some on his sleeve. Even better. The smell of the liquor burned in his nostrils, making an attempt at the appearance of drunkenness more obvious. For good measure he dipped his fingers into the glass and sprinkled more of it onto his coat then took a mouthful and swished it about a bit before swallowing. Then he went back to sprawl in a chair by the fireplace with the decanter in one hand and the half-empty glass in the other, barking his shin against the piano bench on the way, then sitting down again just as the door opened.

He looked up as though the hulking shadow in the doorway seemed the least bit familiar, and raised his glass in salute. ‘David, it has been so long.’

‘Over a year,’ his brother-in-law grunted at him.

‘And what brings you to London?’

‘I have come to fetch you home.’

‘Why, my dear sir, I am home.’ He waved the glass to encompass the room, spilling more of the contents in the process. ‘Please, avail yourself of my hospitality. A drink, perhaps?’

‘It is just gone noon, Adrian,’ David said with disgust. ‘Far too early for brandy.’

‘But this is a special occasion, is it not? We have established that you do not visit often. To see you now is a cause for celebration.’ To see him at all would be more of a miracle. But for now, his unfocused gaze and unwillingness to meet his friend’s eye would be blamed on a guilty nature and the glass in his hand.

Eston grunted again, and he did not need eyes to guess the expression of distaste on the man’s face. ‘You celebrate too often, as it is.’

‘There is much reason to make merry, for London is a fine town.’

‘But not so fine that you would bring my sister to it.’

‘I did not think she would enjoy it. You said often enough, before we married, that she was a simple girl.’

‘She is a woman, now. And she is here in town.’ David paused to give significance to the next words. ‘But she is not staying with me.’

Adrian gave an uneasy laugh. ‘Is that so?’

‘She has taken rooms, and refuses to tell me where. I assume that she is using them to receive someone that she does not want me to meet.’

‘I do not mind her coming to town. Nor have I forbidden her from socialising. There is money enough to take lodgings of her own, should she choose to. And there is hardly space enough here, should she want to come to me.’

‘If there is money enough to maintain two residences,’ David said with irritation, ‘then there is also money enough to get a town house large enough to share.’

‘But would that allow her the privacy she seeks?’ Adrian said with mock innocence.

David made a noise of exasperation. ‘Why should it matter to you? She is your wife and should not require more privacy than you wish to give her.’

Adrian took a swig of his brandy, and waved his other hand, as if the concept were too much for his addled brain. ‘Well then, we are in agreement. I wish to allow her as much privacy as she wants, and to allow myself the same.’

‘So it does not bother you that she has taken a lover?’

There would be no way of avoiding the truth if David insisted on sharing it with him. Adrian poured himself another brandy and drank deep, pretending that he cared for nothing but the spirit, ignoring the tightening in his guts. ‘And who might that be?’

‘I do not know his name,’ David said. ‘But I ran into her today, shopping on Bond Street. And it was obvious what she has been doing with the days she has been absent from my lodging. She positively glowed.’

‘I am encouraged by her continued good health,’ Adrian said absently, feeling both relieved and discouraged by the sketchy information.

‘It is not health I am referring to, you drunken ninny,’ David snapped back, all patience gone. ‘I have never seen my sister looking thus. She has been with a man.’

Adrian sipped his drink, looking down into it as though he could see it. ‘And I have been with a woman. I can hardly blame her, David. You know we are estranged.’

‘But I do not know the reason for the separation.’

He took another drink from his glass. ‘Perhaps not. But it is no business of yours. It is a matter between my wife and myself.’

‘And now it is a matter between you and me. You have made no effort to be a husband to her, and now she is likely to shame herself and you with a public affair.’

‘With my blessing,’ Adrian said, gritting his teeth.

David swore. And then the shifting shadows seemed to indicate him stepping closer, towering over Adrian as he sat by the fire. ‘You have been with Emily for three years, and it is clear that you do not mean to get her with child or show her even the slightest modicum of respect. If she looks elsewhere for affection, it is quite possible that your heir will be illegitimate, and then all will know you for a fool, and my sister for a whore.’

Adrian stared into the faint orange glow that marked the ashes from the previous night’s fire. ‘I think there is little doubt already that I am a fool. And as for her reputation?’ He shrugged. ‘She is my wife. Any child of hers will be my heir, no matter who his father might be.’

‘Are you saying you cannot stir yourself sufficiently to care for Emily that you would be with her long enough to ensure the parentage of your children? If you had so little regard for her, then why did you marry her?’

Adrian drank again. ‘Perhaps I never for a moment wanted her. But I saw no way out of it. My future was sewn up tight by my parents and by yours, before I had any say in it. I am willing to abide by my obligations. But it is a bit much to expect me to do it with a light heart.’

‘You selfish bastard,’ David said with disgust. ‘I remember you of old, Adrian. And I thought you near to fearless. Now, you are telling me that you lacked the nerve to stand up to a slip of a girl and trapped her in a sham of a marriage rather than set her free to find the love she deserved.’

‘It is not as though she gained nothing by marrying me,’ he muttered. ‘She has the land.’

‘You have the land,’ David reminded him. ‘And she has the running of it.’

‘And a fine job she does,’ he nodded, smiling. ‘In reward, I have given her the freedom to find love where she likes. That is what you wished for her, did you not?’

‘But it is not what she wishes,’ David insisted. ‘She adores you, Adrian. At least, she did when you wed her.’

‘She gave no sign of it, at the time,’ he answered. Not that he had made any great effort to discern the feelings of the woman he had married. But suppose there had been some affection there that he had been too thick to notice? The tiny portrait in his pocket seemed to grow heavier at the thought.

‘I know her, even better than I know you. She was too shy to say so, but she was overjoyed at the match. And at the time, she had great hopes that you would learn to love her as well. Emily wanted more than what you have given her.’ Now David spoke more gently. ‘When I press her about the estrangement, she claims to value her freedom. But I can see the look in her eyes. She wants a husband and children more than your estate. And though she might settle for any man willing to show her affection, her heart is not involved. There is a chance, if you return to her now, that it is not too late. Her tendre for you could be rekindled.’

Dear God, no. ‘And what would make you think that I had any desire for such?’ It was the last thing he needed to hear, now of all times. Sometimes it seemed that his only source of consolation was that his death would be a relief to her. But suppose it was otherwise?

‘Perhaps I think you should care less about what you desire, and stop behaving like some stupid young buck, fresh from the classroom and eager to indulge every whim. Go back to your wife before she sinks as low as you have and cares for naught but meeting her own needs.’

‘Now see here,’ Adrian snapped back, feeling the beginnings of a cloud over his thoughts from the brandy he had bolted. ‘What I do or do not do with your sister is no affair of yours. The only reason it bothers you, I think, is because you had some designs on my land yourself. See it as an extension of your own park, do you? Hunting and fishing and riding on my property as though you own it. You must think that I will go the way of my short-lived ancestors, and that when I am gone, you will twist my heir around your little finger.’ He laughed and took another gulp, letting his imagination run wild. ‘That’ll be much harder to do if the whole thing passes to some cousin, won’t it? If there is no heir, your sister will be put off to dower, and your plans will all be for naught.’ It was a disgusting picture. And he wondered if there was any truth in it.

David cursed and knocked the glass from his hand onto the hearth. ‘It is only affection for Emily that keeps me from calling you out.’

‘And I might say the same. If any other man had dared to come into my study to tell me how to organise my life and my marriage, I’d have run him through.’

He could almost hear David’s eyes narrow. ‘You needn’t fear that in the future, Adrian. All who once claimed you as a friend are gone, driven off by your shameful behaviour. But if they still existed, they would also tell you that you are a sot and a wastrel and they are embarrassed to know you. You lose yourself in liquor and whores, intent on destroying yourself like your father and grandfather did before you, little heeding the pain you heap on your wife and friends. I rue the day that a union of our families was suggested. I do not need access to your land, and will keep within the boundaries of my own estate, if the thought of my trespassing bothers you so. From now on, I will live as a stranger to you.’

‘At last! He means to leave me alone!’ Adrian hoped that volume would make up for the lack of true feeling in the dismissal.

‘And it is a shame, Adrian, for I once thought of you almost as a brother. I welcomed the connection between us and hoped that a wedding would bring you happiness, moderate your character and be a benefit to Emily. I have proved myself a bigger fool than you are for putting my trust in you.’

His childhood friend spoke with such disappointment that he almost admitted the truth. But what good would that do? The man would be just as angry that poor Emily had been tricked into such an ill-fated match. ‘You must have known,’ Adrian said softly, ‘that there was a chance that you were wrong. That blood might tell, and I would be no better than the rest of my family.’

‘But I knew you. Or thought I did. And I was sure, at one time, that you had a heart to be touched. I am beginning to suspect that it is not the case.’

Adrian hid his confusion in a cold laugh that he knew would enrage his guest. ‘Then you are learning me right, after all these years,’ he said looking up at the hazy spectre of his oldest friend, looming over him.

‘Very well, then. The interview is at an end, as is the last of our friendship. You have treated my sister abominably. You have scorned my efforts to intervene. What is likely to occur from all this will be entirely on your head.’

And even without sight, Adrian could chart David’s passage out of the rooms by the slamming of the doors.

Chapter Twelve

‘Hendricks!’ Adrian bellowed. If the man was still in, there would be no way for him to escape the sound of his master’s voice.

‘My lord?’ His response was so prompt that Adrian wondered if the secretary had been listening at the door.

‘I was just forced to undergo an excruciating fifteen minutes with Eston. Am I mistaken, Hendricks, or do I pay you to prevent such things?’

‘I am sorry, my lord.’

If he wished to be rational, he would admit that it had been the distraction of the piano delivery that had left the doors open and allowed the guest to enter, not any carelessness on Hendricks’s part. But the excess of spirits was making him irritable, as was the disapproving sniff that Hendricks gave at the spilled brandy. Adrian set the decanter aside. ‘To avert questions about my behaviour, I let him think me drunk. I have most likely ruined this coat by dousing myself with liquor. But he felt the need to tell me that my wife has taken a lover. What do you know of the situation?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’ But the man said ‘nothing’ with such a lack of conviction that he might as well have said everything.

‘Really. But you have seen her recently, I trust?’

‘Yes, my lord. This morning.’

‘And how did she look, when you last spoke with her?’

‘Well.’

‘Is that all, Hendricks? For her brother implied that she was looking, perhaps, too well.’

Adrian’s comment should have been incomprehensible. But Hendricks seemed to understand it perfectly. ‘I did not notice anything unusual about her, my lord.’ It was a pitiful attempt to hide the truth.

‘And where was she, when last you saw her?’

Hendricks paused, as though he could not seem to remember his story, and said, ‘At her brother’s town house, my lord.’

‘How strange. For she has not been in residence there for several days.’

Hendricks sighed. ‘At her rooms, my lord.’

‘So you have seen them, then?’ He resisted the desire to add the word Aha. ‘I suppose you have been there several times.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ He sounded glum now, as though any good spirits that the lady might have gained through his visits were not shared.

As an afterthought, Adrian asked, ‘As I remember it, Hendricks, you wear spectacles, do you not?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Hendricks, clearly baffled as to what this had to do with anything.

And there went his hopes that the next Earl of Folbroke would be unencumbered by difficulties with vision. Still, some sight was better than none. ‘Her brother David seemed most concerned at the damage to her reputation, should it be known that she is setting up housekeeping with a man. If she wished some space of her own, it is a shame that she has not seen fit to ask her husband for permission.’

‘Did you expect her to? It has been long since you have spoken to her—she no doubt assumed that you would not care.’ Hendricks had answered a trifle too quickly with this, and altered his tone to be less censorious before adding, ‘If you wish to see her today, I could arrange it for you.’

‘It merely surprises me that she has not sought me out. If she cannot visit her own husband when she is scant miles from him, then it gives credence to her brother’s theory.’

‘She did visit you, my lord, on the day she arrived in town. As you remember, I came to fetch you.’

And pulled me from another woman’s arms and dragged me home, insensible. Touché, Hendricks, touché. ‘Since she did not return, I did not think the matter was important.’

‘Perhaps it is because she has been spurned and avoided for such a long time that she has no more desire to try.’ His secretary’s voice was sharp and scolding. And there could be no questioning his meaning. ‘At this point in time, perhaps it is up to you to seek her.’

‘Do you presume to tell me how to handle my marriage?’

‘Of course not, my lord.’ But the tone said just the opposite.

‘You might as well do it, for it seems quite a popular activity this week.’ He gave a vague gesture towards the writing desk. ‘Draft a letter to Emily. I will see her this evening at six. Do it quick, man, before I sober sufficiently from Eston’s visit to realise what a mistake I am making.’

‘See her, my lord? Do you wish me to explain the unlikelihood of that? For I believe your condition still a mystery to her.’

For a moment he had forgotten. Damn that strange woman for getting under his skin and making him think, even for an instant, that his life could be ordinary.

‘No. Emily has no clue. Unless you have told her.’

‘You forbade me.’ It was a comfort to hear the resignation, and the resolution, in that sentence and the lack of even a fraction of a second’s hesitation. Whatever else he might be doing, it was plain that Hendricks followed some of his instructions to the letter, no matter how unwise he thought them.

Adrian shook his head. ‘After all this time, there are no simple words to describe to her what has happened, or to explain why I hid the truth. It will be easier when we are face to face to explain things, so that there can be no mistaking. It is not as if my lack will come as a severe shock to her. I am not disfigured in any way, am I?’ He touched his own face, suddenly unsure. Perhaps time had made him an ogre, and the servants were too kind to remark on it.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then I will explain to her, once she arrives. It is time, I think, that there be some truth between us.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Mr Eston, my lady.’

When the footman announced her brother, Emily was enjoying what she’d thought was a well-earned cup of tea. With her morning’s shopping and calls, she had taken what she’d hoped were the first steps to sorting out her husband’s problems. Or perhaps they were steps towards encouraging him to do so, for she doubted there would be any change in his character without full co-operation from the man himself.

But since no one knew of her location, she had not expected visitors other than Hendricks. And she certainly had not expected to see her brother. ‘David?’ Thinking of the confrontation she expected from him, his name came out of her mouth in a breathless whimper that made her sound guiltier than she was over her behaviour. ‘What are you doing here?’ There, she noted with some relief. The strength returned to her when she turned the challenge back to him.

‘I have come to see what you are doing here, and who you are doing it with.’ Her brother signalled the footman for another cup and sat in the chair opposite her. His presence was so commanding that she thought for a moment that he had invited her to the room to explain herself.

‘It is not necessary for you to watch over me. Nor is it your place,’ she reminded him. ‘I am both grown and married.’

‘If you can call what you share with Adrian a marriage,’ he responded.

‘Says the man who is the same age as my husband, but has no wife of his own.’

The mention of this seemed to make him uncomfortable, so he turned the argument hurriedly back to her. ‘It is your husband I wish to speak of, and not my non-existent wife. I have been to see Adrian, since you have not.’

‘That was not necessary.’

‘I feel it was,’ he said, looking around him at her rooms. ‘I saw you this morning, shopping in Bond Street.’

‘I remember,’ she said coolly. ‘I greeted you, did I not?’

‘But you were behaving strangely. Secretively. There is but one reason that I can think of to explain such behaviour.’

‘Oh, I seriously doubt that,’ she said. Emily could feel herself begin to blush, which would make her look even more guilty. But there was little to be done to stifle the sudden and rather graphic memories of what she had been up to in the days since she had moved from her brother’s house.

‘You have taken up with some man.’ He was staring at her clothing, which was too casual to accept any but a lover, and the flush of her skin. And God forbid that he should look in the bedroom, for he might see the sheets, still rumpled from last night’s activities.

She took another sip of tea to hide her confusion. ‘Hardly, David.’

‘And you have rented rooms so that the meetings could be done in secret.’

‘Not much of a secret, clearly, since you have followed me to them. Was that how you found me?’ But he had clearly not looked too closely into the matter, if he had not identified the man in question.

He showed no sign of noticing her censor. ‘I questioned my coachman, since you seem intent on using my vehicle as your own. And he admitted taking your baggage to this place. But we are not discussing my behaviour. It is yours that is in question. I waited outside this morning. And in the dim light, I saw someone creeping away from here. He was in the carriage and away before I could get a look at him.’

‘Oh, David,’ she said, wincing with embarrassment at this further complication of her plans. ‘Why now? You have not given a thought to my behaviour in years. It is not as if I did not have admirers before.’

‘But you were not serious about them. And even if you were, that was in the country. It was not as if anyone was likely to notice you there.’

So she had been out of sight and out of mind to him as well, had she? ‘I suspect it was easier for you, when I remained there. But you could not expect me to avoid London for ever, could you?’

‘Perhaps not. But I expected that when you returned to town, you would be circumspect in your behaviour. If you cannot manage your reputation, you will come home immediately.’

‘I will not.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And just where do you mean to take me, if I must come home? Not to your house, certainly. I have not lived under that roof since I married.’

‘But perhaps you should, if you mean to disgrace the family.’

‘I am no longer a member of your family. But if Adrian has a problem, after all this time, then he should be the one to come here, and drag me back to the country.’

‘We both know that he will not,’ her brother replied with disgust. ‘If he exercised the discipline necessary in his own house, then the job would not fall to me. And if you did not go to such lengths to make absence easy for him, he might be forced to return home and see to his business.’