Chapter 2
Chapter
London
The mare was too narrow in the chest. The stallion had a weak hindquarter.
And the gelding, don’t even get him started on the gelding.
The animal was well-tempered enough he supposed, but so skittish he wondered if its parental lineage included a frightened bunny rabbit instead of the storied breeding stock he’d been promised.
Christ, what a waste of time.
Frederick Sedgewick, the Ninth Earl of Chester, stood at the edge of the ring at Tattersalls with his gloves tucked under one arm and the usual look of utter annoyance on his face. He wore it so often it was close to becoming permanent.
His golden hair curled slightly beneath the brim of his hat, and the cut of his coat was perfect. He’d given exacting instructions on Savile Row to make it so. A sixteenth of an inch on the hem did make a difference, no matter the mouth noises uttered by his tailor at that request.
Somewhere off to his right, a young woman laughed too loudly. He didn’t turn toward her, although he knew she was there. Just as he knew her chaperone was conspicuously absent, wandering off far more often than she should.
And then the chit drifted closer. Close enough that her cloying perfume clung egregiously to the back of his throat, and let her gloved fingers brush, ever so lightly, the sleeve of his coat.
His whole body went rigid. Not outwardly—he was not so gauche as that—but inside, as if some invisible wire had been yanked taut beneath his skin. Irritation flared where she’d touched him, biting and wrong, and with it the familiar, ugly sense of being observed. Assessed. Taken apart for parts.
He did not look at her. That was the trick.
If he looked, he would have to see her—see the expectation blooming on her face along with all that hungry hope.
And he’d rather swallow broken glass than feed that kind of asinine delusion.
The game he thought of as “capture an earl” was on, but Frederick didn’t play.
He never did; he had less interest in marriage than he did in that sway-backed mare the groom had just retired from his sight.
Fred had been back in London for seven years, having returned from the Continent to unexpectedly inherit an earldom from a relative he’d never thought to succeed. At the time, he’d foolishly hoped his long absence would mean the scandal sheets had forgotten him.
They hadn’t.
And since he had few friends and now rarely left Chester House except to ride, buy, or race horses, the papers took it upon themselves to invent more scandalous ways he might be spending his days. Certainly far more wicked companions than he’d ever considered for his nights.
If only, he thought sometimes, they knew the truth.
But Chaste Chester, he supposed, didn’t have the same ring to it as the Darling of Dorset or the Local Adonis.
The Local Adonis remained so much in use he considered rather more often than he should setting the printing house of The Poisoned Quill on fire.
He’d never do it, probably, but he relished the thought.
A footman cleared his throat politely at his elbow. “Shall I have the gelding brought round again, my lord?”
Fred turned his scowl upon the unfortunate man. “Only if I had an interest in purchasing a half-lame lawn ornament. Which, I assure you, I do not.”
The footman bowed and retreated. He probably blanched too, but that wasn’t Fred’s concern. The gelding indeed. As if the price they were asking for that pile of bones wasn’t practically highway robbery. Maybe he should set Tattersalls afire too.
At the very least some hot flames licking at the heels of that simpering girl beside him would rid him of her presence. When he hadn’t spared her a single glance, she’d taken to laughing too loudly and saying, “Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”
He did not agree. He didn’t even know what she’d said. Instead of inquiring, he turned on his heel to call for his carriage. His stomach was rumbling and he’d found nothing of what he’d come looking for. He hardly ever did.
And it was better to leave before she tried again or worse, became incensed at his refusal to even look in her direction. Even the most missish of young misses could turn angry when ignored and then there would be more character assassinations, more rumors, more posts in the scandal rags.
No, best to return home to Chester House and eat his dinner in silence, just as he preferred it.
Roast beef, buttered turnips, and oysters, with a decanter of claret standing sentry by his elbow.
Fred had always been a man of prodigious appetites, and the cook, who had been serving just his widowed aunt and cousin Catherine, before he arrived to claim the Earldom, had had quite a time adjusting her expectations to the amount of food required by a single man of his size and athletic ability.
Even if said man dined alone every evening.
Tonight’s meal would suffice, if just barely. He reached for his wine and considered what more he could possibly say to the chef to make the woman increase his dinner portions.
“Gilbert,” he said, when the butler approached with a slim envelope balanced on a silver tray. “This is not acceptable.”
The butler glanced at the table set before Fred. “I’ll speak to the chef again.”
“Make it stick this time. I’ve no intention of starving to death in my own home.”
“Yes, my lord.” Gilbert held out the silver tray. “A letter, my lord.”
“If it’s another invitation to some god-awful musicale, burn it.”
‘Burn it’ was increasingly his theme for the day.
“It’s from Dorset, my lord.”
Fred gulped down the wine he’d just taken into his mouth, not pausing to taste it. He held out his hand for the envelope Gilbert delicately placed in his palm. He double checked the direction just in case his man had been wrong. He wasn’t. The letter was postmarked from Farrow Cottage in Dorset.
Thomas.
Fred stood, abruptly, nearly knocking over the claret. “Clear the table,” he said. “I’ll be in my study.”
“Would you like us to send a dinner tray to you there?”
Fred levelled the man with his gaze. “If I’d have wanted a tray sent up, I’d have asked for the tray.”
Private Correspondence From Thomas Farrow:
Farrow Cottage, Dorset
To: the Right Honourable Frederick Sedgewick, Earl of Chester
Chester House, London
Frederick,
You may be surprised to receive this letter, and I will not waste time on pleasantries, as I have neither the strength nor the inclination for them.
We have not spoken since the night of the accident.
Ten years ago to the day since you fled England and the consequences of your actions.
You left Julianna and me alone to bury our parents and shovel through the ashes of our lives.
I hate you for that cowardice almost as much as I do for your callous disregard for the safety of others.
I understand from your lawyer that you have inherited now. He wrote to us with the news when he made your offer of an annuity. As if 120 pounds a year could in any way make up for the death of our beloved mother and father.
Julianna and I refused it, of course, as you must know. That annuity was blood money, and we both know whose blood paid for it. I would rather starve in rags than touch a farthing of your so-called generosity.
But I will not countenance that same fate for Julianna. I write to you now because I am dying. Slowly but quite certainly, although my sister refuses to believe it. My lungs are failing me and I fear I will not see the end of the year.
Julianna does not yet understand what it will mean to be alone. She believes herself strong, and she is, but strength is no defense against the cruelties this world bequeaths to poverty-stricken gentlewomen.
The cottage and what few funds we do have will go to Cousin Howard.
He will no more do an adequate job of protecting her from the realities that prey upon unmarried women without family nor fortune than he did undertaking his courses at Eton.
You may recall he did not make it six months in those hallowed halls of learning.
So here I find myself, asking you to do the only decent thing you’ve done in a decade: You will come to Dorset. You will marry my sister.
Please know that I would ask any other man were one available, but fortune finds there is not.
So it must be you. You are wealthy, influential, and, despite all odds, an unattached peer.
Your title is no compensation for the lives you ruined but it gives you the means to ensure her safety.
You owe her that, Fred. You owe it to us both.
There will be no question of intimacy, of course. Heirs and spares be damned. You are not to touch her. You are not to expect love nor warmth nor welcome. This marriage is to be a contract in name only, and nothing more.
Trust that I do not write this out of reconciliation. I do not want your friendship, and I do not believe in your remorse.
I only care that you return here, to Dorset, within the month. You will promise yourself to my sister and repay the debt owed to us.
Thomas Farrow