Thaddeus
The club was a haven from the noise outside.
A sanctuary of polished wood and quiet conversation—everything the streets were not.
London was getting worse. Beggars on every corner, children running wild with hollow cheeks and thinner coats.
I could never understand why they kept having more when they couldn’t feed the ones they already had.
Henry and Ezra sat close to the fire, newspapers spread open between them. A women’s college opening up. The rise of liberalism. The sort of things that made the old families twitch. If we couldn’t keep our own house in order, the French would start calling us weak.
God forbid that.
“Have a port brought to my table,” I said, handing the young footman my hat and coat.
He nodded, but I didn’t wait for his reply. I crossed the room toward my friends, the hush of the club settling over my shoulders like a familiar cloak.
“Oh-ho, here he is,” Ezra said, earning a withering glare from Lord Crompton.
I sank into the armchair opposite them and shook my head.
“If you’re excluded from the club again, old boy, I shall not be seen leaving with you.”
“I should say not,” Henry drawled, folding his newspaper with lazy precision. “But do enlighten us. How did it go with Lady Harriet?”
“You sound like my mother, Henry. I had no notion my potential nuptials would prove such entertainment.”
Both of them were respectable husbands in public and absolute degenerates in private — a hypocrisy neither seemed troubled by.
“Ah, I remember when I first met my Anna,” Ezra said fondly. “Those sweet days don’t last long.”
“Good God, man,” Henry scoffed, lips curling into a smirk. “You are seven-and-twenty. You ought to have been married an age ago.”
The truth was that my chaperoned meeting with Lady Harriet’s daughter had been rather dull. She was the same as all the other young ladies my parents thrust at me—polite, agreeable, and entirely without spark.
At least the women at Madame Radley’s had a little fire in them.
“Get a wife for the sake of an heir. You may dabble on the side when you’re in town,” Henry said as my port arrived.
I ignored him. I would marry when I damn well chose to—and not a moment before.
“The meeting was not productive, or he wouldn’t be drinking at this hour,” Ezra remarked.
“I need the port to dull the racket coming from your lips,” I said, flicking the newspaper open.
At last. Blessed silence. I’d begun to think them incapable of it.
? ? ?
My father’s office was always a suffocating place—a chamber choked with dark panelled walls and the stale scent of tobacco.
Heavy velvet curtains smothered the windows, muting the daylight to a dim amber glow.
Every surface carried his authority: polished mahogany, brass fixtures buffed to a mirror shine, ledgers stacked in ruthless order.
A fire snapped in the grate, but it did nothing to soften the room.
If anything, the heat made it worse—thick, oppressive, fit for judgement.
“You are passing your prime age to marry, Thaddeus,” my father said, settling his portly frame deeper into the grand leather armchair that had moulded itself to his shape over decades.
He lifted his pipe to his lips. The ember glowed, then a plume of smoke unfurled toward me like a contemptuous hand waving me into obedience.
Twenty-seven was hardly old.
“You need someone with social standing and an advantageous dowry,” he went on, shaking his head as if I were a hopeless case. “Turning down Lord Upton’s daughter is a mistake. Our estate needs that capital.”
The harvest had been poor this year, yes—but I had seen the accounts. We were nowhere near the poorhouse, despite his theatrics.
He leaned forward, shadow swelling across the desk. “I was a young man once. Do you think I am unaware of the disreputable establishments you frequent?”
That was not an image I wished to contemplate—my father in an establishment like that.
“Father, I will try harder, but I find the prospects to be… dull,” I murmured.
The last thing I wanted was for him to cut my funds.
He began to puff furiously on the pipe, drawing so hard the bowl glowed molten. Billows of smoke rolled through the office, stinging my eyes, coiling around my throat.
The room grew dimmer. Hotter. Smaller.
“Boy, do you think I had a choice when I married your mother?” he yelled, yanking the pipe away from his mouth. His face flushed crimson, cheeks wobbling with indignation. “Yet I made it work.”
“I apologise, Father,” I said, dipping my head in a gesture I had perfected over the years—the quiet submission expected of a son groomed to inherit but never permitted an independent thought.
He sniffed sharply. “Your mother has coddled you far too long.”
His words hung in the smoke-thick air, settling over me like another layer of suffocating velvet.
“It is time you grew up, Thaddeus. You will not sully the Wolverton lineage,” he said, his tone shifting with an abruptness that made the air change temperature.
His demeanour altered—cold, contained, the sort of calm that never boded well.
My spine prickled.
“Your ancestors worked hard to establish our place in high society. It has served us well.”
I almost rolled my eyes. The speech was older than I was.
“I’ve decided…”
My head snapped up.
He rarely paused between condemnations; hesitation meant danger.
He leaned back in his chair with calculated ease, the leather sighing beneath his weight, and regarded me with shrewd, appraising eyes.
My stomach clenched.
My allowance. Damn it.
“You’re going to the Highlands,” he announced, the corners of his mouth lifting into a self-satisfied smile. “My great-uncle Alasdair passed away and willed me his estate.”
I stared at him. “Highlands? You mean in Scotland?” I choked, unable to mask the disbelief scraping my throat.
“Yes,” he replied, almost cheerfully. “We must ensure our rightful stake is upheld. There is some unrest, and many people are being removed from their lands.” He waved a hand as though eviction and misery were mere administrative inconveniences.
“You will report back to me on the condition of Eilidh Manor.”
I blinked at him, pulse thudding hard against my collar.
“Father—” I began, leaning forward in appeal, but he raised a hand and sliced through my protest with a single, dismissive gesture.
“Your tickets are booked for the first portion of your journey,” he said curtly. “You will arrange the next leg when you reach Glasgow. You may take Rowlands with you and hire someone local for the housekeeping.”
His pipe returned to his mouth with finality—a clear sign the discussion, like my freedom, had ended.
“Yes, Father,” I said, resigned to my dismal fate.
I turned stiffly and left the office, the heavy door clicking shut behind me like the lid of a coffin.
It hardly mattered when I was expected to depart or what state the damned estate was in. He would send the particulars soon enough—he always did, in neat little lists written by Mother’s secretary, as though I were a schoolboy being dispatched for lessons.
“Scotland,” I muttered under my breath as I strode down the corridor.
The word tasted foreign, cold, a place I had only ever seen drawn on maps.
Something fluttered beneath my chest—an odd, tightening pulse low in my ribs.
I pressed a hand to the spot, frowning. Heartburn, perhaps. Or irritation.
I refused to dwell on it.
Instead, I began mentally listing what I’d need to pack for my extended exile.
It was a punishment, that much was clear.
A sharp reminder that my father still held the purse strings—and my future—firmly in his grasp.
But exile could be opportunity.
I had watched him for years:
how he spoke to tenants, how he assessed land, how he acquired and renovated new properties with that relentless Wolverton efficiency.
He thought our cash flow was fragile.
He was wrong.
We were land-rich, asset-heavy, with commercial and residential holdings that brought in more than enough revenue.
If he meant to banish me north to teach me a lesson, then I would use the time to my advantage.
This was an opportunity.
And by God, I would prove him wrong.