Chapter 1
“He didn’t take his flask,” said Edward Richard Stone. “Her flask.”
He slumped on a bench in Hyde Park, studying the ornate silver thing, turning it over and over as though it would summon a fairy who would grant his wish to see Tobias — rather, Tabitha — once again.
“I don’t even know which name he likes. She likes,” he said, kicking the gravel before his seat.
Tencendor, Edward’s stallion, snorted in response, punctuating his complaints. His faithful steed had been with him since serving on the Continent, and they both had their quirks to show for it.
Edward opened the morning gazette and began perusing the lonely hearts ads.
He typically undertook this preliminary research in his office at the back of Mr. Rymer’s barbershop on Fetter Lane, but he’d found himself resistant to holing up in that dingy room when Tobias failed to materialize after a doctor’s examination revealed that the urchin boy was, in fact, a young woman.
“She could have stuck around,” muttered Edward. “Could have at least tried to let me not make a hash of things. Why’d she tell the doctor, but not me? I’m a friend!”
It had been six weeks since Edward had last seen the urchin he now thought of as Tabby, like a tabby cat materializing for scraps and winding about his ankles while chattering vociferously. How was Tabby eating now that Edward’s purse didn’t cover jellied eel and roasted nuts?
“Ho there, sir! I thought that was you, Lord Netherwallop!”
Oh, great god in heaven, the only way this cursed day could get worse was the arrival of that loud busybody Lady Millicent Blatherwick, his former fiancée’s widowed aunt.
Besides being his longtime nemesis, she now sought to remind him he had inherited the ridiculous Netherwallop viscountcy upon the death of his brother nearly a year ago.
Did the title come with properties and an income that might allow him to retire from the aristocratic breeding business that had been such a bother these past few years?
Absolutely not. It was a courtesy title, and his father, the Marquess of Chasterly, hadn’t done him the courtesy of a suitable allowance.
“Netherwallop, you’re just the person I was hoping to see! And you, too, Tenny,” she said, a rather sizable bunch of hay in the hand that wasn’t waving her cane about. Did she walk around London with horse feed in her reticule?
“Where’s your girl?” she asked, looking about.
“My…”
“Your young lady, for lack of a better word. The one in breeches, about yay high?”
“You knew?” asked Edward, feeling himself go slightly sideways.
Lady Millicent looked at him as if he were a prize idiot. “Young man, I understand wonderful things are being done in the field of optics. You might wish to avail yourself of spectacles.”
As far as uppercuts went, it was worthy of Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Whatever is the cause for laughter, Netherwallop?”
“I didn’t know,” he confessed. Dick Stone might be a stud for hire and a known scoundrel, but he didn’t want it put about that he gallivanted around London with an unattached young woman in daylight hours before the ton. This time, he was entirely innocent! “I’m an idiot.”
She gave him a once-over, troubling herself to remove a lorgnette so she might peruse his disgrace more thoroughly. “Clothes rumpled, cheeks sunken, talking to yourself. Yes, I suppose you are.”
“I didn’t look because it didn’t matter,” said Edward. His friendship with Tobias had not been contingent on the urchin having a piece.
“Before you get your friend back, obtain those spectacles. Who knows what you could miss by not seeing clearly?” There was a note of recognition in Lady Millicent’s voice, and her eyes took on a soft expression. It was almost too much to bear, to be so pitied by his nemesis!
“What brings you to the park this fine day, Lady Millicent?” he asked as he brushed the wrinkles out of his breeches.
“Oh, simply admiring the birds while taking my constitutional. The doctor claims it will aid in my ongoing battle with piles,” she said. “Hullo, birds!”
The winged creatures nearby took flight at her shrill yell. Edward wished he could join them.
“Is that the morning gazette?” she asked, sitting beside Edward without being invited.
He looked at the broadsheet with the words “Morning Gazette” printed in block letters right on the front. He was tempted to avoid answering the question because it was so silly.
But in truth, he was lonely. For six long weeks, he’d slept under an open window, hoping for his friend to swing in as he always had.
That bolthole office with a stool for Tobias felt suffocating with no promise of a visit and news of the outside.
In the largest city in the world, he was so desperately alone.
“It’s the morning paper, yes,” he said at last, resigned to civility.
“They print lies,” sniffed Lady Millicent. “If the article weren’t so ludicrous, Phily would have grounds for a libel suit.”
Lady Philadelphia De Courcy, now Duchess of Chevaliermont, had once been Edward’s fiancée — until he caught the Duke of Chevaliermont balls deep in that ravishing heiress sometime around the supper dance at Edward and Phily’s engagement ball.
“The gazette mentioned the duchess by name?” asked Edward, astonished that a publication would take such a risk.
Lady Millicent fluttered her hands to dismiss the notion. “No, but it was clear enough who they meant. Insinuating that she’s been playing so deep as to run through her allowance and then some! It’s ludicrous! The duke is most generous with her, most satisfied with the match.”
Interesting. Phily wouldn’t be the first wife to lose sizeable sums of money at the tables, but how much did a duchess need to surrender before it became newsworthy?
And if Phily were as happy with the duke and his growing tree of offspring as everyone always claimed, why was she gambling so heavily?
“Lemon drop?” asked Lady Millicent, offering him a candy from a paper cone that seemed to have a good deal of dust on it.
He took one and recalled that they were a favorite of Tabby’s. He licked his lips and gazed pensively at the horizon.
“It doesn’t get easier,” said Lady Millicent, her voice for once quiet.
He didn’t respond, just watched the treeline in the distance.
“It doesn’t get easier, but if there were a way to bring someone back, I wouldn’t be moping about the park,” she said. She withdrew papers from her reticule, bent and bearing traces of hay seeds. “I was sent to give you this.”
And with that, she thrust something into his hands and rose decisively to disturb the peace of a nearby open carriage of picnickers.
Edward took a drink from Tabby’s silver flask. He’d filled it at many pumps around the city, but it never tasted quite right.