Chapter 2
When Edward awoke the next morning, he found himself seated in his desk chair, his chest sprawled on his bed, and his hand tangled in the hem of Tabby’s nightgown. He must have tipped over in the night, he reasoned, setting his person to rights.
Getting cleaned up with a girl — young woman — in the room proved difficult. It was a small space he didn’t share, so there was no screen behind which he could duck after obtaining hot water from Mrs. Chaffinch.
If he still had any doubts about his future in this boarding house, the set of his landlady’s chin when he made his way to the ground floor would have quickly corrected any wrong notions.
Edward was halfway through shaving before a cracked mirror when there was a knock on the door.
“I know, Mrs. Chaffinch, I promise we’ll be out today,” he said, exasperated that she thought he needed more than matronly disapproval to understand the severity of his crimes against the morals of their fine nation and her boarding house specifically.
The knock came again, and if Edward wasn’t mistaken, that was a man’s fist on the other side of the door. He sighed, hoping that his landlady hadn’t summoned toughs to throw them out. Collecting his belongings from the street might be the blow that finally killed him and his curiously stony heart.
“Yes?” asked Edward at the door, loath to open it without some sense of what awaited him.
“Messenger.”
“Bearing a message from?”
“His Lordship the Marquess of Chasterly. Please open the door.”
By now, Tabby had awoken from her slumber and was rising from the bed.
Gesù, the last thing he needed was for one of his father’s gossiping servants to find a young woman in his lodging house!
Why that should be worse than his general reputation as a stud and seducer, he didn’t know, but he didn’t want to discover that his intuition was correct.
“Stay under here,” he said, tossing the blankets over Tabby. “And don’t move.”
She looked at him sleepily, then nodded and seemed content to enjoy more time abed. She really wasn’t joking about her aspiration to do no work, the lollpoop!
Edward opened the door to a footman wearing the Chasterly livery. The man bowed and held out a message bearing the marquess’s crest.
He’d been waiting to receive a missive like this since returning to England, but until now, one hadn’t arrived.
Even when Edward’s allowance had been cut off, his father hadn’t written to him; Edward found out when he could no longer get credit.
Rather than directly telling his son that the income was no more, his father had undertaken to inform the whole of London, starting with his butcher.
When Edward opened the letter, he turned the pages this way and that, trying to find the message. And then he realized: even when his father deigned to send him a letter, he couldn’t be bothered to scratch out a few words.
The meaning was clear enough.
“If you’ll come with me,” said the footman, moving to the stairs.
Edward could have refused. What was the old man going to do to him — cut off his already suspended allowance?
But part of him wondered what had inspired this reversal.
“Tabby,” he whispered to the pile of blankets. “Pack up the room while I’m gone. We’re moving today, and I’ll be back soon.”
His ever-faithful friend extended a wave of acknowledgement and farewell, and Edward followed the footman out.
***
“In Roman times, the Senate charged a father with killing his worthless children.”
Edward stood before his father, the Marquess of Chasterly, for the first time in years, and the old man spoke about patria potestas, how very like him.
“Expose them to the elements after birth, take a sword to their necks, anything to prevent them from poisoning the family line.”
The marquess continued in this vein, cataloguing the ways an ancient parent could legally kill their child before he went silent again. Chasterly picked up one of a pair of old dueling pistols from an open case on his desk and aimed it at his son and heir.
Edward maintained his composure, having been subjected to scenes like this many times throughout the years. Why, on several occasions, his father had fired the thing just shy of his shoulder. He was rather more trusting of the accuracy of firearms than Edward was.
“I’ve been hearing things about you,” said Chasterly, tossing the pistol back into the case.
Edward catalogued his activities since he last saw his father and reckoned that nothing he’d heard could be considered good by the man. This was unlikely to be a warm reunion. But considering the parties involved, that was to be expected.
“Poisoning your own line was not enough,” said the marquess, leaning back in his chair as if pained by the substantial burden of fatherhood. “Now you’re contaminating other families.”
Ah, so his pater knew of the breeding business. Well, convincing Edward to suspend it was as simple as restoring his allowance, so this might be a productive meeting after all.
“A man must eat,” said Edward.
“Must he?” asked Chasterly, fondly eyeing the dueling pistol again. “They also say you’ve got an urchin always at your side. You best not be meddling with boys now, you hear me!”
Edward drew breath carefully, conscious of anything that could give away his inner panic. If his father moved against Tabby, he would find himself in the crypt earlier than otherwise.
“Hrmph,” said the old man, his gaze narrowing.
“Some of these paintings are new, are they not?” asked Edward, hoping to pull the hateful eye of Chasterly from his friend.
The old man looked about his study, as if suddenly recalling where he was. Strange to see his father so aged, in a room that was both familiar and rather changed.
“Don’t attempt to distract me from the matter at hand, boy,” he growled, pulling his eyes away from a particularly gruesome hunt scene. “As my heir, you have responsibilities.”
On the ride over, Edward had catalogued the possibilities for this unexpected summons.
He was quite certain that he knew what would come next: like all titled gentlemen, he needed to produce a son, preferably several, of legitimate issue, who could carry on the title.
His father would demand that he marry and sire an heir; Edward would play a card his father couldn’t see coming, and he would cackle merrily while the old man roasted in hell, hoisted on his own petard.
Yet that is not what came next.
“You might wish to look out,” said his father, gesturing to a Palladian window overlooking the gardens.
There, in the garden to the west of the stables, was Edward’s horse.
“Tencendor,” Edward whispered, unable to hide how affected he was by the sight of his boy. He catalogued all the marks on his dark coat and was certain this was the real thing before his very eyes.
Which posed a significant problem.
“Yes, my standing order to buy the beast finally paid off a few days ago. I am now the owner of your stallion.”
This was bad. The worst news, truth be told. It was terrible to contemplate life without his beloved companion, but in the hands of a cruel and erratic master like Chasterly? His guts churned watching the massive warhorse step nervously.
“He’s a skittish beast,” said Chasterly, now immediately behind Edward. “I’ve put animals down for less.”
Edward was in hell. Reacting wasn’t an option, but his spine longed to roll under the creeping dread of his father’s words. There was nothing for it: whatever this man demanded, he’d have to capitulate. He could think of only one thing he’d refuse to do to save his boy.
“What do you want?” asked Edward, keeping his voice steady.
“And now he’s ready to bargain!” cried his father. “My prodigal son, home and falling into line at last! I’d call you Netherwallop, but you’re not worthy of the name. Horatio was.”
And Horatio, his elder brother, had drowned alongside his mistress while enjoying a holiday shortly after hiring Edward to service his wife.
But dear old papa had Edward’s cods in hand now, and he knew better than to say such a thing aloud, not when Tencendor’s coat rippled anxiously in the marquess’s garden.
“You want that horse back?” asked Chasterly.
Now he was toying with him, teasing Edward about striking a rare spot of vulnerability. His temper broke free of its chain.
“I do, and I suppose I’ll get him back no matter what when you die.”
Edward turned and watched his father’s lips curl into an unnatural smile. “At last. Some honesty between father and son.”
The light from the window made the old man’s eyes glow, their blue irises now clouded.
He could have bought the finest of clothing, but he stood before Edward in a suit from the previous century, the black color gone rusty and his boots floppy for want of repair.
This close, Edward could smell that the old man had a rotten tooth he needed pulled; would that he delay and expire any day now.
“If you mean to laze about and let me feed the animal, thinking that my death will solve the problem, set those hopes aside,” his father continued. “Should I die with this matter unsatisfied, I’ve given instructions for the horse to be shot forthwith.”
Edward’s blood ran cold, and he fought the urge to look back at Tencendor, now knowing this could be the last time he saw his horse.
“What do you want?” asked Edward, his voice faint and his will broken.
“Your service on the Continent has been the subject of a good deal of talk, even these many years later,” said Chasterly.
This wasn’t the direction he had expected his father to take. What was he on about?
“They say you committed treason.”
Edward knew better than to protest his innocence. It had never worked before and certainly wouldn’t sway the person who hated him most on earth.
“I know you are innocent of those charges,” said his father.
Well, scrape him off the floor! Was that an exceedingly rare vote of confidence from the great villain of his life?
“Then why did you suspend my allowance?” asked Edward, furious that he’d spent years in London subsisting on eel pies, fetching his own water, and breeding other men’s wives for money when he should have been living like every other lordling.
“Gossip may as well have ended you in Portugal,” bit out his pater, spittle collecting at the corner of his mouth. “They all believed it, and you’ve done nothing to correct the perception of guilt.”
“How was I supposed to do that when publicly abandoned by my family?”
“The truth is always a superior hand. You folded immediately.”
“And how was I to play with no one to stake me in the game?” asked Edward, thoroughly bewildered.
“Oh, you’ve planted your stake in any number of other men’s wives, haven’t you? But this matter affecting your family honor has gone unchallenged.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Clear your name, as you should have done before,” said the marquess.
Edward sank into a chair in front of that grand desk, befuddled and still feeling the effects of carrying Tabby across much of London last night. He struggled to remember the facts of the case himself.
Back behind the desk, his father coughed delicately into a handkerchief, no doubt to remind Edward that Tencendor’s life hung in the balance.
“You seem to know a good deal about this matter,” said Edward, his eyes narrowing as he recalled many past tricks his father had played. “Do you already have the evidence of my innocence in your possession?”
The withered old codger cackled, then hacked more earnestly. “I’ve not been able to penetrate the inner sanctums of the key players. You’re the expert in penetration these days.”
Edward groaned, wishing the man had discovered some sort of paternal feeling in their time apart.
“I am not without my sources,” said the man at last. “The Chasterly name still counts for something, despite your best efforts.” He lifted a few sheets of brown paper and tossed them forward.
Edward collected the pages, half of them from the floor, and quickly reviewed the scratched notes. Eyes roving too fast to truly read the words, his mind moved like the wheels on a carriage traveling at a good clip.
“Be off with you,” said the marquess, waving his gray handkerchief to signal he should show himself out.
Edward wasn’t so taken by the documents as not to notice the dots of blood on the cloth.