Chapter 23
“Your guest is here, Your Grace,” the tall and bewigged footman announced as he showed Lord Holt into the private sitting room where Nathaniel sat reading a newspaper.
Preston Holt was smartly dressed, although his waistcoat stretched tightly over his rounded stomach. The odd little velvet cap on his head did not hide anything of his baldness either. The redness of his nose and his slightly unfocused gaze spoke of drink already taken.
A man too vain to tell his tailor to let his clothes out or to wear his years with pride. A man too weak to face his enemies without strong drink.
“Ah, thank you, Simkins.” Nathaniel nodded to the footman, folding his paper and setting it on the table, but not getting to his feet. Lord Holt did not deserve the slightest respect.
“Will you and your guest be requiring a table for dinner, Your Grace?”
“No, Simkins. That will be all. Thank you.”
Lord Holt came forward to meet Nathaniel, a mix of belligerence and obsequious fawning in his manner. Evidently, neither of them had forgotten the circumstances under which they had last met.
“Your Grace, thank you for seeing me.”
“Your request to come to Greyhaven Park was outrageous. You’re lucky I didn’t ignore your letter,” Nathaniel told him. “I have a long memory, Holt.”
“As I explained in my letter, Your Grace, I wished to apologize and to explain. I am an old man now, and not so healthy as I once was. The estate I inherited from my poor brother is not an affluent one, and I have struggled…”
“It was affluent enough when you came into it,” Nathaniel said coolly. “What happened to all that money, I wonder?”
“Ah, there were all kinds of private issues that… Well, never mind that. It doesn’t matter now. As I said, I’m grateful that you’ve made time to see me, and I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Wrong foot? You assaulted my wife in my home,” he pointed out mercilessly.
For a moment, Lord Holt’s eyes flashed with murderous intent. He had been far too accustomed to mistreating his nieces without any interference for a long time. He did not like having his authority challenged or his wrongful actions exposed to the light of day.
Well, Nathaniel didn’t care whether he liked it or not.
“I made a mistake,” Lord Holt acknowledged after he had quelled his temper again. “My poor finances and the demands of my creditors are affecting my mind and my temper. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and—”
“Let us move on,” Nathaniel said crisply, not interested in seeing or hearing this man crawl before him. “Why did you want to see me, Holt?”
“Ah, yes. Well, I’m in a precarious financial situation now that both my nieces have left my house.”
“Really?” Nathaniel asked cynically. “I would have thought that their moving to Greyhaven Park had significantly reduced the burden on your finances.”
“From one perspective, you could say that,” Lord Holt admitted, wiping sweat from his forehead with a white linen handkerchief. “But at the same time, I have lost far more after their departure. You see, I had been counting on Mary’s marriage to restore some of my capital.”
“The marriage to the elderly Earl of Ashworth that she rejected from the beginning, but that you were prepared to force her into nonetheless?” Nathaniel queried, his eyes hard but still maintaining a neutral tone.
Lord Holt attempted to laugh as though this was a joke, but the sound died on his lips at a contemptuous glance from Nathaniel.
“It would not have been a bad marriage by many measures,” he argued. “My niece would have had fortune, title, and standing.”
“And you would have been well-paid for your pimping,” Nathaniel remarked. “Why bring this sordid tale to me now?”
“You must admit that it has been your hand that scotched my plans, Your Grace. You have married my niece without my consent.”
“Cecily is six-and-twenty and requires no one’s consent.”
“Mary is but nineteen and my ward. You have taken her from under her family’s roof into a household where I understand your unmarried brother also lives. Some might think that unwise or even improper.”
“Cecily is Mary’s family and chaperone,” Nathaniel growled, not liking that the man was getting so close to the truth about Mary and Patrick, even if he were only guessing.
“Now, I understand that you and Cecily must have been plotting all of this for a long time, and I hold no grudges. You’re a great man, and I’m no fool.”
Nathaniel raised an eyebrow, bored with this conversation, repulsed by this man, and just waiting to hear his plea for money.
“It’s only fair, Your Grace, that you make sure I’m not harmed by your marriage, isn’t it? You’ve gained a wife and taken her sister from me, too. They were all I had!”
“In terms of realizable assets, you mean,” Nathaniel responded sarcastically. “I have seen no sign that you valued Cecily or Mary in any other way during your guardianship. If Cecily wasn’t too clever for you, you would have sold her off, too. Personally, I find her priceless.”
Again, Lord Holt struggled with his temper, but he managed to regain control and affect a beseeching expression. He had not even taken a seat, but stood before Nathaniel with outstretched hands, as if he were begging favors from a king.
“All I ask is a modest sum, commensurate with what I could have received from Lord Ashworth for Mary’s hand.”
“Well, you will never see a penny from me, Holt. I don’t buy and sell women. When Mary is one-and-twenty, she may marry or not, as she and Cecily see fit.”
“Your Grace, I beg you.”
“Do not beg; it would be embarrassing for both of us.”
Having had enough, Nathaniel stood and rang the bell for Simkins’ while Lord Holt continued to stand there, red-faced and impotent, his jaw working furiously.
“Our meeting is over, Holt. Get out.”
“I’ll make you regret this, Greyhaven! You’re a damn thief, that’s what you are, and you’ll regret that you’ve stolen from me.”
Lord Holt’s rather hysterical shouting would surely be heard in the rooms next door.
The thought amused rather than annoyed Nathaniel. He had never stolen even a sweet from another boy as a child, and the idea of his fellow club members wondering if he had turned to petty crime was quite entertaining.
“If you mean your dignity and self-respect, I certainly didn’t steal those, Holt,” he replied nonchalantly. “You threw them away yourself a long time ago, if I’m not very much mistaken. Ah, Simkins, please escort Lord Holt downstairs. I think I’ll go out for lunch.”
* * *
“You all went to London without me.” Lilian pouted as Cecily tucked her into bed after brushing and plaiting her hair, something that was fast becoming their little bedtime ritual. “It isn’t fair.”
“You had Miss Osborne and Mrs. Barnes and Buster,” Cecily pointed out, smiling as she sat down on the bed.
“In any case, you would have been bored, and my grandmother isn’t very good with children.
She gets angry when they talk or move. She doesn’t like animals either, and she certainly wouldn’t have been kind to Buster. ”
“Did you and Mary have to stay still and be quiet all the time when you were little?”
“Well, Grandmother would have preferred it if we had,” Cecily answered, always cautious about telling Lilian too much of her unfortunate childhood since the little girl had too many shadows on her own already.
“I could have gone with Papa,” Lilian suggested.
“To a gentlemen’s club?” Cecily laughed. “Ladies are not allowed in a gentlemen’s club, and I don’t think little girls are welcome either.”
“Not even for luncheon?” Lilian asked, incredulous at the workings of the strange adult world.
“Not even for luncheon.”
“Then Papa could have taken me out for luncheon after he’d been to his club,” Lilian insisted, still not giving up. “That’s what all the gentlemen must do with their ladies if they can’t have luncheon inside.”
“We shall plan another trip to London, and we will go to all the places you want to visit,” Cecily proposed.
Her offer had the desired effect, and soon she found she had promised enough promenades, ices, and sweets to fill three days in London, but at least Lilian was half-asleep on her pillow.
Going downstairs after she had kissed the little girl goodnight, Cecily found Nathaniel, Mary, and Patrick in the drawing room, sipping sherry before dinner and discussing their day in London.
“General Rycroft says they’ll have me gladly. They lost two captains last month and are in need of good men and good horses,” Patrick told them when she entered.
“Lost them?” Mary exclaimed, her face turning pale. “Is there not a less dangerous regiment?”
“Lost one to gout and another to marriage,” Patrick clarified promptly, coaxing laughter from both Nathaniel and Cecily, while Mary stuck her nose in the air and tried to pretend she had never been worried about him at all.
“How was your club?” Cecily asked her husband conversationally, still not able to dislodge the doubt that Lady Holt had planted in her mind earlier that day.
It struck her that he had been unusually well-dressed when he left the house that morning. Likely, his valet had made a special effort, bearing in mind the dress standards of the club. It was hard to imagine Nathaniel caring about this, unless he had some particular purpose.
“My club was just what it always is: stuffy, boozy, and filled with people I don’t really want to talk to,” he replied.
“Then why do you go there?” Patrick asked. “If it’s such a trial to you, why remain a member?”
“Sometimes you have to meet people you don’t want to talk to, and it’s better to meet them there than bring them into your house,” Nathaniel replied without elaborating.
“My ever-sociable brother!” Patrick laughed.
“Did you eat at your club?” Cecily asked, drawing a curious glance from her husband.
“No, I ate at White’s,” he answered, seeming amused by her interest. “Do you want to know what they serve on Tuesdays?”
“Whatever they served, I dare say it wasn’t as good as the roast beef I had with General Rycroft,” Patrick interjected. “My word, if they eat like that every day in the regiment, I might as well get my uniform made several inches larger.”
They all laughed, and Cecily asked no further questions about Nathaniel’s visit to his club that afternoon.
He had supported her that day in keeping Mary safe while maintaining some sort of connection with their aged grandmother.
How he had occupied himself in London in the meantime was his own business, and likely entirely innocent and dull.
If only it were as easy to accept such good sense in one’s heart as to think it.
* * *
Meanwhile, in Mayfair, a somewhat drink-addled man rang the bell at the front door of a large townhouse for the third time, or possibly the fourth.
“Dammit, all of Ashworth’s bloody servants must be deaf,” Preston Holt muttered to himself, leaning against the front door for a moment and then steadying himself on the large, ornamental knob. “The lights are on, so someone must be home.”
He rang the bell for the fifth time and almost fell forward into the hallway as the front door was finally opened by a tall, dark-haired butler of supercilious expression.
“Lord Holt to see Lord Ashworth,” Preston announced himself with the careful speech of the very drunk. “I rang the bell five times. Five times! Tell Lord Ashworth that it’s Lord Holt, my good man.”
“I know who you are, but why are you here on my doorstep, interrupting my dinner?” demanded a querulous voice before its grey-bewigged owner came into view from around a corner. “That’s what I want to know, Holt.”
“Lord Ashworth!” Preston crowed. “I am glad to see you still in London. When you didn’t answer my notes, I thought you had gone away to the country. But I thought I’d try once more in person.”
Seeing the man swaying on his doorstep and not wishing to have his business aired before his neighbors, Lord Ashworth gestured for the butler to usher his visitor inside.
“I didn’t answer your notes because I had nothing to say, Holt,” Lord Ashworth replied with contempt.
“First, you promise me a bride. Next, you say she has pre-wedding nerves. And finally, you admit she has vanished. I learned from the Times that your other niece has married a duke and brought Miss Mary into their household. Did the Duke of Greyhaven offer a higher price?”
“It was beyond my control, Lord Ashforth,” Preston pleaded. “The Duke of Greyhaven and Cecily must have been plotting against me for some time. She always was a young viper in my bosom, but I had no idea she would go this far.”
“What are your family problems to me, Holt?” Lord Ashworth scoffed. “I have already had to cancel a wedding and suffer the pity of my local vicar and family. Take your whining to your new relative. He might be more willing to listen than I am.”
“But what if you could still have Mary?” Preston bargained desperately. “Would you take her at the same price if you could?”
“I cannot have Miss Mary,” Lord Ashworth answered flatly. “She is far from any influence you might exert and likely poisoned against me by her harridan of a sister.”
“I have a plan, Ashworth. I have been thinking it over the whole afternoon.”
“Drinking it over, more likely,” Lord Ashworth muttered, his nose twitching.
“I know how we can bring both of those damned girls to heel,” Preston insisted.
“What about Greyhaven? You cannot think of crossing a man like him, and they are both under his protection.”
“Oh, he won’t want to protect either of them once I’m finished,” Preston announced gleefully. “That’s the best part. He’ll be glad to be rid of them both.”
Lord Ashworth’s eyes narrowed as he considered. Then, he nodded. “Follow me to my study.”