Chapter 1
One
“He fears you,” the concubine said to the king.
Her soft fingers glided over his flesh, lingered on the muscle in his sword arm. The king sank back into the perfumed water of his bath and closed his eyes. She knew nothing of sons and fathers.
“He fears himself,” he said. “As he should.”
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
Henry dipped his pen into the ink and wrote Charles at the top of a piece of foolscap.
In the three years since Mina had come to live at Bledsoe Park, Henry had written over a hundred letters to his son and heir.
In return, the earl had received eleven letters from Charles’ solicitor, the same one Charles’ late brother had once retained.
Shortly before quarter day, like clockwork, Mr. Crompton would send a request for money, and Henry would, without delay, write to his own banker in London and arrange a transfer of funds.
Of course, he had thought of withholding the money as a means to force Charles to return from the Continent, to come and speak to his father.
But he hadn’t. Henry might be the villain in his own son’s life, but he was determined to be a just villain.
Ashthorpe’s coffers were full only because of Diana, and she would have wanted her money to go to her son.
Besides, extortion would never lead to affection.
So Henry made no demands in his letters to Charles. Instead, he penned dry accounts of estate affairs. The new drainage ditches. The increase in rents. The thatching of a cottage here, a stile repaired there.
It was his feeble attempt to give his son lessons in how to be Ashthorpe.
Like Charles, Henry had been a second son, and, despite his time in the army as a leader of men, he had very much felt his lack of preparation when he had become earl after catarrhal fever had swept through the countryside, killing his older brother and his brother’s infant son in the same week.
Henry did not want Charles ever to feel as adrift as he had in his first months as earl. He had made so many terrible decisions back then, not the least of which was marrying Charles’ mother.
But if Henry hadn’t married Diana, there would be no Charles. No Hal. No Mina. That was unthinkable.
Alongside the estate business, Henry would sometimes include a few words about Mina in his letters to Charles. How tall she had grown. How she liked to play bowls. How she thought she might like a pony if it were well-mannered and didn’t go at too fast a pace.
Pen still hovering over the foolscap, he rubbed his jaw with the soft end of the quill.
Perhaps he should write to Charles about how Mina had developed an appreciation—no, an adoration—for the Tommy Treadwell storybooks.
A year ago, she had found the battered volumes of The Tales of Tommy Treadwell and The Further Adventures of Tommy Treadwell in a chest in the nursery, and now Henry had read them to her so many times, they both had all the words off by heart.
Tommy’s books had also been favorites for Charles.
Or had it been Hal who loved Tommy? No, no. It had been Charles.
“Grandfather.”
He looked up from his unwritten letter and saw damp, dark curls, a broad forehead, a pair of eyes peeking over the top of the desk.
“The big hand is on the six, and the little hand is between the three and the four.”
Henry put his pen back into the encrier. “What time is it, then?”
“Half past three. And I’ve had my bath.”
“Have you?”
“My hair is still wet, you see.”
“Yes, I see.”
One of the many young nursemaids appeared in the doorway and bobbed a curtsy. “Miss Mina didn’t want to wait, my lord.”
Henry pushed back his chair as Mina came around the desk. “A towel,” he said, and the nursemaid departed, presumably to fetch one.
“Her name is Swift,” Mina informed him as he lifted her onto his lap.
“And is she?”
“Yes.”
The nursemaid was true to her name and back in the room and handing Henry a warm, dry piece of linen within a minute or two. He draped it over Mina’s head and patted lightly.
“No, Grandfather,” she said from under the towel. “You must be more rough.”
He rubbed with a little more vigor.
She said, “Rougher still.”
But he could never be rough with her. He carefully pressed her curls between his towel-wrapped fingers and wiped at the trickles on the nape of her neck. Finally, he whipped the towel from her head to reveal her short hair in a jumble.
“Now my hair must be combed,” she said. “And all the tangles taken out.”
Henry put out his hand, and a comb appeared in it. He dismissed the nursemaid with a nod and started working the teeth of the comb through Mina’s hair.
“Combing makes your hair lie flat,” he observed.
Mina’s eyes went to his head. “Like yours.”
“But then your curls spring up again. They always do.” Indeed, her curls were already asserting themselves.
Mina reached out and touched the pounce pot on Henry’s desk. “How many books have ever been written? In all the world.”
“I don’t know. Many thousands, I should think.”
Mina tipped her up face and stared at Henry. “So why are there only two about Tommy Treadwell?”
“Do you think Tommy deserves more books?”
She was quiet. Then, “Is it very naughty to say I want more?”
“Not naughty, no.”
“Greedy, then?”
Her hair was free of all snarls and tangles. He put the comb down on his desk. “Shall we go up to the nursery and read a Tommy adventure now?” It would be a change in their routine. Reading was usually for the evening, after Mina’s dinner and before Henry’s.
“No,” she said. “We must make a letter asking for another Tommy Treadwell book. I can’t write well enough, so you will have to do that part, but I will tell you what to say.”
“And are we writing to Tommy himself?” Henry asked gravely.
“No, Grandfather.” Mina gave him a look that was half pity, half scorn. “We are writing to Mr. Augustus Puddlewick, the man who writes Tommy’s stories.”
Dear Mr. Puddlewick:
My grandfather and I want to know if there is to be another book about Tommy Treadwell. We are writing this letter to you in the way of asking for a new book.
Our favorite Tommy story is the one where he builds a house in the forest for the faeries, so if you could have another one like that in the new book, that would be good.
Or Tommy could rescue the pirates from the Sea of Storms, but maybe they (the pirates) could be more wretched and vile this time.
Please answer this letter but only if it does not get in the way of the writing of the book. We would much rather have a new book than a letter.
Your humble reader
“I must write my own name,” Mina said.
Henry nodded and dipped the quill into the ink and placed it in Mina’s hand. Very carefully, in large letters, she wrote W Kirby.
“There,” she said, sounding relieved. “Only one blob.” She gave the pen back to Henry.
“Very well done, indeed.”
Mina studied the letter. “Put your name, too.”
“You want me to sign the letter?”
“You must, Grandfather. Mr. Puddlewick will do what an earl asks of him.”
Henry obediently added an s to humble reader and wrote Ashthorpe under Mina’s name.
“Very well done,” she said, echoing his own words back to him.
“And where should I have my secretary send this letter?”
“To Mr. Puddlewick, care of the Manwaring Brothers.” Before Henry could ask, Mina went on, “The publishers in London. Their name is in the front of the books, before the story starts.”
Henry was a solitary man, but Mina made him wish for a friend if only so he could marvel to someone else about her cleverness.
He cleared his throat. “What if there is no answer or the brothers Manwaring do not know how to find Mr. Puddlewick?”
Mina thought. “Then we will have to find him ourselves. And we should also find a grandmama for me at the same time.”
Henry was caught off his guard. Mina had never said anything like this before.
“You want a grandmother?”
“Yes.” She slid out of his lap.
“Why is that?”
She patted his knee. She chewed her lower lip. She was about to say something very important or, to her child mind, something hurtful.
“You’re very old.”
Yes, he supposed fifty-five years would be very old to her.
She went on, “And old people die.”
He could not fault her argument so far. “You want a grandmother in case I die.”
“Yes, because if you die, I will have no one.” A shudder ran through her little body, and she leaned against his leg.
Henry put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Not for the first time, he wondered how much Mina remembered about the carriage accident or her week at the foundling hospital before her grandfather had come to take her away.
“You know you have an uncle,” he said carefully.
“Yes, but he never comes to see me, so he must not think much of me.”
Henry could not let her believe that. “Your uncle and I had a disagreement long before you were born, and it’s me he doesn’t like, not you. I’m sure he would think very highly of you if he met you.”
“Then he must meet me.” She gave his knee a parting pat. “But I still think we should find a grandmama. Just to be sure.”
She went to the door, and Henry heard the murmur of the waiting nursemaid and Mina’s chirping answer and then their footsteps, moving away.
A grandmama for Mina. A wife for Henry.
Could he bring himself to marry again? He had no hope for true companionship; he was not made for that. But he might choose more wisely this second time. After all, he no longer needed to marry for money, and he was no longer a young man who might be led around by his prick.
He could marry someone practical and steady. Someone who would not be seduced by whim-whams. Someone well-placed amongst the ton who would help Mina find the highest possible standing given the circumstances of her birth.
Very quickly, Henry was coming around to the idea.
There would once more be a countess at Bledsoe Park. She could manage the staff and receive the calls paid by his well-intentioned neighbor. But ensuring Mina’s future happiness would be the new Lady Ashthorpe’s chief duty.
Chief duty, but not sole duty. There could be other duties. Other wifely duties. If Henry married, he might lie with a woman again.
He had thought he never would. What remained of his desire was a nuisance, something to be handled quickly and privately. But now he pictured undressing a woman. Touching the silken skin of her breast. Muffling her cries of pleasure with open-mouthed kisses. Plunging his cock into her warm depths.
He throbbed under the fall of his breeches.
No. He tightened his hands into fists. He clenched his jaw. He summoned Diana’s last words, and, as always, those wilted the beginnings of his erection.
The Earl of Ashthorpe would not marry for his own pleasure. He would find a distaff version of himself—unwavering, sober, and duty-bound—and he would marry for Mina’s sake, not his own.
But how to find such a wife?
He could— No. He couldn’t. But if he did . . .
He drew a fresh piece of foolscap towards him. His secretary would have three letters to post tomorrow.
One to the firm of the Manwaring Brothers.
One to Charles.
And one to the Dowager Marchioness of Chalfont, Henry’s aunt and the most redoubtable woman in England.