Chapter 1 #2
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not in possession of a title—or likely to ever inherit one.”
“So? You’re the second son of a baronet with a lineage stretching back to William the Conqueror,” Sir Peter said, lifting his chin.
“You should be able to secure a lady with a substantial dowry. Enough to set you up in comfort for life. It may not be ideal—obviously, your mother and I would far prefer that you marry a lady of quality—but sometimes one must be practical. And after all, introducing a little plain stock into a more refined bloodline often does much good—certainly for my hounds. I don’t see why people should be any different. ”
“I’m sure no heiresses would be interested in me,” Theo said firmly. “They will be searching for far richer prizes.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sir Peter said. "With all these wealthy Cits clamouring for an entry into polite society, there must be a few young ladies of means seeking out well-born husbands this season. Imagine if you could land one like the Hewitt girl!”
Christ, he made the poor girl sound like a prize salmon.
“Don’t look so horrified,,” Sir Peter said, misreading his expression.
“The girl may be common as brass, but apparently, she’s quite prettily behaved.
Her father reportedly paid Lady Blackford a fortune to sponsor the chit.
She spent a good few months learning how to behave and being kitted out by the best modistes before being introduced to society.
I gather the rest of the family were kept out of the way, so as not to ruin her chances.
The father practically reeks of the shop floor, and I’ve heard the stepmother can barely speak, but the girl herself isn’t horribly vulgar.
” He shrugged. “If you could find one like that, with all her own teeth and young enough to breed a handful of times, you might count yourself very fortunate.”
Theo grimaced. “Yes, well, I have no wish to beget brats, thank you. You have Robin for that, and he seems to be doing a bang-up job of it.”
Theo’s brother, Robin, had married his exceedingly dull wife, Diana, five years previously, and they already had three boisterous male infants.
“You have an heir and three spares, not counting me,” Theo continued. “You don’t need me to add anyone else to the line of succession—it's overcrowded as it is.” And with that, he stood up, signalling his intention to leave.
“It’s not about heirs, Theobald,” his father said, reaching for the brandy decanter again. “Even if you do not want children, any lady whose hand you seek will do so. Children are an inescapable reality of married life, my boy.”
“In that case it’s just as well that I have no wish to marry.”
Sir Peter sighed. “You are being quite selfish, you know,” he said.
“We could do with an heiress in the family.” Pouring himself another brandy, he added wearily, “If you’re going to see your mother, make sure you change your clothes first. She won’t be happy if you drag mud into her sitting room. She’s just had it decorated again.”
Theo took his father’s advice. After bathing and dressing in clean clothes, he made his way to his mother’s sitting room.
The last time he’d visited, it had all been black and gold, with Egyptian-inspired furnishings and wall hangings.
Now all of that had been ripped out and replaced with a headache-inducing mix of duck-egg blue and saffron.
Lady Prudence herself, in a highly ruffled morning gown and intricate cap of lace and ribbons, was half-reclining on a duck-egg blue chaise longue.
“Good day, Mama,” Theo greeted her, dutifully kissing the hand she extended to him. “You are looking very elegant.”
Lady Prudence preened complacently. She was used to compliments, having been a considerable beauty in her youth.
To this day, she retained several of the admirers who had vied for her hand after her coming out.
Major Harrison-Smyth, who loyally accompanied her to all the social events his father refused to attend, still appeared to be living in hope that Theo’s father would eventually do the decent thing and expire.
“Thank you, darling,” she said sweetly. “I wish I could say the same for you, but you aren’t looking the least bit elegant.
You're as handsome as ever, of course, but I do wish you’d make a little more effort with your tailoring.
Not that the ladies will care when they see your other attributes.
” She reached for the servants’ bell and gave it a tug.
“Anyway, what are you doing back in town?”
Theo chuckled. His mother had her faults, but she could be very amusing. “Believe it or not, I’m in town to attend a wedding. Do you know Oliver Fletcher? His father is Sir Joseph Fletcher. I was friends with his cousin Piers at school.”
“Oh yes indeed!” his mother said, her expression sharpening with amused interest. “I’ve heard he’s caught himself a plump little pigeon—or, more likely, was caught by one. Where’s the wedding taking place?”
“St. George’s,” Theo said. “There’s to be a wedding breakfast after—oh, and a grand dinner at the bride’s father’s house the evening before. Father said you were invited, but he declined.”
“Yes,” Lady Prudence said, pouting prettily, “I’m wildly curious to know what it will be like, but everyone seems to have declined, so what's one to do?”
The footman arrived then, and Lady Prudence gave him orders to fetch a tea tray, with “some of those darling little cakes Mrs. Pike knows I like.”
As soon as the door closed again, she turned back to Theo.
“So, why are you going to the wedding?” she asked, arching a brow. “You always refuse to come along to entertainments when I ask you.”
“Yes, well, society entertainments are deadly dull.”
“And weddings are the dullest entertainments of all,” Lady Prudence pointed out drily. “So I ask again: why are you going?”
Theo smiled ruefully. “Piers begged me—and I owe him a favour. You can blame yourself and Father and anyone else who refused the invitation. Apparently, the bride’s father isn’t at all happy about the guest numbers, so Piers and Fletch have been desperately trying to drum up everyone they know to accept. ”
Lady Prudence gave a tinkling laugh, looking positively tickled.
“Oh, dear. No, I don’t suppose the father of the bride will like that at all.
I did hear that he’s the worst sort of parvenu.
” She sighed. “Though he is as rich as Croesus. It’s a shame you didn’t meet the girl before the Fletcher boy.
She’d have taken one look at you and fallen head over heels. ”
Theo laughed and shook his head. “I think her family's more interested in the title Fletch will inherit than his comeliness.”
“Hmmm, probably,” Lady Prudence said, sounding put out. Then she grinned wickedly. “Tell me. How is Sir Joseph coping with all of this? He must be panicking that the bride will pull out at the last minute, and they can’t have that. They need the money quite desperately, I hear.”
Theo could only marvel at her glee, considering how close she and his father seemed to be to a similar fate. Not that you’d guess, looking at the brand-new upholstery and silk wall hangings in this room.
“Piers didn’t say,” he said vaguely.
His mother rolled her eyes. “Gosh, you men are hopeless at gossip, you really are.” After a moment, she added, “Will Lord Sherrington be rallying round too?”
“George Asquith, you mean?”
“Really, Theo,” his mother remonstrated. “He’s the heir to the Duke of Avesbury. You should refer to him by his courtesy title.”
Theo just rolled his eyes. He had little patience for rank, especially when it came to someone who’d been two years below him at school.
“I expect he’ll be there,” Theo said. "He and Fletch practically lived in each other’s pockets at school.”
George hadn’t been one for hanging around with the other boys.
He’d spent all his time with Fletch, or alone, reading.
For a while, Theo had tried to encourage him to join in more with team games with the other boys and pointed out to him when he was coming across as fussy, or less than masculine.
Looking back, he realised his tactless advice had probably been unhelpful, and that his sometimes joking suggestions as to how George might alter his speech and manners had likely come across as criticism.
At the time, though, he’d thought he was passing on vital pearls of wisdom.
Strange to feel regret about that still, after all these years.
“Well,” Lady Prudence said. “If Sherrington attends, I expect it will turn out all right. The bride’s father will probably have an apoplexy from the sheer joy of having a duke-in-waiting in attendance, and half the mamas in London will drag their daughters to the wedding simply for the chance to throw them at him—if I had a daughter, I’d certainly do so.
” She gave a tinkling laugh. "The ladies are so very curious about him, you know. He’s barely been seen in society since he came of age.
From what I hear, he holes himself up in that huge great house in Wiltshire, reading dusty, old Greek books and tromping around the fields in his muddy boots all day long.
” She sniffed then, disapproving of this greatly.
Theo’s mother was firmly of the view that eligible gentlemen had a positive duty to make themselves available to well-born young ladies in search of a husband.
And they didn’t come any more eligible than George Asquith.
“Well, in that case I hope he does turn up,” Theo said lightly. “I might be able to slink off home early if all eyes are on him.”
Lady Prudence promptly rapped his knuckles with her closed fan.
“Ouch!”
“You are not even to think of doing such a thing! I might not be going to this wedding myself, but I want to hear all about it. Especially how that dreadfully vulgar cit toadies up to Sherrington.”
But Theo wasn’t paying attention to his mother anymore.
He was remembering the young George Asquith, a long-ago, sun-hazy memory.
George had been playing a rare game of cricket on the school field one perfect May afternoon in Theo’s last year at school.
Theo and Piers had been idly watching the younger boys’ game, lounging in the grass while they stealthily shared a flask of gin.
Fletch had just been bowled out, and George had been browbeaten into going in to bat after him.
The day had been so warm that even George, shy and fastidious as he was, had stripped off his coat, revealing a lean frame that, while still lissom in the way of boys, hinted at the adult he was growing into.
Theo vividly remembered how his dark hair had flopped over his forehead as he gripped the bat, waiting for the bowler to let the ball fly.
George had never shown any particular skill at cricket before, but on that particular day, when the ball came sailing towards him, he’d hit it for six.
Even now, years later, Theo could still see the astonished sweetness of George’s smile after his bat cracked against the leather ball and sent it sailing off into the distance, carried away by the raucous cheers of his team mates.
How he’d immediately glanced over at Fletch, his eyes bright with happiness.
Theo remembered, too, the tight, unexpected pang of envy their shared look had provoked in his gut.
And the strange, frightening realisation that he’d wanted George to look at him that way.
Theo had known he liked boys before that day, but he hadn’t thought so very much of it.
That was just how it was at school where there were only boys.
Everyone knew that. There was a great deal of fumbling in corners and under blankets, but it didn’t mean anything.
It was understood that things would change when they were men.
But that day… that day Theo had been unable to tear his eyes away from George’s slim, graceful body as he completed run after run, his stomach clenching with such intense want that he’d realised, appalled, that the desires that had been plaguing him these last few years were not, as he had hoped, going to be temporary. Not for him.
And not for George either, judging by the way he looked at Fletch.
Theo wondered how George felt about Fletch getting married and whether he would be coming to the wedding. Piers hadn’t seemed to know when Theo had asked him outright. He’d mumbled something about Fletch and George not being such close friends these days, and Theo hadn’t asked again.
"Are you listening to me?”
Theo blinked. "Sorry,” he said to his mother. “I was daydreaming.” Quickly, he changed the subject. “By the way, what’s this story I’ve been hearing about some lady being caught in a compromising position at a ball with the hostess’s footman?”
He knew his mother would know the gossip, and sure enough, her face lit up with glee. “Oh heavens, that was such a scandal! The lady was Mrs. Philomena Lennox—not that anyone respectable would consider her a lady—and it was at a ball hosted by…”
Theo leaned back in his chair, only half-listening to his mother’s scandalous story as they waited for the tea tray to arrive.