Chapter Five The Second Son’s Lament #2
They moved to the card table. Richard lost a hand. He won the next. Lindon played carefully, as if the cards might explode. Richard made a remark about the vices of cautious men. Lindon countered with a polite insult that landed like a pinprick and made Richard laugh again, surprised by it.
For a brief hour, orange loosened its grip. Not gone, but muffled, pushed back by the steady rhythm of banter and the comfort of an old friend who did not carry Richard's debts on his own shoulders.
Then the clock chimed. The club's warmth began to feel stale. Restlessness returned, sharp and familiar. Richard pushed his chair back and stood, reaching for his coat.
Lindon looked up. "Leaving? Is it late?"
"It is early tomorrow," Richard countered, glancing at the windows where night still pressed its face against the glass. "I have a mother who knows all."
Lindon grimaced in sympathy. "Ah."
Richard's mouth tightened. "Yes. Ah."
The streets at three in the morning had a different character. The day's respectable carriages were gone. The lamps burned lower. Shadows moved in corners with purpose. A man could cross half of Mayfair and not meet a soul, which, to Richard's mind, made London briefly tolerable.
Matlock House stood like a threat. Not the grand house in Derbyshire, where hills and trees softened the shape of authority, but the London residence, sharp edged and watchful, as if even the bricks expected obedience.
A servant admitted him without surprise. Of course they were awake. Matlock servants did not sleep, they merely waited. He stepped into the hall and shrugged out of his coat.
"The Countess is in the parlour, Colonel. She requires your presence."
Richard nodded at him and took a deep breath to brace himself.
The drawing room door was open. Light spilled out. He paused, then went in, bracing as if entering enemy territory.
His mother sat near the fire with a book in her lap, not reading it.
She wore a gown of dark silk, elegant and severe, her hair arranged neatly, the diamonds at her throat catching the firelight with cool disdain.
Her posture was perfect. Her expression was not quite stern, not quite amused.
It was the expression of a woman who had watched men ruin their own lives for decades and felt very little sympathy for the spectacle.
"Richard," Lady Matlock observed, as if he had arrived at noon for tea rather than at three for judgement. "You are late."
Richard stopped in front of the hearth. He inclined his head. "Mother."
Her eyes swept him, taking in the faint crease at his sleeve, the dust at the hem of his boot, the slight disarray of a man who had attempted, unsuccessfully, to outrun his own thoughts. "You have been at White's."
"Yes."
"And you have been restless," she continued, not asking.
Richard took the chair opposite her. He placed his gloves on the table with deliberate neatness. "London is full of irritations."
Her mouth curved. "London is full of consequences. It is your family's favourite pastime."
Richard's gaze narrowed. "Is Father awake?"
"He is asleep," she replied. "Which means he will be awake in two hours and irritable. He barely kept his eyes open on our way back from Lady Taverham's ball."
Richard exhaled slowly without smiling. He had inherited many things from his parents, and one of them was the ability to be deeply amused while appearing miserable.
Lady Matlock tapped the edge of her book with a finger. "You spoke to your father at the wedding breakfast."
"I endured my father at the wedding breakfast," Richard corrected.
"Endurance is not a strategy," she replied. "It is a habit. One that will kill you."
"He threatened me."
Lady Matlock's eyes remained steady. "Your father promised you."
The chair complained softly as he leaned back. "He will not send me to the West Indies."
"He will," she replied, as calmly as if discussing the weather. "He does not make idle threats. When he loses patience, he becomes efficient."
Richard's mouth twisted. "He has always been efficient. It is his one charm."
Lady Matlock watched him for a breath, then leaned forward slightly, her hands folded in her lap gracefully. "You are one and thirty, Richard. You are a Colonel. You have an excellent name, and a poor purse. You also have an unfortunate talent for spending money before it exists."
Richard spread his hands. "A creative mind."
"A destructive one," she corrected, without heat. "You require an anchor."
"I require a tailor who does not write to my father."
Lady Matlock's mouth sharpened. "You require a wife."
Richard's head lifted, slow and wary. "No."
Her brows rose. "Richard."
"No," he repeated, and felt, for the first time all evening, the relief of plain refusal.
Lady Matlock's eyes glinted. "You will marry."
"I will not," Richard replied. "I have seen the eligible women of London. Half of them look like horses."
Lady Matlock regarded him as if assessing whether he had sustained a head injury during infancy. "Horses are valuable."
Richard waved a hand. "Horses. And not the beautiful sort. The sort that bite and have unfortunate ankles."
His mother turned a page in her book, still not reading. "You are choosy for a man with creditors on his heel."
"I am discerning," Richard replied.
"You are panicking." Her voice softened by a fraction, enough to make the word more dangerous. "And you disguise it as taste."
Richard's fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. "You did not summon me here for a lecture on my character, Mother. You have had one and thirty years for that."
Lady Matlock smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was a smile of recognition, of a woman who knew the exact spot to press to make a man flinch.
"You are right," she said. "I summoned you because your father is serious, and I agree with him."
Richard stared at her. It was one thing to be pursued by his father's pragmatism. It was another to find his mother joining the hunt.
"You agree," he repeated.
She gave a small shrug, a movement of silk and certainty. "I do."
"You would exile me?" Richard asked, incredulous.
"I would save you," she countered. "From your habits, from your debts, and from your dramatic tendency to behave as if your problems are a moral injustice inflicted by the universe."
Richard's laugh came out sharp. "So, which heiress have you selected? One of the girls with no chin and a father who breeds sheep?"
Her mouth tilted. "Those girls have five thousand pounds each. You could do worse."
Richard leaned forward. "Mother."
Lady Matlock's gaze did not flicker. "You want a woman with beauty and money and intelligence and a temper soft enough to soothe you, yet firm enough to correct you. You are describing a fantasy."
Richard's eyes narrowed. "Darcy found one."
"Darcy is Darcy," she replied, and the faint affection in her voice was so rare it made Richard feel, inexplicably, jealous. "Darcy also possesses Pemberley. Women come to him the way moths come to light. You are a spark in the wind."
Richard pressed his fingertips to his forehead. "Do not wax poetic. It makes me distrust you."
Her eyes crinkled. "You distrust me regardless."
"Yes."
"Good," she said calmly. "That means you are listening."
She set her book aside and rose. She walked to the mantel, adjusted a small porcelain figurine as if it were out of place, and returned, taking her seat again with the deliberate ease of a woman who had never hurried for anything in her life. She folded her hands.
"I saw you on Bond Street," she remarked.
Richard froze. Every muscle in his body tightened as if he had been shot.
Lady Matlock watched his reaction with the detached interest of a scientist observing a creature of the night exposed to light.
"You were in a narrow space," she continued thoughtfully. "You stood between Miss Bingley and a group of drunken young lords. You moved without hesitation."
Richard's mouth went dry.
"I observed you, Richard."
His jaw clenched. "You observed nothing."
His mother lifted a finger, as if correcting a child. "Do not attempt to lie. It wastes both our time."
Richard's gaze fell to the fire, attempting to find counsel in the flames. They offered only heat, which did not help.
Her voice remained composed. "Caroline Bingley has twenty thousand pounds."
Richard's head snapped up. "Et tu, Brute?"
Lady Matlock's brows rose at the Latin, unimpressed. "Do not be theatrical. It is unbecoming at your age."
He let out a harsh breath. "You are joining Father and Robert in this sport of forcing me into misery."
"I am joining sense," she retorted.
"She is trade," Richard said, as if the word itself were a shield. "Father will hate her."