Chapter 3
“In which the beau monde is too rich for his grace’s appetite.”
Sebastian looked out of the window as the rain lashed the surrounding countryside and he wondered what in the name of God had induced him to come here.
He raised a slightly unsteady hand to his head and winced as he applied it tenderly to his aching temple.
Never again. It was a phrase that occurred to him all too often in the aftermath of one of Beau’s nights of debauchery and had never seemed more apt.
He had a vague memory of the room he was standing in filled with revelry and half-naked women and suppressed a groan.
How the devil was he supposed to extricate himself now?
Gower had professed to have given extensive thought to the following week or so’s entertainments, no doubt with Beau egging him on, and last night, he’d said with relish, was only the start of it.
Easing himself with care into a tapestry covered wingback chair, he massaged his pulsing temples.
The vast stone fireplace beside him belched forth a disagreeable plume of grey smoke every time the wind howled past the chimney and Sebastian frowned at it, putting some careful thought into the idea of going home. As soon as possible.
He was getting old, he decided with a melancholy sigh.
Once upon a time he would have been just as happy to spend a debauched week or three in the country while his commitments and obligations could go to the devil.
Now he couldn’t help but look upon those commitments with a rather fonder eye and wish to go back to them.
Marlburgh House was an ancient and sprawling pile full of draughts and leaks, and the land had been growing steadily sicker due to neglect during his own youth and mismanagement by those who should have been keeping the place in order.
But after a great deal of investment and a lot of coaxing the surrounding lands were beginning to repay that investment.
It was therefore with a wry smile that Sebastian realised he’d rather be walking his fields and talking to his estate manager about the terrible summer and how it would impact on all their plans, than lounging around with a scantily clad female in his arms. He resolved to keep such thoughts to himself.
If Beau ever discovered his thoughts, he’d never hear the end of it.
Speaking of the devil, he thought in amusement as the man himself came and sat opposite him. Moving just as carefully as Sebastian had, Beau lowered himself into the chair with a soft groan and sat back with his eyes closed.
“I take it the brunette was every bit as energetic as you imagined she would be?” Sebastian said, smirking as Beau cracked open one bleary eye.
Beau shook his head and then winced, clearly deciding the movement was a bad idea. “She was a blonde,” he murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose with long, elegant fingers.
Frowning, Sebastian cast his mind back to the admittedly foggy events of the previous evening. “No, she was definitely a brunette when she left.”
Beau opened his eyes, frowning and then giving a little shrug. “Well, I woke up with a blonde.”
Sebastian snorted and shook his head. “I need to get out of here, get some air.”
“In this? Are you mad?”
Casting an eye back towards the window and the rain that lashed against the it, Sebastian stretched out his legs. “This will be gone by midday. Will you come?”
“No,” Beau replied. “I will not.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I always do.”
Sebastian regarded his friend with a frown.
There was something troubling Beau, he was sure of it.
But Beau was not one to share his troubles as a rule.
Though Sebastian knew Beau would never begrudge him his wealth, he was prickly about his own lack of it.
His father, the Duke of Ware, gave him a pittance of an allowance and it was only Beau’s own skill and the devil’s own luck with cards and dice that kept him afloat.
Most of the time Beau was paying off one creditor just as another began to pound at the door.
His extravagant lifestyle was not something he would in any way curtail.
It was a situation that Sebastian rarely referred to.
He’d tried, once, to speak to Beau and to lend him money to see him through a particularly awkward time, but it had led to the worst and most violent argument they’d ever had, and he would never dare broach the subject again.
To his surprise he didn’t have to, as Beau brought the subject up later the same day as they ate lunch together. Lord Gower still hadn’t appeared, which surprised neither of them, having seen the state of him last night.
“I have to marry,” Beau said, staring with a gloomy expression into a mug of ale.
“Ah,” Sebastian replied. “I did wonder what was amiss.”
“I can’t see any other way. It’s that or debtor’s prison.”
“Good Lord, are things as bad as that?” Sebastian demanded, cutting into a thick piece of sirloin and beyond relieved that his stomach had decided to forgive him.
Beau shrugged and sat back in his chair. “Not yet but give it a month or two and it may well be.”
Sebastian chewed slowly and debated what tack to take first, knowing only too well how carefully Beau needed handling in this kind of mood and predicament.
“Have you spoken to your father?” he asked, taking the safer option first.
Snorting with a combination of amusement and disgust, Beau’s bright blue eyes met his.
“Aye, and my worthy father told me he would walk me to the gates of The Marshalsea himself before he handed over a groat to save me.” Beau glowered and shook his head.
“The miserable old bastard. What right has he to be so self-righteous over me when I know damn well, he’s every bit the spendthrift .
.. and worse. God alone knows what I’ll inherit, if I ever do,” he said with a dark expression glittering in his eyes.
“Reckon the whoremongering old bastard made a pact with the devil. He’s too damn wicked to die if you ask me. ”
“Charles!” Sebastian exclaimed, startled into giving his real name instead of the habitual Beau, that everyone knew him by.
Beau raised one elegant eyebrow. “Oh, Charles is it? Good Lord, I must have shocked you.”
Sebastian sighed and shook his head. Even at his worst, Sebastian laid a great deal of Beau’s bad behaviour squarely at his father’s feet.
He rarely spoke of his family at all, but Sebastian knew his mother had died when he was born, and his father had never cared a jot for his increasingly wild son, ignoring him for the most part and abusing him for the rest. It was no wonder he’d run amok.
“Beau, I hesitate to offer ... after last time ...”
“Then don’t,” he replied, the blue eyes looking squarely at Sebastian. “I’d rather rot in gaol than take a penny from you and you know it.”
Sebastian smacked a frustrated hand down on the table. “Yes, I know it, damn you. What I don’t understand is why. Why won’t you let me help you?”
Beau got to his feet, as languid and graceful as ever, stretching and yawning and grinning at Sebastian.
“Sindalton, I have many faults my friend, but I won’t hang on your sleeve and that’s a fact.
So, you may take your kind offer and go to the devil.
I shall find myself a sweet little heiress, no doubt with a stammer and six toes, and we’ll go along quite merrily after, I’m sure.
” He executed an elegant bow and turned to leave the room.
“Where are you going, damn you?” Sebastian demanded. “I haven’t finished with you.”
“No,” called Beau over his shoulder. “I don’t doubt, but I’ve finished with you and I’m going back to bed to gather my strength for this evening.”
Sebastian huffed with annoyance as the door closed on him and then cast his eye over to the window.
The slightest haze of blue sky was visible beneath a fast-moving froth of thick white cloud.
It looked like the rain would hold off for a few hours at least, and with that happy thought, Sebastian headed out to the stables.
As he’d expected, John Jeffries, his head coachman, was to be found there.
Jeffries had started life as a groom at Marlburgh House and when Sebastian’s father had died and his mother succumbed to hysterics for what seemed like the next ten years, Jeffries had been the one solid, dependable person in Sebastian’s life.
A gruff middle-aged man, with salt and pepper hair and an air of unshakeable calm, he was undeniably fond of the duke but would stand none of his nonsense if he felt the young man was getting too high in the instep.
It had been Jeffries who taught Sebastian to ride his first pony and told him of the birds and the bees.
Sebastian never went anywhere without him.
“Thought I might be seeing you this afternoon, your grace,” Jeffries observed with a grin, leading Sebastian’s horse out into the yard.
“It seems I need to add mind reading to your never-ending list of skills, John,” Sebastian replied, more than pleased to see the horse tacked and ready and that he wasn’t to be kept waiting.
His head ached and he needed to get away from the thick air of dissipation that seemed to hang over the castle and cling to him like cobwebs.
“Aye, well, your grace. I keep telling you, you don’t value my worth like you ought,” John quipped, just enough sparkle in his eyes to be clear that he was teasing as his manner was perfectly bland.
“Of course, I don’t,” Sebastian said, raising an eyebrow at him and adopting a haughty expression. “I’m a duke. It is my duty to look down my nose at you even if you are in every way my superior.”
John’s mouth twitched just a fraction as he handed the reins over to Sebastian. “Just as long as that’s clear, your grace,” he replied, utterly serious.
Sebastian vaulted elegantly onto the horse and grinned at him. “Oh, always, John. As if you’d ever let me forget it.”
He clattered out of the yard and on down a narrow, winding path out into open countryside.
The castle, more of a folly in truth, was built on a high outcrop of stone and the views across the countryside were spectacular.
A chill wind howled across the open ground, but Sebastian relished it, sucking in great lungsful of clean, cold air as though they could purify him from the inside out.
It seemed to work on some level at least and his head felt clearer, the future a little less tangled than it had after his conversation with Beau.
He wouldn’t let his friend rot in gaol, that was for sure.
If it came to it, he’d pay the fool’s debts off, even if it meant he never spoke to him again, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Sebastian had never made friends easily.
It was too difficult to figure out who truly liked him for himself, and who just wanted to ingratiate themselves with a wealthy and powerful man for their own reasons.
He tended to adopt his haughtiest and most disobliging demeanour in company to keep the toad-eaters and flatterers at bay.
It worked, to an extent, though it also alienated most everyone else.
Not that it affected his success with the ladies.
An accomplished flirt, he had a dangerous reputation and it was a gamble for any mother to place their daughter in his path.
The stakes were high though, when you were playing for a duke.
The circus, as he referred to it, appalled him.
Almack’s, or as most people called it - the marriage mart, was worst of all.
He felt the young women were paraded in front of him like cattle, waiting for him to bid on one that took his fancy.
In turn their eyes on him were avaricious and it made him hate them all and hold them in contempt, though he knew at heart that this was as unfair on them as it was on him.
For a moment he envied Beau, and not just for his looks.
Women wanted Beau because he was beautiful and charming and fun to be with.
Oh, he came from an ancient and dignified line.
One of the oldest families in the country in fact.
And that he was a marquess and would one day be a duke didn’t hurt, obviously, but his father was still a virile and active man and showed no signs of relinquishing his title any time soon.
Besides which everyone knew Beau had pockets to let.
Any woman who wanted Beau wasn’t after his money at least.
With a sigh he reined in and took a moment to survey the countryside.
It was beautiful, harsh and rugged and windswept, quite unlike the lush green, fertile lands around his own estate.
Looking up at the sky and the clouds that scudded fast overhead, he judged that he had time enough yet before he needed to head back and carried on to further explore the countryside.