Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Aweek later, the private dining hall at The Pump Rooms hummed with the din of cutlery and the low vibrations of conversation.
Nicholas finished clearing his luncheon plate, buttressed on either side by his peers.
They discussed the events coming out of Parliament over mouthfuls of food, bemoaning the state of things, like always.
The Earl of Liverpool was a decently popular fellow, but what use were members of Parliament—even exiled ones like Nicholas—if they had nothing to complain about?
Nicholas sensed eyes fix on him from across the table at the mention of London. His brother Samuel sent an uncharacteristic scowl in his direction. He was still dressed in his traveling clothes, having only arrived in town an hour ago, directed to The Pump Rooms by Nicholas’s staff.
He responded with an angry look of his own, and Samuel laughed into his glass of water, setting it down with a little too much force once he was done, causing the other men to glance his way.
“Something to add to the discussion, Viscount Whitmore?” came the voice of Lord Gainsbury, an old friend of their father.
“Has the present topic of conversation tickled you? It is rare for you to find yourself in Oxford these days. Perhaps all this politicking is wearing on those funny nerves of yours.”
The brothers exchanged amused glances. Samuel was not the only Whitmore man who kept his distance from Oxford. But Nicholas’s rank protected him from direct confrontation.
Samuel’s cheeks were filled with water, and he swallowed before speaking. “Not at all,” he said. “But how kind of you to think of my nerves. People so rarely do.”
Samuel leveled Gainsbury a look that turned the table quiet, his light green eyes so different from Nicholas’s eyes—from any Whitmore’s who had ever lived.
“If I am so frequently absent from Oxford,” Samuel pressed on, “as you have so discreetly noted, it is only because so much time here is spent as it is now: regurgitating what has already been said in a better town to the benefit of no one in the worse one. Continue, if you please. But know that the topic of Catholic emancipation has been discussed to death.”
“Well then, pray, My Lord. What would you have us discuss instead?” Gainsbury asked, visibly unimpressed by Samuel’s blasphemy. The others at the table looked nervously around.
“Anything, my good Lord. I am all ears,” Samuel replied, watching a waiter come over to refill his glass.
“But if I were to suggest a new avenue of conversation, I say we could raise a toast in honor of the Duke of Avon’s return to Oxford.
He has only been in London two weeks, hardly enough time to christen such a felicitous homecoming properly, no doubt. ”
What game are you playing now? Nicholas wondered.
Samuel continued: “Not that I hear much from him these days, mind you. These are busy times for His Grace. Most distracted is he. Unable even to answer his correspondence. One might wonder what keeps him from the writing table...”
Nicholas looked up from his near-empty plate, chewing on the side of his mouth to suppress a smile. Samuel raised his glass in challenge. The other men toasted to the Duke of Avon. And if any of them noticed Nicholas choke a little on his drink with a laugh, they were good enough not to mention it.
Samuel parted his lips as though to say something else, but they were interrupted by the arrival of two gentlemen. The others at the table seemed to recognize one of them immediately. Gainsbury rose out of his seat to greet the new arrival as Nicholas watched on from his seat.
The older gentleman, Lord Gainsbury’s friend, was introducing a new student at Oxford who seemed to have some loose familial connection to him. The student was a young manwith a shock of wavy, wheat-blonde hair that would make him the envy of every wig-wearing lord nearby.
Samuel slipped to Nicholas’s side and sat in Gainsbury’s abandoned chair.
“Now the vultures are distracted with fresh meat, you and I should be heading off,” Samuel whispered.
“You cannot seriously wish to remain here another hour! There must be something back at Riverside for you to occupy yourself with—or if not there, then with me in town, like old times. Come, we scarcely speak while we are in London, but you have no excuse now.”
“You make it sound as though I purposefully avoid being in your company,” Nicholas muttered, dropping the volume of his voice. “You are the one who keeps his distance from me.”
“Well, you are always gadding about with those ton fools, and you know how I despise them so. A distaste which is mutual, thank God.” Samuel squinted, teasingly. “Perhaps gadding about much too closely, if what I have heard is true. The Marchioness of Colmsburgh? Really, brother?”
“Hush,” Nicholas warned, hoping the other men were not eavesdropping.
“Is that your only defense?” Samuel’s face brightened with a smile.
“It must be true, then.” He leaned back in his seat and stared off in thought.
“Truly, when I first heard the news, I thought it was just another story in the rags. Not that it surprised me. You are beloved by the writers after all.”
Nicholas sighed. “They will have something doubly scandalous to write about if you do not hold your tongue: the Viscount Whitmore strangled to death by his own brother over a roast.”
Samuel raised a finger. “Half-brother, don’t you forget... The rags certainly never do.”
“Now you have hurt my feelings,” Nicholas joked, squashing a boiled potato with the back of his fork.
He sighed when Samuel began to say something else.
“Look,” he cut in. “I have not seen hide nor hair of you in the last three months, and there are so few here in Oxford who I tolerate quite so much as I tolerate you, as George is so often busy. You were kind to travel all the way here to check on me—though I am still convinced you do so not out of the goodness of your heart but for entertainment. So do not write yourself in my bad books, brother. At least not until you have gone.”
Samuel stole a sliver of carrot off his plate. “It’s a wonder you can’t make more friends than George and me. You are so genial.”
“Oh, still your bleeding heart,” Nicholas quipped, putting his fork down with gusto. “I have more friends than I know what to do with. It is just that none of them happen to be here.”
“Have you really met no one worth their salt since you have come?”
“No, there has been...”
Before he could tell Samuel that Oxford had been an utter bore, his mind suddenly flashed with a familiar, sweet face.
Miss Tate appeared behind his eyes.
Her wit, her pleasant smile, her eyes, so like an angry sea.
“There has been...? There has been...?” Samuel urged, and Nicholas cursed himself—cursed the distracting memory of Miss Tate. “There has certainly been something.”
Miss Tate was no laughing matter. Nicholas knew no other way to be with Samuel, so he said nothing.
“Alright, have it your way,” Samuel whined. “Just come with me to the club tonight, the one Father used to attend. Abandon this drudgery for an evening.”
Nicholas wiped his mouth on his napkin, smirking.
“Oh, dear brother. There will be no club for us tonight.” He watched Samuel’s face contort with knowing. “The cream of Oxford society—comprised of those ton fools you like so much—plans to gather at the Bodleian tonight.
“You who wishes to spend time with me...” He seized his brother’s shoulder and drew him in. “May well spend time with me there.”