Chapter 1 #2
Finishing his bath, he rose from the tub, and sloshed his way across the floor to grab a large cloth to dry himself. He gingerly rubbed his legs and midsection, working the stiffness from his shoulders.
“Have you made your point yet?” Wyatt asked as he tried and failed to reach down to his feet. “I could use some bloody help.”
Ralph didn’t even bother to lower the paper. “In a moment. I’m reading.”
Wyatt straightened, stopping to stare. Even for Ralph, he was being cantankerous. “Really? I can barely dry myself and you can’t—”
“I’ve found something interesting,” Ralph said by way of answer. Then he set the paper aside and grabbed a second cloth.
Wyatt wrapped the first about his midsection and eased himself down into a chair, groaning softly as he did.
Ralph gave him a look of contempt before he tossed another cloth onto Wyatt’s feet to soak up the water. “Rough night?”
It had been.
He’d followed a purse snatcher from the theater district all the way to the docks. He’d no more caught the man when several of his compatriots had decided to join the fray. Not only had Wyatt been unable to apprehend the thief, he’d gotten a healthy beating for his efforts. “No more than usual.”
Ralph finally rose from the chair to assemble Wyatt’s clothing for the day. “You ought to quit. You’ve made your point, I think,” he said before he disappeared into the dressing room.
Wyatt wasn’t attempting to make a point, he was trying to make a difference.
That’s what Ralph never seemed to understand.
“I can’t quit. I’ve only just made the papers.
” The reason he couldn’t stop was far more complex and way more personal.
He clenched his hands and then unclenched them again, an image of his father flashing through his thoughts.
Helping people who were too weak to help themselves was his life’s mission. A calling.
Ralph grunted. “Speaking of. Look at the headline in The Times.”
Wyatt glanced over to see a drawing of a man dressed all in black with a black mask and a domino as he, twice the size of everyone else, chased down a group of five men.
He smiled, or he tried. The scar prevented one side of his mouth from lifting, so it always looked as though he were giving some one-sided sly grin.
“Very flattering,” he answered, rubbing his legs.
Ralph reemerged, laying a simple linen shirt, breeches, boots, cravat, vest, and waistcoat on the edge of the bed. “Quite.”
“I’m making people feel safer, you know.”
“By putting yourself in danger.”
True. Wyatt’s eyes drifted closed again as he listened to Ralph brush his boots clean.
He’d have to finish the books by tonight to make certain his accounts were in order before going out again.
It was a task he’d always done for himself.
He enjoyed it, and it added a natural quiet to his days that balanced out his nightly activities.
Perhaps he’d take tonight off from saving the city.
He wasn’t sure his body could take another night.
Besides. One promise he’d made himself when he’d started his vigilante justice was that he’d not allow the people who depended on his land to suffer.
His father had done little right, but impressing the importance of the title was one of the few traits he’d successfully engrained in Wyatt. Ralph too, if they were being honest.
“It’s time you stopped skulking about the shadows and began the hunt for a wife,” Ralph said, as if reading Wyatt’s thoughts.
Wyatt made a soft sound of dissent, a knot settling in his stomach as it always did at the thought of Angela. He believed in the viscountcy up to a point. And that point might be marriage. “I found a bride already, remember?”
The steady back and forth of the horsehair brush stopped as Ralph answered. “You were engaged. Not married. And the fact that she was too foolish to see the wedding through does not mean you should go without an heir. The viscountcy depends on you.”
“I’ve got years to make an heir.”
“Not that way you live.”
Another truth.
But how did one go about courting a woman living as he did?
Besides the fact that he bore a large and ugly mark down the left side of his face, he hadn’t the time or the inclination to attend balls, or picnic in the park, or pretend to care about a woman when he didn’t.
He doubted he’d ever allow himself to care again.
But as he and Ralph had this conversation daily, he didn’t bother to say any of it out loud. “I’ll see to it in time.”
Ralph harrumphed. “You promised that your nighttime activities would not get in the way of your duties.”
“They don’t.”
“An heir is your duty.”
Wyatt pushed out of the chair, determined to dress himself. Ralph was irritating his last unharmed nerve. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Good.” Ralph left the clothes on the bed, and returned to the side table where he’d left the paper. When he came back toward the bed, he laid the sheet next to Wyatt’s clothes. “Then you’ll understand why I insist you attend.”
“Attend what?” But his eyes were already straying to where Ralph’s finger rested. He’d grown used to Ralph’s gruff mothering but as he scanned the words, his mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious. You want me to answer an ad in the paper for a woman looking for a husband?”
Ralph shrugged. “Why not? Says she’s a lady with a dowry.”
“Because…” Wyatt spluttered, his arms lifting as he forgot sore muscles and tired arms. A dowry was the least of his concerns. “She’s likely—”
“Scarred?” Ralph said, raising one eyebrow as he looked at Wyatt.
“I was going to say not suitable.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me how you really feel. Don’t hold back.”
“It’s Tuesday, you know.” Ralph said, rocking back on his heels. “You could still make it. The appointed time is in an hour.”
Wyatt shook his head. The idea was absurd.
But then again, so was this daily conversation.
And Ralph had a point. If the woman wasn’t awful, the idea of a quick and easy arrangement had potential.
He could make a match, make an heir, and skip most of the unpleasantries that he’d had to experience the first time around.
And he’d be able to continue his work once there was an heir.
“If I go, will you cease your constant bellyaching?”
Ralph shrugged. “For a time anyway.”
“Why do I keep you around?”
“For the same reason I nag you. We’re all the family the other has left.”
That was the truth. Which was why he reached for his shirt. “Fine, I’ll go. But I’m not making any promises beyond that.”
Ralph gave a curt nod, attempting to hide his smile. “Good.” Then he went back to brushing Wyatt’s boots. “And don’t forget to be nice. Nicer than you are to me, anyhow.”
Wyatt lifted a single brow. While the papers made him look like a hero, women who met him without a mask on his face considered him anything but. “It might take more than nice to convince her I’d make a good choice for a husband.”
Ralph looked down at the paper. “She advertised in The Times. Clearly she’s desperate.”
“Your faith in me is so generous.”
“I don’t think it’s my faith that is the problem,” Ralph answered before he turned and left Wyatt. Who still wasn’t dressed.
“I really need to fire you.”
But he knew he wouldn’t just like he knew that he’d attend the meeting with this mysterious woman because Ralph was right. Ralph was the only family that Wyatt had. He’d have to marry and make an heir at some point and he might as well make Ralph happy by taking this easy first step.