Chapter Six
My dearest Willoughby. Wish me luck. I’m venturing into the drawing room. For armour, I have only my fortitude and my wits. If I am an absent correspondent over the coming days, send for reinforcements!
Dear Papa. Lord Lyndon and I pass most of our evenings in the drawing room. He has an insatiable interest in the first regiment of the Coldstream Guards. Fascinating!
WITH A VAGUE feeling of déjà vu mixed with a much more well-defined trepidation, Rollo scratched at the drawing room door.
Inside, all was quiet. Perhaps his lordship wasn’t there this evening.
That would be typical of Rollo’s luck—the first occasion he plucked up the courage to join his host was the one evening his host was elsewhere.
In which case, he’d sit awhile with a book.
If nothing else, it would be an evening spent contemplating a different set of four walls.
The back of Lord Lyndon’s head greeted him, his long wavy hair falling about his shoulders like sheets of rust. So absorbed in whatever he was doing, the man hadn’t heard Rollo open the door, obliging Rollo to fake a ridiculous little polite cough.
A flurry of activity ensued as Lord Lyndon thrust whatever occupied him under a cushion, yet not before Rollo caught a glimpse of paper and a crayon.
“Good evening, my lord.” He prayed his voice sounded surer of itself out loud than it did in his head. “Might I join you in a glass?”
“Does Papa allow it?” answered his lordship gruffly.
“I think we established my age at our last meeting, my lord.”
Whilst maturity was not on Rollo’s side, his steely aristocratic forebears were.
He absolutely would not be cowed even though his palms perspired and his tone tended towards the waspish, especially when anxious, like now.
Rollo had a feeling Lord Lyndon wasn’t much for waspish men.
Too bad. Another evening spent alone in his room might turn Rollo stark raving mad.
Lord Lyndon shrugged as if it mattered not what Rollo did, which Rollo suspected wasn’t far from the truth. Daringly, he helped himself to a snifter of port; the lesser of the two evils on offer. Even more daring, he took a seat, uninvited, on the settee opposite his host.
In excruciating silence, they both drank.
Rollo tried not to peer at a corner of foolscap sticking out from under a cushion whilst his host toyed with the little wooden bow in his lap.
A neat row of pewter foot soldiers on the mantel mutely observed them both.
Sipping cautiously, Rollo reflected on small mercies.
He had not been used as target practice, and Fitzsimmons wasn’t watering the fireplace.
Fully aware it was the sort of dull pronouncement a maiden aunt might make, but unable to bear the silence any longer, Rollo offered, “May I say this is a very nicely proportioned room, my lord. It is well-positioned to catch the evening light.” His gaze landed on a harpsichord half hidden under an embroidered throw. “Do you play?”
Lord Lyndon’s dark eyes followed the direction of his gaze. “No. Nor does anyone who comes here. Instrument’s as useless as tits on a bull.”
If his lordship was endeavouring to be especially boorish, then he was succeeding. He swigged from his glass, making no move to wipe away the trickle of red liquid running down his chin. Then he put the empty glass down and picked up the bow properly, testing the string.
“How do you occupy your time here at Goule, my lord, if I may be so forward as to enquire? Do you read? You have a splendid library.”
“No.”
“What about keeping abreast of newssheets and such?”
“No. Full of half-truths and lies.”
At breakfast, Rollo’s father could frequently be heard bemoaning the same. “Then your time must be taken up with estate matters.”
“No.”
“Billiards?”
“No.”
“Do you ride? Fence? Box?” An air of exasperation crept into Rollo’s voice. Really, the man was quite insufferable.
“Fencing is a sport for simpering foreign dandies.” He swigged again. “I ride women, and I box inquisitive young pups.”
Fine. If that was the game his lordship wanted to play, then Rollo would prove himself a worthwhile adversary. “Goodness, then you must be terribly bored,” he countered, “Seeing as there is a paucity of both here at Goule. No wonder you’ve resorted to child’s play.”
That provoked a reaction at least, in the form of an almighty put-upon sigh. “Remind me how long I have to tolerate your presence?”
“Another ten weeks, two days, and—” Rollo glanced at the longcase clock. “—approximately eleven hours assuming I make an early start.” He threw Lord Lyndon a wry look. “Believe me, you’re not the only one counting.”
“Have you filed your first report yet?”
“What? What report?”
Lord Lyndon took another long swallow. “Your report on my welfare. You’ve been sent here to poke around. To spy on me. On behalf of my brother.”
“I’ve been sent here to do nothing of the sort,” Rollo retorted, flummoxed. “I’m here to reflect on my own poor behaviour, repent, and vow to do better. A lesson I’ve already absorbed.” He wrinkled his brow. “Another ten weeks feels quite excessive.”
“You send out regular letters though.” Lord Lyndon sounded as if he’d caught Rollo out.
He raked his fingers through his pile of arrows, deciding which to select.
They all looked the same to Rollo, and by that, he meant equally lethal.
“Twice weekly. To your brother and your father. In addition to penning one to my brother, the duke.”
And this man had the audacity to accuse Rollo of being a spy? “What of it? I merely wrote to His Grace thanking him for his generosity in affording me this wonderful opportunity to spend my summer basking in your exquisite company. Regarding my father and brother, my letters—”
“Reports,” cut in his lordship emphatically. “Not letters.”
“Letters,” Rollo insisted. “To my brother I write dull, endless letters, filled with nothing. I describe Norfolk, in other words. And to my father, I pretend that I am having a marvellous stay. He tolerates most sentiments; however, lamenting one’s privileged situation when less fortunate people are starving in the streets is the exception. ”
It occurred to Rollo that the four walls of his bedchamber weren’t so terrible after all.
Except that when he made to rise, he suddenly found himself at the menacing, pointy end of a nocked arrow.
Level with the blunt fletching, one of Lord Lyndon’s half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes lined the thing up directly at him.
“Stop that at once! I’m not one of your pewter soldiers!”
“No.” His gaze swivelled towards the mantel, then back to Rollo. “I have no need to question their integrity.”
“Nor mine.” Fuelled with rage, Rollo raised himself to his full, unimpressive height and addressed the man, doing his darndest to block out the weapon now fixed directly at the centre of his forehead. His heart beat fit to burst out of his chest.
“My lord,” he began, his voice trembling.
“I am a Duchamps-Avery. From a long line of distinguished Duchamps-Averys. My family can be traced back to the Domesday Book and far beyond. Whilst I am not the wisest, oldest, largest, or strongest of my line, I have the heart of a lion and the backbone of a…another very large creature. You will not accuse me of spying on my host, you will not piss in the fireplace in my company, you will not question my integrity, and most of all, you will not point that beastly, pathetic children’s weapon between my eyes.
“I have no idea why you are so obnoxiously miserable, nor why you waste your every evening alone in this drawing room in a drunken haze. Frankly, I do not care. But I shall tell you this. As God as my witness, how a man chooses to run his affairs is his own private business. And whilst I believe you to be of questionable character and barely clinging to sound reason, my father and your brother shall never hear of it.”
And on that note, he flounced out. Before his knees gave way.