Chapter Ten
My dearest Willoughby. I’ve made an absolute ass of myself. Not unusual per se, except that my poor form was called out by Lord bloody Lyndon of all people. The indignity of it.
Papa. The summer dance was truly an adventure! I’m still recovering!
A NEW DAWN did not improve things.
Quill in hand, Rollo stared out at the never-changing view from his bedchamber.
Another bleaching-hot day beckoned, suffocating and airless, the harsh sunlight throwing cruel shade on the tawdriness of the night before.
What had he been thinking? He knew the rules.
Wherever he travelled and in whatever company, Rollo represented his father and Rossingley.
Whether he wanted to or not. And it took a man who had forgotten that vital lesson in relation to his own esteemed family’s honour to call him out.
Just as he was contemplating a stomp around the garden, and perhaps farther afield—Rollo’s need to escape Goule Hall for a few hours stronger than ever—a bleary-eyed Lucy appeared to tidy his bed clothes and do whatever else housemaids did in the mornings.
Rollo attempted a weary smile. “Not halfway to Gretna Green?”
Lucy blushed. “We had the last dance, then Jack saw me home safe and sound. We’re officially courting.”
“Are you now,” Rollo teased, though his heart wasn’t in it. “And does Cook approve of this courtship?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Her and Mr Berridge’s cart was two yards behind us all the way back. Never took her bleeding eyes off us.”
“It’s amazing what one can get up to under the cover of a lap blanket and darkness though,” Rollo observed. “Don’t you find?”
Lucy giggled. “You’ve a naughty mind, sir.” Opening the window and shaking her duster out of it, she carried on.
“There was a right rumpus late on. After you and his lordship left. Our Ralph, living over at Beccles, got himself a blooded nose from somewhere. Don’t know who gave it to him, but he was in a right temper about it.
Started throwing things, swore this place was a shithole—’scuse my French—and that he was gonna leave the wife and bairns and clear off to Norwich.
Ape-drunk, he was, and then he made the mistake of picking a fight with two of the big farmer lads from out on the Yarmouth Road.
He’ll have himself a sore head and a matching shiner this morning. ”
Rollo’s pulse raced. Thank God he’d not divulged his name, or Ralph Hart might have drunkenly bandied that about too. Nonetheless, Rollo felt a twinge of sympathy for him, even if he did stray from his wife when the opportunity arose.
“I don’t think I came across the gentleman,” he answered cautiously. “Do you think he’ll carry it out?”
“Nah,” Lucy prattled on. “That was the ale talking. He’s me da’s cousin; that lot are all talk and no trousers.
He’s thick as a barn door too. Couldn’t find his way out of a privy without a candle, let alone the road out of Norwich.
Got a mean streak in him though. I pity the man who bloodied his cork when he does track him down.
They like their revenge, the Hart’s do. Even gabsters like our Ralph. ”
Rollo relaxed a little. Mr Hart would come up against a brick wall taking on Lord Lyndon. Only a prize idiot would even try. One fell out with the local lord at one’s peril.
“He was probably too foxed to remember,” he suggested. “It was that sort of dance, wasn’t it?”
“Always is. Always some drama.” And with that, Lucy gabbled on about several folks with whom Rollo wasn’t acquainted, thus very little was required of him except for an occasional nod.