Chapter Two
“Moore. Sebastian Augustus Moore, Third Marquess of Cambridge.” Sebastian blew on his hands, bouncing from left foot to right.
Movement kept his blood flowing. Or at least, kept his boots from freezing him to the ground.
The terracotta floor tiles beneath him were just as bitter as the frost outside.
His boots were soaked through, his toes aching.
“There ain’t no reservation under this name,” the gap-toothed innkeeper said from behind the worn walnut desk of The Silver Thistle, the last halfway-clean roof between here and nowhere.
Sebastian rubbed his arms and popped his collar, pretending the extra millimeter of wool might matter.
His taupe cashmere scarf gave him a sliver of relief—until the door burst open behind him.
Another gust of wind. And Paul. His poor coachman, soaked to the bone, shaking snow from his felt hat with trembling hands.
“Do you have any room at all?” Sebastian asked, laying five shillings on the counter. “My coachman needs a rest, too.” He flicked a glance toward Paul and tugged his own wool coat tighter, though it made no difference.
The innkeeper pocketed the coins and checked the ledger. “No, milord. A hot soup is all we can offer ye tonight. ’Tis on the house.”
A hollow kindness. For five shillings, the man could have served them something edible. Soup for two costs half a shilling. The rest was a tax for being titled.
Of course. The crest on the carriage—Sebastian had paid in advance for their contempt.
What they never saw—what none of them ever saw—was the price of those luxuries, not in coin, but in constant scrutiny. The smile required in every drawing room, plus the rehearsed charm. Even now, shivering in the vestibule of a backwater inn, he had to look vaguely dignified.
He might’ve laughed if his teeth weren’t chattering.
Thomas would laugh. Thomas always did. Sebastian could hear it now: a dry chuckle and a too-casual, “Did you really try to impress an innkeeper with your title?”
That was the thing about titles.
But Sebastian did far too much because he ranked far too low and possessed far less money.
It was the story of his life—paying to appear above the fray while fighting tooth and nail to stay in it.
The old French adage his mother loved to repeat floated up like smoke: Noblesse oblige. Nobility obliges.
And it did. It obliged him to act grateful for a title that cost him his two-seater phaeton—sold to pay tuition. It obliged him to smile when he had nothing left but appearances. It obliged him to accept cold soup with grace.
That scarf soaked through and oddly stiff? Gifted last season. The boots? Repaired more than thrice. And still he stood, back straight, words polite.
He tugged at his cravat. Too stiff. He liked them starched—but it was suffocating like everything else in his mother’s London townhouse, which was why he’d left right after the New Year to visit Thomas for his engagement festivities to Lady Ashley.
Mother—Lady Victoria Moore to those who cared about the whispers in the drawing rooms—had managed their home like she arranged his life—clean, polished, and impossible. There hadn’t been enough left in his trust for the spring term. But she didn’t worry.
“You will not be turned away,” she’d said, “as long as your title maintains the respect of the realm.”
Poor Mother. Still living in the golden echo of a fading world. She hadn’t noticed that the Ton only stayed friendly so long as the money flowed. Nor that every debutante she paraded past him smiled at his title, not his face. Not one had fallen for him—because no one had ever truly seen him.
And wasn’t that what he wanted? Someone who saw the man, not the marquess.
Back at Oxford, he’d have his tiny staff again—a housekeeper, a cook, a valet. Chatwick, the butler, ran the house with his wife and their twelve-year-old son, who’d taken to helping about.
A warm meal. An even warmer fire. Familiar faces.
He could almost taste the calm and joy of a fresh beer from Thomas’s brewery while sitting near the fire and reading for his classes. Blissful times compared to… well… everything in Town.
The diluted broth at the inn was more salted water than soup, the kind Mrs. Chatwick would never serve, not even in a pinch. Still, after a few spoonfuls, Paul looked less like he might collapse on the inn floor.
“It’s seven miles to Fort Balmore,” Sebastian said at last. He couldn’t wait to reach his best friend’s castle in Elysian Fields. He’d nearly grown up there and missed it. “Think we can make it?”
“They don’t expect you till tomorrow, milord,” Paul replied, eyeing the snow lashing the windows. “You know the Earl of Lindsey doesn’t like surprise visitors.”
Sebastian did. Thomas Dunbridge—the Earl of Linsey—was his closest friend. He also hated surprises, but Sebastian wasn’t worried. Not really.
They’d shared rooms at Eton. Spent summers in each other’s homes. Every year after Christmas, Sebastian collected Thomas and they drove into the countryside and forgot who they were.
Just boys again. Before the titles mattered.
“All right,” Sebastian said, straightening. “Let’s surprise the earl, then.”