Betrothal Between Enemies (Regency Tour in Italy #2)

Chapter One

His father’s study was the last place he wanted to be.

Alistair Burke-Price shifted restlessly in the deep-seated chesterfield, a chair ironically known for inviting comfort.

But Alistair was decidedly not comfortable despite the luxuries on offer in late winter in Devon: the warm fire in the grate and the heated snifter of brandy at his elbow.

He’d never been comfortable in this room, not since his first visit at the age of nine when it had been announced he was off to Eton in the fall with his cousin, Hayes.

There’d been other visits to this room over the years, each of them uncomfortable in their own ways. Time had not changed that.

He was even less comfortable being here now after supper at the end of a long—extraordinarily long—winter at Sessile Oaks.

The end of winter meant the beginning of spring, and spring meant change, plans, a new season, a time for discussion about what he might do with himself this year—a discussion that had yet to bear any real fruit, hence the need to keep repeating it.

Alistair had hoped to escape Devon before that conversation took place, before his father’s plans could tangle with his.

Tonight’s summons suggested he’d left his departure too late.

Across from him in a matching chesterfield, his father stretched his legs, booted feet resting casually on the fender of the hearth.

Unlike himself, his father looked damnably comfortable, which added to Alistair’s worry.

When his father was comfortable, he was confident, sure of his message and its reception.

‘Do you like the new brandy?’ His father nodded congenially to the glass at his elbow.

Alistair gave a noncommittal shrug. They both knew his father had not invited him to the study for the brandy.

‘Was there something you wanted, Father?’ He might as well get it over with.

The sooner this interview was through, the sooner he could be done disappointing his father and get to the Pig and Poke for darts, the only entertainment to be had in the wilds of Devon.

‘There is.’ His father chuckled, unfazed by his deliberate rudeness. ‘I want a warm drink on a cold night and some conversation with my son.’ Alistair doubted it was as benign as his father made it sound.

‘You’ve had all winter for that.’ Conversation with his father always ended badly, and for that reason Alistair tried to avoid it. He didn’t deliberately want to disappoint his father, but it was the only thing he seemed able to manage with any regularity.

His father sat up, some of his earlier ease dissipating.

Good. He’d managed to rile him. It was a petty victory.

‘The Pig and Poke can wait, Alistair. You’ve had all winter for that.

’ The silence that followed fairly screamed with disapproval about how he spent his days: too much leisure, not enough focus.

When his father had been a young man without a cent to his name, he’d restored the family estate from the ravages of his own wastrel father.

How could any son compete with that? Alistair didn’t even try.

His father cleared his throat as if to restart the conversation before it got out of hand. ‘I need you to go to Naples.’

‘Naples? Italy?’ That was not what he’d been expecting.

He’d been anticipating a talk about marriage, eligible young girls to pursue, taking on responsibility and the like.

But going to Italy? That had not even made the list of possible subjects.

He was as interested in Italy as he was in whatever list of débutantes his mother might have drawn up—which meant he was not interested at all.

Now he really did need a drink. Alistair reached for his glass.

‘When did you think this trip might take place?’

‘In two weeks.’ His father offered the answer as if it was a reasonable timeline, which it most assuredly was not.

Alistair choked on the brandy. ‘Two weeks? That’s not enough time to pack, to order clothes, to even air the trunks out.

You might as well ask me to leave tomorrow night.

’ Alistair set aside his glass and rose.

Pacing might help. At least he couldn’t choke on his steps.

His mind was racing, having difficulty catching up to the fact that his father wanted to send him to Naples. Now. Entirely out of the blue.

He stopped in front of the window overlooking the front drive.

But it wasn’t entirely sudden, was it? That wasn’t possible.

Such trips were not spontaneous undertakings.

There was paperwork needed for travel. His father must have been arranging this for a while without telling him.

It seemed grossly unfair, given this would upend his life for the foreseeable future.

‘I have plans, Father. You can’t just expect me to drop everything and go to Italy.

The Season is about to begin.’ There was an opera singer he was hoping to engage, there was the new club on St. James and parties every night with old friends he saw only once a year in Town.

He’d been looking forward to spring in London with a hunger that approached near-craving proportions.

Suffice it to say, this part of Devon wasn’t known for its plethora of willing opera singers.

Winter had been interminable and lonely, more so than usual.

His sister had married last year and no longer lived at home.

It was just him, his parents and whatever fun he could scare up between November and March at the Pig and Poke in the village.

Alistair was desperate for something—anything—to break the tedium of his life, and as usual London was his best chance of fulfilment or at least abatement.

In London, he could forget the monotony for a while, forget that winter would come again and he’d be back in Devon.

Waiting. For something exciting to happen, something life-changing.

Something that would wake him up and shake him out of the inertia that was his existence as the son of a father who had never failed at anything.

‘Plans?’ His father raised a fading sandy eyebrow.

‘You’ve had twelve Seasons in London, Alistair.

I can’t imagine there’s any attraction left in going up to Town.

’ His father probably couldn’t. His father was a countryman at heart.

He preferred riding, fishing and long rambles in the rugged Devon countryside.

It was a point the two of them had long debated.

While Alistair liked those things, too, he preferred the bustle of London.

The countryside was too quiet. A man could hear himself think out here, and the last thing Alistair wanted was to be alone with his thoughts—constant reminders of the ways in which he’d fallen short and that the time for proving himself was speeding past.

Tonight, Alistair refused to take the bait.

Argument would only cause his stubborn father to entrench.

He might be looking for something to fill him, but it certainly wasn’t travelling to Italy.

So he said simply, ‘Yes, I have plans. Friends to see. I have a life in London, Father, even if you do not.’

‘I do not need a life in London.’ His father gave him a meaningful look as if to say he knew exactly why Alistair preferred the city to the bucolic quiet of Sessile Oaks. His father was a master at teaching multiple lessons with a single sentence.

How could he expect his father to understand the emptiness that gnawed at him?

His father had known his path since he was twenty: to restore the neglected family estate and the family’s decency along with it.

Alistair’s childhood had been filled with stories of the legend: how his father had worked hard, raised the capital to repair the roof, to rebuild the barns, to get the tenants back.

Looking at Sessile Oaks today, one would never guess it had been left nearly derelict.

It was a thriving testament to the region and to what Hugh Burke-Price could accomplish when he put his brains and brawn to it.

With his success, he’d launched his sister, helping her capture the attentions of the Duke of Ravenswick before going on to secure a love match of his own with the daughter of an earl to whom it hardly mattered that he had no title to offer.

Instead, he had a reliable fortune in the bank to back him and a duke for a brother-in-law.

Now in his early sixties, Alistair’s father was the richest man in the district and one of the most respected.

Everyone sought him for advice: earls, dukes, blacksmiths and shopkeepers alike.

His father made time for them all, station notwithstanding.

It was a legacy to be both jealous and wary of.

Alistair had learned much from his father growing up: how to talk with people, how to listen to them, how to think through situations from all sides.

He had loved the stories of his father but also feared them.

How did one compete with a fairy tale for a father?

He was still trying to find the answer to that question.

His previous attempt had come up woefully short.

He’d tried to match his father’s business acumen once, throwing a small inheritance—all the independent funds he had—behind his idea of a clotted cream cartel that had started out as visionary and then, after two years, failed miserably, taking his cash with it.

No one laughed in his face, but he was sure there were those who’d laughed behind closed doors and still did.

‘You won’t be travelling alone, of course,’ his father continued as if compliance was assured.

It was not, but his father was used to people saying yes to him.

It was a trait Alistair shared, and it had garnered him his first investors in the cartel.

They’d trusted him. He’d not served that trust well.

‘Cousin Hayes will go with you as far as Florence.’