considering he’s only twenty-four or twenty-five. He has a younger sister—Elizabeth or something like that. She’s making her Come Out this Season, and he’s being quite the dutiful son and brother, squiring his mother and sister all over town. He came into his inheritance as a child, you know. Sometimes that has disastrous effects on the development of a young man’s character. But not Ramsey’s. He keeps his estates in order, he doesn’t gamble to excess, and if he keeps a mistress, he must be very discreet about it because I’ve never heard tell of it. In many ways he reminds me of Lord Fairchild.”
“Yet despite this list of virtues, you don’t care for either one. Why?”
“If I liked steady, virtuous, boring men, I’d have lost patience with you years ago, now wouldn’t I?” She removed the puce-and-navy silk confection and nodded to the demure shop assistant hovering nearby. “I’ll take this one.” To Sebastian, Henrietta said, “Now, not another word until you explain your interest in the child.”
“I’ll explain later,” said Sebastian, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Aunt.”
Henrietta reached out to snag his arm. “Oh, no, you don’t. You can carry my package to the carriage.”
Sebastian glanced at the Duchess’s liveried footman waiting patiently beside the shop door, then silently scooped up her purchase and followed her out of the milliner’s into the fitful May sunshine. Once on the footpath, she fixed him with a critical eye that made him suddenly uncomfortable. “I’ve been hearing disturbing reports about your activities these past months, Sebastian. Most disturbing reports. And from what I can see, they’re all true. You look like the very devil.”
“Why, thank you, Aunt.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I can understand drowning your sorrows in a few bottles of brandy and wild nights on the town. It was a shock, obviously. A shock to us all. But eight months, Sebastian? Don’t you think that’s a trifle excessive?”
“Obviously not.”
She grunted. “At any rate, that’s not what I wished to speak to you about. I’m worried about Hendon.”
“Aunt—”
“No. Hear me out. I said I understand it was a shock, learning of the connection between Hendon and Miss Boleyn. But to allow the consequences of something that occurred more than twenty years ago to poison your relationship with Hendon now is worse than illogical. It’s mean-spirited. And that’s something I’ve never known you to be.”
“You think I should be able to accept with equanimity the discovery that my father is also the father of the woman I planned to marry?”
“Equanimity, no. Understanding and forbearance, yes.” She tightened her hold on his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh through the fine cloth of his coat and shirtsleeve. “This estrangement grieves him, Sebastian. More than you’ll ever know. Nothing means more to him than you.”
They had reached the carriage. The footman let down the steps and stood waiting woodenly. Sebastian passed him the package, then took his aunt’s hand to help her negotiate the passage through the narrow door. “Good day, Aunt,” he said, stepping back.
Swinging away, he had taken two strides toward his own waiting curricle when her voice stopped him. “By the way, Sebastian,” she called maliciously through the carriage’s open window, “I hear you were driving Miss Jarvis in Hyde Park yesterday.”
He whirled back around. “Good God, wherever did you hear that?”
But his aunt simply smiled and nodded to her coachman to drive on.
Chapter 22
Lord Fairchild’s residence in Curzon Street was impressively large and stylishly decorated by its new young mistress, with striped silk drapes and rich Oriental carpets and Egyptian-inspired settees. As Sebastian followed the solemn-faced butler across a polished marble entry, he knew a moment of misgivings. Silver gleamed; the wood of the balustrade and hall tables glowed with wax. How could the granddaughter of a duke, born to such a genteel, rarified atmosphere, possibly have fallen so low as to grace the tawdry parlor of a brothel like the Orchard Street Academy?
Still solid and straight-backed despite his fiftysomething years, Basil, Lord Fairchild had the silver-laced dark hair and sallow skin more typically seen in a Spaniard or a Frenchman from the Cote d’Azure. Receiving the Viscount in a red-velvet-draped library, he fixed Sebastian with a heavy scowl and said, “If Hendon sent you here to talk to me about these damnable Orders in Council, you’re wasting your time.”
The Orders in Council were part of Britain’s tit-for-tat economic war with Napoleon. But one of the system’s unintended consequences had been a heating up of tensions with the Americans. Lord Fairchild was one of those pushing for the Orders’ repeal, whereas Sebastian’s father was a strong supporter of the Prime Minister’s determination to stand tough against the Americans’ belligerence. “It’s not that I’m soft on the defense of Canada or British shipping interests,” Fairchild was saying. “But Britain needs to stay focused on defeating the French.”
“I’m not my father’s envoy,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.
Lord Fairchild looked surprised for a moment, then gave a gruff laugh. “Well, then. Have a seat, Lord Devlin. My son, Cedric, has told me much of your exploits on the Continent. If we had a few more men like you, maybe Boney’d be on his way to hell by now, rather than riding roughshod over all of Europe.”
As far as Sebastian was concerned, his activities in the Army were something to be atoned for and, hopefully, someday forgotten—not glorified. But he merely inclined his head and said, “Thank you. I’d rather stand.”
“But you will take a drink,” said Fairchild with a smile. There was nothing in either the man’s manner or his demeanor to suggest the grieving father.
Sebastian said, “I’m afraid I may have some unfortunate news for you.”
“News?” Lord Fairchild’s smile faded. “What news?”
