“I—I’ll do my best, sir,” said Theodore, feeling some response on his part was called for.
“Daresay you won’t botch the thing too badly. Had your share of scrapes, but nothing nine out of ten young fools wouldn’t have got into.”
Theodore was still trying to decide what response, if any, to make to this very tepid praise when his father continued, “You get into any trouble, you go to your brother, d’ye hear? The fellow’s as vulgar as be-damned, but he don’t want for sense.”
“I daresay I shall contrive,” said Theodore, nettled by the suggestion that he, who had been reared from the cradle to assume his father’s position someday, should need any assistance, least of all from someone of his brother-in-law’s background.
“I daresay you will, seeing as how you don’t have a choice,” the duke said pettishly. “Now, go away, all of you, and send my man to me. No doubt he and Grant between them will expect me to drink that swill Grant calls medicine, but I’m very tired, and I want to sleep.”
“Yes, sir.” After a brief, awkward pause, he took his father’s withered hand and pressed it to his lips. “Goodnight, Papa.”
They were the last words Theodore would ever speak to him. In the middle of the night, he was roused from sleep by his father’s valet, bearing the news that the old duke had passed away peacefully in his sleep, and that Theodore, Viscount Tisdale was now the Duke of Reddington.
2
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
JOHN FORD, title of a play
FOR THEODORE, DUKE of Reddington, the days that followed seemed to pass in a blur. There were notices to be sent to the newspapers, of course, but before that, letters must be written and mailed to a host of friends and relations, lest they learn of the duke’s death by reading of it in the Times. Thankfully, his sister was willing to take on the burden of correspondence, as she and her husband would not return to Lancashire until after the funeral. This left Theodore free to devote his time to other tasks: a meeting with his father’s—no, his, he realized with some dismay—solicitor, who read the duke’s will; another with his banker, who brought him up to date on the state of his father’s finances; and, most daunting of all, a lengthy conversation with his steward.
“Thank you for your time, my lord, er, your grace,” Alfred began when Theodore entered the study, clearly waiting for the new duke to take his seat behind the desk that had once been his father’s. As soon as Theodore had done so, Alfred spread a sheaf of papers across the desk. “I hope I may prevail upon you to undertake at least a few of the improvements I have long urged upon your father. The most ambitious of these is the draining of the south field, but as it would no doubt be unwise to begin such a project so late in the year, I daresay that had best wait until spring. In the meantime, I hope you will consider some of the smaller yet more urgent . . .”
By the time Theodore emerged from the study two hours later, his head was spinning with such matters as bushels per acre, grazing rights, and mining claims.
A few days after his father was laid to rest in the family vault, responses to his sister’s letters began to arrive, including four from old friends of the late duke who expressed their willingness to sponsor him if and when he chose to take up his seat in the House of Lords—a responsibility which his father had neglected for so long that Theodore had forgotten it would fall to him along with the rest of his inheritance, and one which would cost him (as his correspondents tactfully pointed out) a rather large sum of money to assume.
It also became apparent that the parish church in one of his father’s holdings—no, his holdings—was at present without a vicar, for various bishops, rectors, and other churchmen had written to recommend their subordinates for the position.
The post also included several letters from tradesmen whom the old duke owed money, and one or two excruciatingly solicitous communications from gentlemen who began with fond recollections of certain gaming ventures they had enjoyed with his father in happier days when that gentleman still lived, and concluded with expressions of certainty that the young duke would not want to be behindhand in honoring the debts of honor incurred by his never-to-be-sufficiently-mourned sire.
Theodore was so overwhelmed by it all that as soon as the last of the out-of-town relatives had departed, he lost no time in throwing his leg over his horse and riding off hell-for-leather to London, stopping in his bachelor lodgings only long enough to dump his bags before setting out for a discreet house in Half Moon Street, where he lost no time in throwing his leg over the voluptuous form of La Fantasia. Alas, even this pleasant exercise did not provide the escape he sought.
“Mmm, this has been a new experience for me,” purred the lady, stretching sinuously and pushing tousled ebony locks from her eyes. “I’ve never shared a bed with a duke before.”
“Not you too, Fanny!” Theodore exclaimed in dismay, sitting bolt upright in the bed.
“Poor darling,” she cooed, sitting up behind him so that she might massage his shoulders. “Is it all too much? Shall we go to Paris and get away from it all? Or Rome, perhaps?”
“I’m in mourning,” he reminded her. “How would it look for me to go junketing about on the Continent before Papa is cold in his grave? Besides,” he added, seeing she was unconvinced by this argument, “I haven’t the funds for it in any case.”
“But your inheritance—”
He shook his head. “Can’t be touched, not
