memories of fishing with Emeline and the boys, playing cards with Emeline and the boys, stalking the gamekeeper whilst pretending to be ferocious Iroquois with Emeline and the boys. Picnics in May. Christmas supper. Pip’s first silk waistcoat. Sig’s first book of Latin grammar. Harry’s first cut lip. Emeline’s first modified, plumped up bodice.
Kit tapped his walking stick against the paving stones, pushing the memory aside. He was to meet Lord Raithby in White’s Club for a brief meeting, a hail fellow well met moment between two men who had known each other slightly and briefly, though not unpleasantly, whist at Oxford. He was in London to look over the yearly crop of debutantes, the line-up of girls of either beauty or riches, rarely both blessing the same girl, and he was to begin the process of choosing a wife. A proper wife. An appropriate wife.
He was not in any mind to marry. His mother wanted him to marry, to be settled, to begin the life she wanted for him. It would give her peace and joy and all the sensations a mother yearned for in her eldest son. This he knew.
His life had been rooted from the earliest years in striving to give his mother what she wanted, to bring her ease and peace and security. He had, by habit and inclination, shaped his life to do just that. But in this he hesitated.
He did not want to marry. Someday, yes, of course, but not now. The thought of sorting through the young women of the ton left him cold. He supposed that he was entirely normal in that. What man wanted to pick a wife from amongst the eager throng, to be married at the very start of what he hoped would be a very long life? His father had not enjoyed long life, and this is part of what drove his mother’s desperation to see him settled into matrimony and producing heirs. He understood it. He was not reconciled to it.
Maternal devotion only carried a man so far.
Kit turned onto St. James’s Street, the spring sunlight warm on his skin, the rhythmic tap of his walking stick comfortingly regular, White’s facade giving a man the sensation that all was solid and familiar and predictable in the world. For a man being forced upon the Marriage Mart, it was a most happy sensation, even if illusionary. He was admitted by the porter, turned over his hat, stick, and gloves, and made his way into the warmth of an exclusively male domain.
Even his mother could not follow him into White’s.
Kit was early. Lord Raithby was earlier.
Raithby stood as Kit approached; he had hardly aged since Oxford. The scar upon the upper curve of his cheek was flatter, his hair was shorter, his cheeks leaner. He looked a man in the sweet center of a well-ordered life, a man with nothing to worry him and no one who expected anything of him.
“Culley,” Raithby said, nodding. “Good to see you.”
“Raithby, it’s been too long,” Kit said.
Raithby sat first, his long legs crossed neatly. Raithby had always impressed Kit as being a quiet, self-controlled man, a man of few words. Raithby devoted all of his passion and energy to his horses, his stables, and the racing schedule. There was no man alive who knew more about horseflesh.
“Are you in Town to find a wife?” Raithby asked when the drinks had been served.
Kit just kept from raising his brows in surprise. This was far more direct than he was accustomed to from Raithby.
“Not to find one, precisely. To look for one, perhaps,” Kit answered. “But don’t tell my mother that,” he said, smiling. “And you? Are you shopping for a bride this Season?”
Raithby grunted and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. “I hadn’t thought to marry so young.”
There was a disquieting vagueness in that response.
“Too young, the both of us,” Kit said.
“There is no one who has snared your interest, I take it.”
Kit felt the memory of Emeline and her blooming bodice knocking. He refused entrance. “I’ve only just arrived in Town,” he said.
Raithby stared at him over his
Kit tapped his walking stick against the paving stones, pushing the memory aside. He was to meet Lord Raithby in White’s Club for a brief meeting, a hail fellow well met moment between two men who had known each other slightly and briefly, though not unpleasantly, whist at Oxford. He was in London to look over the yearly crop of debutantes, the line-up of girls of either beauty or riches, rarely both blessing the same girl, and he was to begin the process of choosing a wife. A proper wife. An appropriate wife.
He was not in any mind to marry. His mother wanted him to marry, to be settled, to begin the life she wanted for him. It would give her peace and joy and all the sensations a mother yearned for in her eldest son. This he knew.
His life had been rooted from the earliest years in striving to give his mother what she wanted, to bring her ease and peace and security. He had, by habit and inclination, shaped his life to do just that. But in this he hesitated.
He did not want to marry. Someday, yes, of course, but not now. The thought of sorting through the young women of the ton left him cold. He supposed that he was entirely normal in that. What man wanted to pick a wife from amongst the eager throng, to be married at the very start of what he hoped would be a very long life? His father had not enjoyed long life, and this is part of what drove his mother’s desperation to see him settled into matrimony and producing heirs. He understood it. He was not reconciled to it.
Maternal devotion only carried a man so far.
Kit turned onto St. James’s Street, the spring sunlight warm on his skin, the rhythmic tap of his walking stick comfortingly regular, White’s facade giving a man the sensation that all was solid and familiar and predictable in the world. For a man being forced upon the Marriage Mart, it was a most happy sensation, even if illusionary. He was admitted by the porter, turned over his hat, stick, and gloves, and made his way into the warmth of an exclusively male domain.
Even his mother could not follow him into White’s.
Kit was early. Lord Raithby was earlier.
Raithby stood as Kit approached; he had hardly aged since Oxford. The scar upon the upper curve of his cheek was flatter, his hair was shorter, his cheeks leaner. He looked a man in the sweet center of a well-ordered life, a man with nothing to worry him and no one who expected anything of him.
“Culley,” Raithby said, nodding. “Good to see you.”
“Raithby, it’s been too long,” Kit said.
Raithby sat first, his long legs crossed neatly. Raithby had always impressed Kit as being a quiet, self-controlled man, a man of few words. Raithby devoted all of his passion and energy to his horses, his stables, and the racing schedule. There was no man alive who knew more about horseflesh.
“Are you in Town to find a wife?” Raithby asked when the drinks had been served.
Kit just kept from raising his brows in surprise. This was far more direct than he was accustomed to from Raithby.
“Not to find one, precisely. To look for one, perhaps,” Kit answered. “But don’t tell my mother that,” he said, smiling. “And you? Are you shopping for a bride this Season?”
Raithby grunted and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. “I hadn’t thought to marry so young.”
There was a disquieting vagueness in that response.
“Too young, the both of us,” Kit said.
“There is no one who has snared your interest, I take it.”
Kit felt the memory of Emeline and her blooming bodice knocking. He refused entrance. “I’ve only just arrived in Town,” he said.
Raithby stared at him over his
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