Lord Iverbrook's Heir Read Free

leave?”
    “I was bored.”
    “You are complimentary!”
    “Oh, not with you, Bel.”
    “With what, then?”
    “With everything. With my life,” he said lightly.
    “You were the envy of all your friends. Wealth enough to gratify every whim, and your stepfather running your estate so that you need never concern yourself with where it came from.”
    “That was not by my choice.” His voice was tinged with unwonted bitterness, but seeing her puzzled frown he smiled. “Never mind, Bel, I don’t expect you to understand. That is long past now; I feel sure I should find farming a dead bore and am grateful to Mr. Ffinch-Smythe for his efforts on my behalf. So, I had plenty of the ready, a beautiful mistress, and not a care in the world, and was not satisfied. Unnatural, ain’t it? Come, give me a kiss for old times’ sake.”
    In the course of the afternoon, Mrs. Parcott was persuaded to give my lord a great deal more than a kiss for old times’ sake. When at last he tore himself from her embrace, church bells were striking six all over the city.
    “Let’s go to Brighton,” he proposed, “or Tunbridge, if you prefer. I have to fetch my nephew from his aunt first, and take him to Iver Place, but that shouldn’t take more than a few days.”
    “Your nephew? The poor little orphan! A mother’s care is what he needs, I vow.”
    “He’ll manage very well without.” Lord Iverbrook had issued his warning: if the Merry Widow chose to disregard it, that was her own affair.
     
    Chapter 2
     
    “This man of yours,” said Mr. Hastings, sipping his smuggled brandy appreciatively, “the one you brought from Jamaica: what exactly is it you want Dimbury to do for him?”
    “Only to help him purchase appropriate clothing. You cannot suppose that I would know what apparel is suitable for an articled clerk.” Lord Iverbrook lounged back in his chair, looking somewhat piratical with a red Belcher handkerchief knotted loosely at his sun-bronzed throat.
    Impeccable in a tight-fitting coat of blue superfine, a sapphire nestling in the exquisite folds of his neckcloth, Mr. Hastings snorted. “To all appearances, my dear fellow, you do not know what apparel is suitable for a peer of the realm! Dimbury would leave me on the instant if he so much as caught sight of such an object among my cravats. So he’s to be a lawyer, is he?”
    “Joshua? Yes. Apropos, what sort of man is this Crowe of yours?”
    “Old Crowe? Starchy as a dowager duchess, but he ain't let me land in the Marshalsea yet. His clerks are well fed, I’d say.”
    “Good. You shall introduce us. I’d not willingly subject anyone to Hubble. Stap me, the fellow had the gall to haul me over the coals because I freed my slaves! And this business with the Whitton woman . . . Wait a bit, I knew I’d heard the name before!”
    “I should rather think so, since your brother married one!”
    “No, no. Sir Aubrey Whitton, that’s it. A counter-coxcomb living on the fringes of society in Kingston. A remittance man, I believe, who came into the title quite recently.”
    “Black sheep of the family, eh?”
    “Could be. Or possibly no connexion at all. Now, will you go with me to see Mr. Crowe tomorrow, while Dimbury takes Joshua to a snyder?”
    After the magnificent meal he had just consumed, Mr. Hastings felt it would be discourteous in the extreme to refuse.
    “By all means,” he murmured agreeably.
    Dimbury was not so easily persuaded. At the outset of his career, Dimbury had decided that forty was the correct age for a gentleman’s gentleman. For twenty-five years now his appearance had matched that belief. He held equally strong views on all other matters pertaining to his chosen profession, the duties of which, he felt, included neither consorting with ex-slaves nor procuring raiment for articled clerks.
    Mr. Hastings prevailed. Mr. Hastings usually prevailed, for he was the sort of master of whom an ambitious valet dreamed. Exquisite taste, sunny temper,