The Prince of Ravenscar Read Free

point.
    She hurried on before he could muster another objection. “I miss all my particular friends, dearest. I miss attending balls and routs.” She closed her eyes. “And there are many new plays to be enjoyed on Drury Lane.”
    And shopping, he thought.
    â€œAnd shopping, naturally. I do adore shopping on Bond Street, you know.”
    She also adored shopping in Saint Austell, Julian thought, recalling the quantity of clothing bills that arrived punctually on Harlan’s desk.
    â€œAnd you need to visit your tailor. Your coat is very well indeed, for Italian society, but not exactly what you would want here in London, and your boots, well—”
    Yes, he did need new boots, but—
    She rose from the blue brocade settee opposite him, patted his shoulder, leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I truly wish to go. There has been so much rain here, and to be blunt about it, I am growing mold, not an elevating sight. It is time for a change of scene—specifically, it is time to visit London, for the Season this time, not for your wretched man of business.”
    Julian felt the earth shifting beneath his boots, his old boots. At last he was home. He wanted to settle in, manage his property, play with his spaniels on the dog run that ended at the low cliff above the beach. He knew it was time to see if Richard Langworth and his father, Baron Purley, still blamed him for Lily’s death. “You really don’t need me, Mama. You could as easily travel to London, open the town house, and do whatever pleases you. Why do you want me along?”
    She said, with a good deal of hauteur, “Do you forget you are my son, my only son, and I have not seen you for three— three —years? I wish all of society to gaze upon your exquisite self, admit there is no finer-looking a young man in all of England, and be jealous of me.”
    What was going on here? He said slowly, “Don’t forget the other Monroe lady, namely, Lorelei, your stepdaughter-in-law. She will doubtless be there. You know you would rather have your eyebrows plucked than have to deal with her.”
    His mother had thick black brows like his, and he’d heard her shriek when her maid, known as Poor Barbie, had to pluck them every week and a half.
    â€œI shall firmly plant myself above Lorelei this time; I shan’t allow her to give me the headache with her obnoxious little observations on my looks and health and how you should never have been born and how your dear father turned into a pilchard-headed old moron when he turned seventy-five, and just look what came of it—namely, me—and would you look what I did—brought you into the world. And then, naturally, she will go on and on about you, her chins quivering all the while—a duke’s son, even though you should never have been born in the first place, and you’re obviously deficient, since you sprang from an old man’s tired seed, and not the healthy, intelligent seed of a vigorous man, as your dear father was many decades ago. Worst, you indulge in trade, and what a horror that is.”
    She paused to take a well-earned breath. She tapped her long fingers against her teacup and brightened. “If I recall, Lorelei had gained flesh when I last saw her, and I haven’t, and I’ll wager she still persists in wearing all that purple.” She gave a small shudder.
    Julian said nothing.
    She eyed him. “Devlin is always in London for the Season. I know his father is beginning to agitate for a daughter-in-law, since Devlin is now twenty-seven—can you believe that?—and he needs to get himself wed and set up his nursery.”
    â€œBoth Devlin and I are to be consigned to leg shackles?”
    She ignored that. “Really, Julian, do not concern yourself about my dealing well with Lorelei. I shall give her my most regal nod and continue on my way.”
    Julian gave it one more try. “As I said, you really