blood, indeed.
“Pull the coach around the square and
park it under that large oak on the corner, Parrott. I’ve a notion a visit to
my club will be in order once I leave here.”
“In order. Aye, milord.”
Christian remained at the door as Parrott
made off, watching as the coachman climbed onto his seat and clicked his tongue
to the horses to urge them forward. He knew a sudden desire to walk back down
the steps and disregard the summons that had brought him to this place even as
he realized it would do him little good. Eventually he would find himself back
at this same spot, waiting before this same door, for this same purpose. It was
patently unavoidable.
Christian turned when he heard the sound
of the latch opening behind him. The door swung open and he nodded to the
butler, Spears, a man who’d been at his station in the Westover household as
long as Christian could remember.
“Good day, Lord Knighton,” said
Spears, bowing his head dutifully as he immediately secured Christian’s gloves,
beaver hat, and many-caped carrick, brushing a hand over the fine wool to
dislodge an offending bit of lint.
Christian mumbled his response and headed
directly for the study, the usual setting for these nonsensical meetings. What
would it be today? A lecture on his responsibilities at the northern
properties? A justification of the invoices for Eleanor’s new wardrobe? No
doubt the old man had forgotten that his granddaughter, Christian’s sister, was
to have her long-awaited coming-out. Or perhaps the duke sought to delay it
another year and make Nell’s chances for a safe and happy future all the more difficult.
If that were his aim, Christian was fully prepared for a confrontation.
Instead he was brought up short by the
butler’s call.
“I beg your pardon, my lord. His
grace is not in his study this morning. He wished me to inform you he awaits
you in the garden instead.”
The garden? Christian wondered that his grandfather even knew the
house had such a thing, for he ate, slept, and even relieved himself within the
paneled walnut walls of his ducal study, a place just as gloomy and severe as
its most frequent occupant. As a child, Christian could recall sneaking into
the place at night to see if the marble busts of the various historical
personages that were set about the room actually did come to life as his father
had once told him.
“The garden?” Christian queried,
unaware of his Parrott-like response.
Spears nodded once, offering no further
explanation. Christian simply took a turn and headed off for the rear of the
house.
As he made his way through the lower
chambers, past furnishings and ornaments that were meant to impress more than
to enhance, Christian tried to shake away the foreboding that had greeted him
with his morning coffee. No matter how he tried, he could not shake the sense
that something was terribly wrong. He’d felt it in his gut the moment he’d
found his grandfather’s summons sitting atop his newspaper on the breakfast
tray, instructing him to make this urgent and unscheduled appearance. While
this wasn’t the first, second, or even twentieth time his grandfather had sent
such a request, somehow this time just seemed out of the ordinary.
Whatever it was that had brought the old
man to calling for him, Christian knew it could not be for any good. Through
most of his nine-and-twenty years, it never had been. The duke seemed to spend
his waking hours devising new and inventive ways to plague his unfortunate
heir, as if he felt it his sole duty to assume the tradition of enmity that had
previously existed between the king and his heir, the then Regent, before the
old king had died earlier that same year. It shouldn’t have come as any
surprise. After all, the duke had certainly modeled his life after old George
in more ways than one, periodic insanity seeming sometimes among them.
But the nearer Christian drew to the
garden, the more that feeling in his gut began to burn. He
“Pull the coach around the square and
park it under that large oak on the corner, Parrott. I’ve a notion a visit to
my club will be in order once I leave here.”
“In order. Aye, milord.”
Christian remained at the door as Parrott
made off, watching as the coachman climbed onto his seat and clicked his tongue
to the horses to urge them forward. He knew a sudden desire to walk back down
the steps and disregard the summons that had brought him to this place even as
he realized it would do him little good. Eventually he would find himself back
at this same spot, waiting before this same door, for this same purpose. It was
patently unavoidable.
Christian turned when he heard the sound
of the latch opening behind him. The door swung open and he nodded to the
butler, Spears, a man who’d been at his station in the Westover household as
long as Christian could remember.
“Good day, Lord Knighton,” said
Spears, bowing his head dutifully as he immediately secured Christian’s gloves,
beaver hat, and many-caped carrick, brushing a hand over the fine wool to
dislodge an offending bit of lint.
Christian mumbled his response and headed
directly for the study, the usual setting for these nonsensical meetings. What
would it be today? A lecture on his responsibilities at the northern
properties? A justification of the invoices for Eleanor’s new wardrobe? No
doubt the old man had forgotten that his granddaughter, Christian’s sister, was
to have her long-awaited coming-out. Or perhaps the duke sought to delay it
another year and make Nell’s chances for a safe and happy future all the more difficult.
If that were his aim, Christian was fully prepared for a confrontation.
Instead he was brought up short by the
butler’s call.
“I beg your pardon, my lord. His
grace is not in his study this morning. He wished me to inform you he awaits
you in the garden instead.”
The garden? Christian wondered that his grandfather even knew the
house had such a thing, for he ate, slept, and even relieved himself within the
paneled walnut walls of his ducal study, a place just as gloomy and severe as
its most frequent occupant. As a child, Christian could recall sneaking into
the place at night to see if the marble busts of the various historical
personages that were set about the room actually did come to life as his father
had once told him.
“The garden?” Christian queried,
unaware of his Parrott-like response.
Spears nodded once, offering no further
explanation. Christian simply took a turn and headed off for the rear of the
house.
As he made his way through the lower
chambers, past furnishings and ornaments that were meant to impress more than
to enhance, Christian tried to shake away the foreboding that had greeted him
with his morning coffee. No matter how he tried, he could not shake the sense
that something was terribly wrong. He’d felt it in his gut the moment he’d
found his grandfather’s summons sitting atop his newspaper on the breakfast
tray, instructing him to make this urgent and unscheduled appearance. While
this wasn’t the first, second, or even twentieth time his grandfather had sent
such a request, somehow this time just seemed out of the ordinary.
Whatever it was that had brought the old
man to calling for him, Christian knew it could not be for any good. Through
most of his nine-and-twenty years, it never had been. The duke seemed to spend
his waking hours devising new and inventive ways to plague his unfortunate
heir, as if he felt it his sole duty to assume the tradition of enmity that had
previously existed between the king and his heir, the then Regent, before the
old king had died earlier that same year. It shouldn’t have come as any
surprise. After all, the duke had certainly modeled his life after old George
in more ways than one, periodic insanity seeming sometimes among them.
But the nearer Christian drew to the
garden, the more that feeling in his gut began to burn. He