by Abby Ayles
The Earl, Edgar Lockridge, had a long history in the House of Lords that was less than reputable, and every step of Augustus’s since he’d come of age to participate in the political goings-on, had been impeded by the Earl’s conniving ways.
“A rough showing today,” one of the other lords said as Augustus stood to depart. It was Lord Martin, a middle-aged man who rode both sides of most issues, choosing peace over principle. “Do you care if I’m frank with you, Lord Whitehall?”
Augustus tried to contain his temper. Thirty-five years old and he still felt like he was battling the angry response of a hot-headed youth in moments like these. “I don’t see that I will be able to stop you.”
“Is that any way to talk to a friend and ally?”
“If you were either of those things, you would have stood up for me when I fought against Lord Huxley’s bill today. You know that it is wrong in so many ways, and yet you are willing to stand by and allow that miscreant to perform highway robbery on the poor people of England.”
He clenched the back of the seat in front of him, trying to pour his anger into the chair rather than the man in front of him. Diplomacy was a skill he’d never mastered.
He tried to put a softer edge into his voice. “You have a good heart, Lord Martin. You should put it to good use.”
Lord Martin shifted nervously to his other leg and affected an imperious tone. “You say I have a good heart, and I warn you that you have a bleeding one. It will get you in trouble, standing up for the rats in the sewers.”
“If I don’t stand up for them, who will?”
Lord Martin changed tacks, his voice softening. “You don’t really think the tax will hurt them, do you? They’re already paying a candle tax and it’s only a small change.”
“It’s a significant change, with an open-end clause that could allow further gouging,” Augustus said, watching the last of the lords clear the room. His voice echoed in the emptiness.
“And what bothers me above all is that such a change is entirely unnecessary. Huxley is only forcing the issue because he bought stock in a whaling company and thinks the sperm whale oil candles will profit if people don’t want to pay extra for beeswax.”
“Look, old boy,” Lord Martin said, laying a hand on Augustus’ shoulder. “You’re known for fighting the lesser man’s battles, but this is David against Goliath, and as pious as you are, I’m not sure you have God on your side.”
“I think it’s more likely He’s on mine than on Lord Huxley’s,” Augustus muttered under his breath. “Lord Martin, if you took a strong stand on this, it would make you sympathetic to the common people; you would get good press over it.”
“This isn’t the House of Commons,” Lord Martin said with a laugh. “If I needed to look sympathetic to the common people, I certainly wouldn’t fight this losing battle.
“Tying my name to yours is a recipe for disaster. You spoke up for women’s rights last year, and before that, you made a name for yourself as a philanthropist with your sewer bill.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Augustus fought the urge to rub his temples in frustration.
“It makes you look weak,” Lord Martin said, his voice sobering. “And weak is a bad thing in the House of Lords. Maybe if you’d picked your battles a bit earlier in the game, you would have had more supporters now.”
“I have some supporters, perhaps enough to stop the bill,” Augustus ventured. “Some men stand by their principles.”
Lord Martin yawned and took his gilded cane in hand. “Some do. And I will, if you can find a way to make your principles profitable.”
He strode out of the hall without a backward glance. Augustus put on his top hat and followed suit, walking down the stairs outside to his waiting gelding and mounting with his thoughts still tethered to the day’s work.
He went back over the arguments he’d posed, the witnesses he’d brought forth, and the information he’d dug up; at each turn, Edgar Lockridge was staring him down with superior wealth and political ambition. He wasn’t sure what else to do.
As he neared his manor, she came back into his head, as she did on occasion, pale and wan like the ghost that she was.
You’ve got to keep trying, she whispered.
Lettie. The one soft part of his life - back when he thought that love was achievable, and happiness was a reasonable goal - the thing that had driven him toward philanthropy in the first place.
He wished sometimes that she would leave him be. She was gone, anyway; beyond his reach. Why must she keep rising in his mind to torture him?
But then, when her memory seemed to fade, he always grew frantic with fear that he would forget her soft skin, the way she laughed, or the graceful twist of her neck when she looked over her shoulder at him.
Then he would conjure up all the most beautiful and painful memories and cradle them in his mind’s eye until she came back to softly torment him in moments like these. You have to keep trying.
It was an unnecessary command because Augustus had no intention of stopping the fight. He was a stubborn man above all else, and he would be stripped of all his title and honor before he gave up on the floor of the House of Lords.
Lettie wouldn’t have stood for Lord Huxley’s selfish laws. She would have pestered Augustus until he laughed with frustration and turned the heat of his passion against the rich man’s deception.
People used to say that Augustus and Lettie were cut from the same cloth. They even looked similar back then, both tall with light-brown hair and dark eyes, but in the years since Lettie was lost, Augustus had changed. Even he could see it in the reflection that stared back at him in the mirror.
He was broad-shouldered, strong as an ox and well-muscled from extensive time outdoors. He had buried himself in activities when he lost Lettie, and he had the hunting scars on his chest and the casual athleticism to show for it. But his eyes - there was the greatest difference.
They were so dark they almost looked black, and there was an empty fury in them that he could see when he caught sight of himself in a glass.
She’d put the fury there, just as she’d put the melancholy.
When he neared his home, Augustus began to feel the tension of the day drain from his body. In its place was a weariness he could barely fight.
He had planned to go out that evening; to parade around some fine living room and listen to amateurs sing at a dinner party, but he couldn’t bring himself to play the politician tonight. All he wanted was a pipe, a stout drink, and an early turn in to bed.
He handed his horse off to the livery boy and climbed the marble steps to his door two at a time. Robbins opened the door before he knocked, and ushered him inside with usual poise.
“Your Grace, a good day in town?”
“It was a day.”
Augustus was fond of Robbins, but he’d never really grown into the casual friendship that some of the upper class entertained with their servants. He’d been raised on decorum as a boy, and he held to those same principles as the heir to Whitehall.
“I’ll have no dinner tonight, just a drink in the study and bed. Will you alert the footmen?”
“I will, Your Grace,” Robbins nodded, taking his hat and glove and handing them smoothly off to a nearby maid. “But, Your Grace, you received a letter just a few moments before you arrived, a message from the House of Lords.”
“Infernal place,” Augustus complained under his breath. “Will they not take their pound of flesh and leave me be?”
Robbins cleared his throat as he always did when he wasn’t certain how to respond. He reached into his pocket and took out the letter. It was written on an elegant paper and sealed with a crest Augustus knew only too well.
He took it, opening it as he walked into the nearby parlor. Robbins followed close behind.
The seal was telling - it had the eagle with talons extended that could only mean one thing:
Edgar Lockridge of Talon Hall.
It wasn’t enough that
the man had avoided the House of Lords that day and chosen instead to send a proxy to argue his despicable bill into law, but now the gentleman in question was taunting him, sending him letters as though the two were friends rather than mortal enemies.
Augustus tried, as a rule, to reserve judgment, but he found Lord Huxley to be the greediest of men, someone who was never satisfied with his position or his wealth and always sought to line his pockets at the expense of those who could not defend themselves.
Lord Huxley was not above bribery, and on more than one occasion, Augustus had learned that his plans had been thwarted because Huxley had managed to manipulate one of the lords into taking his side.
The letter was simple, written in Lord Huxley’s familiar neat hand, and as Augustus read, his brow blackened in anger.
He had been prepared for a bribery attempt; for an undercutting of the moral integrity of the institution. In such a cut and dried situation, he would have thrown the letter into the fire and thought no more of it - after all, it was not the first time this lord had made threats to keep him from following through on his political gains.
But as his eyes tore through the letter, he realized it was far worse than bribery.
“What is it, Your Grace?” Robbins asked nervously.
Augustus turned to him with a retort on his lips. He thought about telling the older man it was none of his business or scolding the servant for overstepping his bounds, but in the end, he realized he wanted someone to hear the truth.
“It’s blackmail,” he said stiffly. “Plain and simple.”
“Blackmail, Your Grace?” Robbins asked with a nervous tick in his eye. “We should alert the constables immediately. We shan’t stand for such behavior.”
Augustus scanned the letter again, his stomach sinking with every word. It was not the sort of business he could tell a constable about, and he knew it.
“No, no authorities,” he said, trying frantically to think of a way out.
But every avenue that he landed upon, was met by yet another blockade.
He had thought himself impervious to such things, but he realized with each glance at the letter, that Edgar Lockridge had found his weakness.
Lettie rose in his mind, laying a cool hand on his shoulder, but the sight of her stung even more against the contents of the letter.
The impudence of what Lockridge had written was the worst of it. What right had any man to demand of Augustus what this man demanded, and all for a better political position?
It was infuriating, and more than that, it was ridiculous. It was an insult to Augustus, to Lettie, to all the people who were clawing their way out of the gutter even now.
In a blind fury, Augustus reached for the nearest object, a vase, and hurled it across the room in anger.
Even as it left his fingers, he knew it was an unwise thing to show his emotions so frankly, but a long-buried childish desire to hurt something like he’d been hurt, rose up in him.
The vase hit the opposite wall between two wall hangings and shattered into innumerable pieces. The noise cracked throughout the house, and Augustus heard Robbins gasp behind him.
“Your Grace. What’s wrong?”
Augustus lowered his head, his anger as shattered at his feet. “I’m sorry about that, Robbins. I’ll tend to it myself in a bit.”
“No need, Your Grace,” the older man said, already bustling over to sweep up the pieces. “But I wish you’d tell me what bothered you so. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Change is coming, Robbins.”
There was Lettie, pulling away from view. Augustus wanted to reach out and grab her, but she had no place in this nonsense. Her memory was a beautiful and fragile thing that contrasted awfully against the black command of the letter.
“What changes, Your Grace?” Robbins asked.
Augustus raised his head and looked at the old man, speaking as though from a very great distance.
“I’m getting married, Robbins.”
Chapter 3
Dinner was a grand affair - too grand, Sarah thought nervously.
Her father sat enthroned at the far end of the table, with Edmund smugly on his right, Marianne across from him, and the twins shoulder to shoulder on his left. The footmen worked silently to lay the food out, three courses of grandeur with unusual attention given to the decoration and presentation.
It felt like the holidays Sarah remembered as a child, when the food was extravagant, but the conversation was thin.
Nobody made any effort to explain Lucille’s pale face or the whole spectacle of the evening.
The soup course passed in silence, as did the main course and the salad. Sarah looked down the table at her mother and felt a stab of pity.
Marianne looked pale and dark in her heavy silks, and there were rings around her pretty eyes. She rarely joined them for dinner, not after the miscarriages that followed Edmund’s birth.
There had never been another child, although more than once, there was hope of one. Sometimes, if she looked very closely, Sarah felt like she could see the lost children sitting with her mother - Marianne brought them with her everywhere she went, lost in the mist of her empty eyes.
“Would you like to hear about my journey?” she asked suddenly, giving in, as she always did, to her responsibility to break the silence. “Seeing as I’ve only just returned.”
“As you wish to tell us, I cannot imagine that we have much choice but to listen,” Edmund said drily.
“That’s ridiculous,” Edgar said to his son. “There is always a choice about listening when women are talking.”
Sarah pursed her lips and looked at her plate, her appetite fleeing along with her desire to speak. It was always this way, her father shutting down the conversation before it had a chance to even begin.
“But go on,” he said suddenly, surprising her. “Explain to me how your visit with Miss Hayward was a magnificent success.”
She could hear the sarcasm in his voice, but when she glanced at Lucille’s pained face, she knew she would do anything to take the pressure off her sister.
She forced a smile.
“It was a good trip. The seaside is beautiful this time of year, and Miss Hayward is an engaging companion.”
“That’s hard for me to imagine, considering her father is the greatest bore ever to walk the face of the Earth,” Edgar said with a sneer.
“Do you know that the Reverend Hayward was offered a full inheritance by his father, but he chose instead to pursue a career in the Church?”
“I think that very honorable, Father,” Sarah said quietly.
“Yes, I’m sure you do. You were always drawn to the foolish things of this world.”
Sarah took a sip of sherry to cover her nerves.
“It is not foolish just because it is different from your view. After all, would you have all the world be lords and ladies? Who would run our church services or tend to our doctoring? I think it worthy of Mr. Hayward to put his own betterment to the side in pursuit of ministry.”
“I think it foolish, and I stand by that,” Edgar snapped. “You have too many thoughts in that head of yours, my daughter. If you don’t tend to that failing, soon you will find yourself a spinster.”
“I hardly think my thoughts are the only thing keeping me from marriage, Father,” Sarah said drily, conscious that the entirety of the table was watching their sparring match with bated breath.
“No,” Edgar snapped. “Also, your wayward nature and your stubborn refusal to show even a breath of femininity.”
In Edgar Lockridge’s mind, femininity was the sort of shrinking, simpering fragility that always needed a fan against the heat and a cloak against the slightest draft.
He went on, casting a sly glance in Lucille’s direction. “Actually, daughter, you bring me to the point of this evening. Lucille has something to tell you all. Lucille?”
Sarah turned to her sister and her heart sank. The girl had always been frailer than Sarah, and
she looked now as though she was being led to the stake. Her lip trembled, and she reached a shaking hand to wipe her mouth.
“Go on,” Edgar barked.
Lucille swallowed hard and spoke, her voice soft and clear in the dark room.
“I am to be married,” she said softly. “To the Duke of Whitehall.”
Sarah blinked. She heard her mother’s fork clatter to her plate and saw Edmund’s youthful smile curve upwards. He looked as satisfied as her father, although she didn’t know why.
“Pardon me,” Sarah ventured. “Why in the world are you to marry Lord Whitehall? Have you even met the man? I only know him by name, and I cannot think of a single association in which we traded words. You can hardly have met him.”