No doubt the citizens enjoyed the sense of being separated from the rapidly changing world, but Fredrick was a man who very much appreciated the future.
Even as a child he had felt stifled when he managed to slip from his father’s estate to wander the cobblestone streets. It was as if he could smell the stale mustiness in the air.
Of course, in all fairness, it was not entirely the sense of cloistered monotony that had caused his discomfort.
As a lad he had been drawn to the village by the sounds of children playing on the Green. For hours he would watch them dart across the grass, always harboring the hope that just once he would be invited to join in their games.
In hindsight it was perhaps understandable that the neighboring children had avoided him. To the villagers he possessed the blood of Graystones and was considered far above their touch, while the local nobles would never allow their precious offspring to be contaminated by a bastard.
At the time, he had known only that he was being shunned and the pain had cut deeper than any dagger.
He had, however, discovered one friendly face among the throng of strangers.
Pulling his mount to a halt, Fredrick motioned toward a lad lounging near the corner. The urchin hurried forward with an eager grin, readily catching the reins that Fredrick tossed toward him.
Fredrick dismounted and placed a coin in the boy’s grubby hand as he headed into the nearby pub. Awry smile touched his lips at the hint of deference in the boy’s manner. It was amazing what the proper clothes and unmistakable polish of wealth could do.
It was the first time he had arrived at the village as a man of substance rather than a bastard.
Entering the narrow pub, Fredrick was forced to halt as his eyes adjusted to the murky shadows. Slowly he was able to discern the open-beamed ceiling of the tap room along with the small tables that were scattered over the worn planks. With a cautious step he made his way through the gloom, smelling the scent of ale and stale tobacco.
Oddly familiar scents, he realized, as he halted at the heavy walnut bar that ran along the back of the room. As familiar as the barrel-chested man enfolded in a white apron who was sliding glasses into the notched rack above the bar.
Oh, there was no doubt that there was more grey than brown in the thick mane of hair, and that there were considerably more lines on the pug face, but he would recognize Macky anywhere.
This was the man who always had a jovial word and place at the end of the bar for a lonely child. He had even whittled Fredrick an entire regiment of soldiers to play with when he visited the pub.
Fredrick had never forgotten him for his kindness.
Taking a seat on one of the high stools, Fredrick waited for the man to finish his task. It was far too early for most patrons to have worked up a thirst, which had been Fredrick’s intention.
Macky might have extended a friendly hand to Fredrick as a child, but his loyalty was to the Graystone family, and especially to the current Lord Graystone. The man would not readily spread old gossip.
It would take a bit of coaxing if he were to discover anything of worth. Something that would be impossible if Macky was busy waiting on a dozen customers.
Besides, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, if he had remained at the inn he would have been unable to resist his obsessive need to seek out Portia.
Despite every scrap of logic that warned it would be a mistake to put pressure on the aggravating woman while she struggled to accept the powerful attraction that smoldered between them, there was a ridiculous part of him that fiercely needed to be close to her. Even if it was just to catch a glimpse of her face.
Bloody hell.
With an effort he thrust aside the thought of Mrs. Portia Walker. It was bad enough that he had spent the entire night hard as a rock with the scent of her clinging to his blankets. And that his dreams had been filled with memories of her soft moans as she had reached her first climax. Today he was determined to concentrate upon his search for his father’s past.
At last sensing he was no longer alone, Macky turned about and regarded him with a curious frown. It was not often his pub was patronized by strangers, and certainly not by strangers who could afford a coat cut by Weston.
Wiping his beefy hands on a towel, he moved to stand directly opposite Fredrick.
“What’ll you have?”
Fredrick smiled at the suspicious tone. “A pint of your best, Macky.”
The man blinked in confusion. “Do I know you?”
“Fredrick Smith.”
Macky made a choked sound as he regarded Fredrick’s fine clothes and the ruby stickpin that sparkled in the folds of his crisply tied cravat.
“Little Freddie?” He gave a shake of his head before a wide grin split his face. “Bloody hell, it is good to see you, lad.”
Fredrick chuckled. “Not so much a lad anymore.”
“No, I suppose not.” With expert ease Macky had a tankard of ale sitting before Fredrick. “Are you visiting the Manor?”
Fredrick took a drink of the dark ale, considering his best approach. “Actually, I am in the neighborhood on business, but I could not pass through without calling on my father, and of course, my old friends.”
“About time, lad. It has been too long since you were last here.”
Fredrick felt a small pang in the region of his heart. He had worked so hard to put his childhood behind him. Even those who had reached out to make his days a bit more bearable.
“I suppose it has been,” he said, a hint of apology in his tone. “I fear I have been rather occupied.”
Always reluctant to have his tender heart exposed, Macky gave a gruff laugh. “Oh aye, you’ve been busy making a fortune for yourself in the city. I always knew you would make something of yourself.”
Fredrick shrugged. “I am not certain I have actually made something of myself, but I will admit that I have been lucky in my investments.”
Macky gave a click of his tongue. “There is no luck in business. Only hard work.”
“Perhaps.”
There was a short silence before Macky cleared his throat. “The Baron is right proud of you, you know.”
“Proud?” Fredrick’s smile faded. How could a father be proud of a son he viewed with shame? “I think you must have me confused with Simon, old friend. Bastards do not make their fathers proud.”
“Now there you are far off the mark, Freddie. Lord Graystone has long known that you have become a respectable businessman while Simon is nothing more than a wastrel.” His lips thinned as he gave a shake of his head. “Damnation, you should see that boy prancing about the village in his fancy clothes and sniffing after everything in skirts. A pity.”
Until yesterday Fredrick would have laughed at the mere notion his father could even recall his name, let alone kept track of his success. Now . . . who the hell knew what was going on behind that guarded composure?
He grimly refused to dwell on the notion. He had long ago halted his attempts to please his father.
“Well, Simon is young and the Graystones are rather notorious for their indiscretions,” he said lightly.
Macky looked surprised by the accusation. “Perhaps your grandfather and uncle were gamblers and whoremongers, but your father has always been more like his ancestors. They built an estate here that any man could be proud of. And what’s more, they never forget those in their care.”
“My father has certainly proven his ability to manage the estate, but his younger years were clearly devoted to reckless pleasure.” Fredrick smiled wryly. “I am proof of that.”
“Now, no more of that sort of talk, Freddie. Your father was no scoundrel.” There was another silence as Macky debated in his own mind. At last he heaved a sigh. “He loved your mother.”
Fredrick froze in shock. Never in all his years had anyone spoken of his mother. Not his demon-spawned foster mother, not his father, and certainly not those who were dependent upon the Graystone family.
“Did you
know my mother?”
Macky grimaced. “I suppose it does no harm to speak of her after all these years.”
“Macky?” he pressed, his heartbeat unsteady.
“Aye, I knew her.” He held up a hand as if sensing the shocked questions that hammered through Fredrick. “Not well, mind you. But she occasionally came to the village and was always polite to those she met.”
Another gust of astonishment rushed through his body. He had always assumed that his mother had been some servant that his father had encountered in Winchester or even London. After all, if she had family in the neighborhood then surely at least one of them would have stepped forward to claim him?
“My mother lived here?”
Macky gave a lift of his hands. “She came to the Manor house as a companion to your grandmother after Lady Graystone was forced to her bed.”
“A companion?” Fredrick frowned, his hands clenching on the brass railing that ran the length of the bar. “That means she had to be from a respectable family. My grandmother would have accepted nothing less.”
“The daughter of a Scottish doctor, although I don’t recall her name. She had the sort of nursing skills that Lady Graystone needed to ease her discomfort.”
“Good God.” Fredrick’s shock was beginning to shift to smoldering anger. “My father seduced a gently bred female beneath his own roof?”
“Not seduced,” Macky hastily protested, a hint of concern tightening his heavy features. The man would drown himself in his own ale rather than to think ill of his powerful patron. “They fell in love.”
Fredrick gave a sound of disgust. “A gentleman in love does not abandon the woman he has impregnated.”
“Now you just mind you those unworthy thoughts, Freddie,” Macky warned, his faced flushed. “Your father did not abandon her. Although your grandmother was right set on turning the poor lass away without so much as a shilling, it was your father who stood by her side. He said if she were to be tossed from the house, then he would go as well. They left for Winchester just a few days later.”
Fredrick felt as if he had taken a blow to his stomach.
His father’s words echoed through his mind.
In truth, I was relieved when I was forced to leave. . . .
Christ, the reason he had left Oak Manor had not been for the mysterious scandal Fredrick had hoped to learn about. It had been because of him.
Even worse, he was forced to accept that his father was not the cold-hearted beast that he had always presumed him to be. Lord Graystone had not turned his back on his mother. Instead he had allowed himself to be thrown from his own home to be at her side.
Dash it all....
With an effort, Fredrick pushed the revelations to the back of his mind. He would consider what he had discovered later. When he could sort through them in a logical manner.
It seemed to be becoming a habit of his since arriving in Wessex, he acknowledged wryly.
Draining the last of his ale, Fredrick managed to clear his wits. At least enough to notice the belligerent glint in Macky’s eyes.
He had allowed himself to be distracted by the mention of his mother and had effectively ensured that Macky was in no humor to confess any of Lord Graystone’s past scandals.
Ah, well, it had been only a distant hope to begin with. The neighbors were far too dependent upon the goodwill of Lord Graystone to readily confess any hidden sin he might have committed.
“Thank you for telling me the truth, Macky,” he said, placing a coin on the counter before rising to his feet. “You are the first to do so.”
The older man’s expression eased at the soft words. “Perhaps it was not my place, but I cannot have you thinking ill of your father. He is a good man.”
A good man? That was debatable, Fredrick silently mused. After all, Lord Graystone had fostered a bastard on a well-bred lady and harbored some secret he was willing to pay a fortune to keep buried.
Still, he was proving that he was not quite the monster of Fredrick’s childish imagination.
“You are no doubt right, old friend.” On the point of retreat, Fredrick paused, suddenly struck by a new thought. “Oh, I wanted to ask you if you have ever heard of a gentleman by the name of Dunnington?”
Macky furrowed his brow. “Dunnington?”
“I believe he once worked as a tutor in the neighborhood.”
The man gave a shrug. “I can’t say as I have. Of course, I don’t rub elbows much with tutors.”
Fredrick smiled. “No, I suppose not.”
“What’s your interest in this Dunnington?”
“Business.”
“A pity.” Macky leaned his elbows on the counter of the bar. “You are old enough that you should be seeking out tutors for your own sons.”
Fredrick should have laughed at the gentle reprimand.
Although he was hardly in his dotage, it appeared that once a gentleman gathered a large enough fortune, society believed it was his duty to share it with a wife and horde of children.
It was not amusement, however, that made his stomach clench with a sudden longing.
Instead it was the uninvited image of a raven-haired angel round with his child.
Just for a moment his heart refused to beat. Why the devil would such a thought even enter his mind? It certainly had not with any other female.
Could it be that she was the one?
The woman he had been awaiting his entire life?
The answer seemed to tease at the edge of his mind, but noticing that Macky was regarding him with a quizzical glance, Fredrick forced a nonchalant smile to his lips.
“Perhaps you are right, Macky,” he murmured as he headed toward the door. “’Tis certainly a matter I intend to explore while I am in the neighborhood.”
Chapter Nine
When Portia left her restless bed, she fervently promised herself that she would do her best to avoid Mr. Fredrick Smith.
It was not anger, or frustration, or even guilt that had brought on her decision. No, those emotions were far too familiar to trouble her. She had worn them like a threadbare gown since she was a child.
Instead it was the strange sense of anticipation that raced through her blood as she pulled on her clothes and smoothed her hair into a tidy braid. Almost as if for the first time in years she was eager to face the day.
And that was frightening, because she could not even pretend that her peculiar, almost giddy mood was not directly connected to Mr. Fredrick Smith.
She was precariously close to becoming obsessed with the wicked, fallen angel, she was forced to accept. And she knew that she had to make some decisions before she once again found herself caught in his potent spell.
There could be no doubt that Fredrick hoped to enjoy a brief affair during his visit to the inn. Or that he possessed the skills necessary to make such an affair a truly wondrous experience. Beyond wondrous, she acknowledged as she shivered from the memories of the previous night.
He was the first man to stir the sensuality in her nature that she had forgotten she even possessed.
A sensuality that she had buried years before.
But while it was an exhilarating experience, she was wise enough to hesitate before simply plunging headlong into desire. It was all very well for Fredrick to blithely claim they could conduct a private affair with no consequences, but she was far from convinced.
The complications of even a brief encounter were not easily overcome. And until she came to a decision of whether or not she intended to give into Fredrick’s seduction, it was unfair to continually place herself in his path.
He was no callow youth to be teased by her heated kisses one moment and then rebuffed by her panicked refusal the next.
No, he was a gentleman who had offered her nothing but respect, and he deserved her respect in return.
A mature and intelligent decision that proved to be quite easy to keep.
At least as long as Fredrick remained conveniently absent from the inn. It was
an entirely different matter when he returned and promptly retreated to the back garden with a bottle of brandy.
For two hours she staunchly attempted to ignore the slender male who sat in such splendid solitude. He was obviously content to work his way through the bottle of brandy without interference.
But as the darkness began to descend and the breeze became chilled, she could no longer ignore the growing concern that gripped her.
Something had clearly occurred to trouble him.
And while her logic was steadfast, her heart was not nearly callous enough to leave him alone and cast to the wind in her garden.
Heaving a sigh at her own foolish weakness, Portia gathered her cloak before slipping out the kitchen door and entering the small garden.
With a sharp series of barks Puck rushed to greet her arrival. Oddly, however, the gentleman seated on the marble bench did not so much as turn his head. Instead he remained sprawled with negligent ease, his legs thrust out and the brandy bottle held precariously in his hand.
Offering the prancing spaniel a swift pat on the head, she shooed him away and moved to take a seat on the bench.
“Fredrick?” she murmured softly.
Still he continued to gaze at the distant sky, his elegant profile softly outlined by the light spilling from the inn.
Good God, but he was exquisite.
Such delicate features that still managed to be utterly male. Features that must have been crafted by the most skilled angels.
It was only with the greatest effort that she kept her fingers hidden beneath the fold of her cloak so they did not reach up to brush a stray honey curl from his forehead.
“Good evening, Portia,” he husked, speaking with that careful effort that revealed he had consumed a good deal of the brandy.
“Dinner is being served in the public rooms.”
A small smile tugged at his lips. “No more private trays to my chambers?”
Her heart jerked sharply before she managed to give a small shrug. “I believe you have demonstrated you have recovered sufficient strength to make your way down the stairs.”
Slowly he turned his head to regard her with those far too perceptive grey eyes, although they were not quite so focused as usual.
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