Ginsham’s fingers tightened around his glass. “I’ll promise, but I tell you to your face that I won’t wait forever.”
“No need, Greg. I’ve a feeling it may be a simple thing, after all.”
Tom received no answer, for at that moment, a shadow fell over them. Two pairs of eyes turned up to stare at an exquisitely dressed older gentleman, who smiled suavely.
“Unless my eyes deceive me, I behold the offspring of my former protegee.” He held out his hand to Tom. “Mr. Breckinridge, I believe.”
Tom warily shook the hand, but refrained from offering any other encouragement as a tiny suspicion crept into his brain that he knew this man, and would rather he didn’t.
The gentleman pulled a chair from an adjacent table and settled into it. “I am Carlisle Dupray. Your father and I shared many adventures together. He is greatly missed.”
Ginsham sat up straight. “You’re Lord Montrose.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed as Montrose flicked his gaze to Ginsham. “Of course, I am. I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Ginsham snorted. “No, you haven’t.”
Dismissing him, Montrose turned back to Tom. “Your resemblance to your father is striking, young man. I have no doubt you have inherited his best qualities.”
“What qualities would those be, my lord?” inquired Tom coldly.
“Boldness, courage, and determination, I would say, were his most outstanding strengths.”
Tom’s lips pressed tight, and Ginsham’s fascinated gaze flicked from one to the other.
Montrose signaled over his shoulder for a drink. “I hear you have made incredible strides in recouping your family’s fortune. You are to be congratulated, young man. Your father would be proud.”
“I doubt that, my lord,” said Tom, with an appraising look at Montrose. “He never showed any pride in the fortune of his family.”
“Ah, yes, it is too true, young man. I thought so myself.” He shook his head mournfully. “Bertram had strengths, but he also had weaknesses. He was imprudent, I fear.”
This drew a snort from Tom.
Montrose took his gin in one gulp. “But you have learned from his mistakes, I have no doubt. I admire that in you.” He toyed with his glass. “I would like to offer you my help.”
Ginsham’s gaze snapped to Tom, who sat back in his chair, eyeing Montrose narrowly. “And why would I need your help, sir?”
“I was never as imprudent as your father, though he would not be guided by my advice. His determination and courage drove him to make many rash decisions and, while some rewarded him, others doomed him,” he said regretfully. He paused, as if in somber reflection, then continued slowly, “If you have indeed learned from his mistakes, and are willing to be guided by me, I could show you how to play your cards wisely.”
Tom’s jaw worked as he gazed intently at Lord Montrose. After several tense moments, he glanced at Ginsham. “You know, Greg, I have never heard a snake speak until now, and if they’re all so silver-tongued, there’s no wonder Adam and Eve were deceived. Well, my lord,” he said, taking up his gloves and hat. “I was not born yesterday, and you will not find me a pigeon ripe for your plucking. I am not so much like my father that I will sit here to be worn down by your double-edged words.”
Montrose, far from taking offense, merely shook his head with a sorrowful smile. “You have, no doubt, heard your father blame me for his losses. He became exceedingly bitter over the years, and could not take responsibility for his own rashness. But I forgive you, my boy. I will not hold a grudge.”
“This is rich,” Tom cried, pushing to his feet, and Ginsham with him. He fixed Montrose with a smoldering glare. “I watched my father leave his family time and again, to go where you would take him, to be in the safety of your company, to play at the games you taught him, and always at his return—always, sir—he was worse in every way. You are wrong, my lord. He did not blame you for his misfortunes. But I blame you. My father may have been ill-suited for card play, but his companions did nothing to curb his indiscretion. His friends did not keep him from vices they knew him too weak to refuse. No, they nurtured every one of his weaknesses and turned them to their own advantage.”
His lordship rose from his chair. “What are you trying to say, pup?”
Tom pushed face to face with him. “I am saying that my father was a flat, sir, just as you are a sharp.”
The room was silent. Montrose glanced to the side, then back at Tom. “Do you wish to repeat that insult?”
Ginsham stepped forward, gazing down at Montrose from his superior height. “He has no need to repeat it. Everyone who has heard of you knows you for what you are. Nothing he has said has altered your reputation a whit.”
“I will have satisfaction,” spat Montrose.
But Tom laughed. “You already have the satisfaction of having driven a man of unknown potential to his grave, and of leaving his wife and children nearly destitute. Congratulations, sir. May that satisfaction comfort you on your way to hell.”
He pushed past his lordship, and Ginsham, favoring Montrose with a look of disdain, turned and followed him out.
Tom’s first inclination was to keep his meeting with Lord Montrose a secret—at all events, from his mother and sister—but the more he turned it in his mind, the more he realized that Mrs. Breckinridge must know the whole. For it had become clear to Tom that Lord Montrose was not one to be put off, and if he had tried to take in Tom, it would be only a matter of time before he tried for his mother or Lenora.
On his arrival back in Hill Street, he found his mother in the drawing room, sewing, as she seemed always to be, and she looked up when he came in, a smile lighting her features. “Tom! Did you have a good chat with Greg? I do hope he is feeling more the thing. Lenora said he was blue as megrim, and made her more than glad to be out of his company, poor boy.”
He sat in the wing chair near the fire and regarded her pensively. “Greg will do, Mama, but I must tell you who else I met at the Green Man.”
His manner arrested her attention and she put down her needle. “What is it, Tom? Whom did you meet?”
“Lord Montrose.”
Her mouth tightened, and she took up her needle again with agitated fingers. “What did he have to say to you?”
“He claimed that he wanted to help me.”
“What fustian! I trust that you did not believe him.”
“No, I’m not such a clodpole as that, Mama.”
“I never thought you were, my dear. But I also never thought to warn you against him.”
“There was no need. I remember what he did to Papa, and to us, and that is enough.”
She put her needle down again, sighing deeply. “Thank God.” She held out her hand, inviting him with the gesture to come sit by her on the sofa.
He did as she bade him, watching her keenly. “Did you know he was in London, Mama?”
“I did, my dear. He has met me, oh, nearly everywhere. It is such a bore!” she said, a tight smile flitting over her lips.
“You should not have kept this from me, Mama. The strain has been wearing you, I know.”
“I am not such a poor creature, Tom!” she said, though smiling at his thoughtfulness. “There is nothing he can do to me but vex me with his odious attentions, and no one ever died from vexation, I assure you.”
“No, but I am persuaded he means no good.”
“Indeed, Tom, he could mean nothing else. But there was not the least need to worry you while I could manage him perfectly well. I own I had hoped we would be gone from London before you knew anything about him, or he you.”
“Are you such a goose, Mama, that you could believe such nonsense?” said Tom baldly. “He was bound to find us out.”
Mrs. Breckinridge directed an affronted look at him. “He cared so little for Bertram’s family that it wa
s not too much to hope that he would not recall specifics, such as the sex or number of our children, and so be unable to discover you or, even more importantly, Lenora.”
“Mama! How could he not find us out? I could be Papa’s twin, and Lenora looks mighty similar to you, and we are forever going out together.” He stood abruptly and strode to the sideboard to pour himself a drink. “I would you had told me, Mama, so I’d have been on my guard. Now I’ve snubbed him, he’ll go after Lenora!”
She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. “We cannot be sure of that, love. He has known of my being in town for many weeks now, and though he has found occasion to come in my way, he has not yet sought out Lenora.” She looked down. “I own it is a blow to me that he has sought you out, when I thought him ignorant of either of you. Now that he has met you, we must redouble our efforts to prevent his becoming acquainted with Lenora.”
“Dash it, Mama, it would have been better to have warned her before now!”
“Oh, I did, dearest, but she instantly became so incurious—you know her way—that I thought it best to treat him not as dangerous, exactly, but as undesirable.”
Chastened by this motherly wisdom, he came to sit with her again on the sofa. “But will it serve, Mama? He is such a man that I cannot be persuaded it will be enough. If you had heard how he spoke to me today…”
“He is disastrously charming. Almost as charming as was your Papa,” she said, in a tone too forced to be light. “We are in a hobble, Tom, and I know it, but we must do what we can. I have warned Lenora against him, and I know she will not disobey me, for I most strictly adjured her not to allow an introduction to Lord Montrose. Beyond that, we must simply never leave her to be alone, anywhere.” She saw the consternation on his face and leaned toward him, placing her hand on his arm. “I know it is trying to be forever in your sister’s pocket, my dear, but it is for her safety.”
He covered her hand with his own, his features resolutely set. “I know it, Mama. I may not like it overmuch, but I daresay I’ll get used to it. I must.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Think nothing of it, dear. I’m yours to command.”
She smiled gratefully at him, picking up her needle again. “You and Sir Joshua. I vow I never thought to be so lucky with such knights errant at my fingertips!”
Tom left her to go in search of Lenora, whom he found picking out notes for a new piece on the pianoforte in the music room. She glanced at him as he leaned his elbows on the instrument. “I trust you talked Mr. Ginsham out of the sullens?”
“Well, I urged him not to give up hope, but we neither of us know the answer to his problem.”
She turned her head to regard him. “You can’t guess?”
“Oh, we know Elvira prefers Mr. Barnabus, but only I have the slightest notion why.”
“And what do you think, Professor?”
He smiled and came around behind her, bending over her shoulder to look at the music pages. “I think that Barny is irresistible because he is an object of pity.”
She turned to shove him away. “Oh, you odious creature! He is not to be pitied, unless you are a heartless wretch, and set store by looks and titles and fortunes!”
“You asked what I thought,” he cried, hands up to defend himself.
“Yes, but I never imagined you to be such a gudgeon!”
“Well, why does Elvira admire Barny, then?”
Lenora played a few more angry chords, her lips pursed, then gave it up, casting her brother an exasperated look. “Very well. You are the teensiest bit right, Tom.”
“Oh, ho!” he shouted, thrusting a finger at her.
“Only the teensiest bit, mind you!” disclaimed Lenora, removing from the stool and flouncing over to the chaise. He took her place on the stool and waited with eyebrows raised. With a withering look, she turned her head away. “He is attractive because he is romantic, Tom, not because he is to be pitied. The attributes upon which the world looks down are the very ones which females like Elvira—and myself,” she turned to glare a challenge at him, “find appealing.”
He grasped the edge of the stool and leaned forward, a skeptical gleam in his eye. “You think his stammer appealing.”
“Yes.”
“And his lack of title, and his poverty.”
“Amazingly,” she said, with a toss of her head.
“Most amazingly,” he agreed.
“Oh, Tom, how can you be so horrid? I tell you that a man who must fight against all odds is far more romantic than a man who is born hosed and shod, who must only throw out money to get his way, and who never struggled in his life.” She crossed her arms with a huff. “You may believe me or you may not. I do not regard it.”
“So,” he said, spinning around on the stool, “a man who is so unfortunate as to be born wealthy has no chance with females such as yourself, and Elvira?”
“That is not the matter at all! Why must you be so provoking?”
He started back, blinking in astonishment. “Pray, forgive me, ma’am! What have I misapprehended?”
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Lenora stated, with icy hauteur, “We do not judge a man by his weakness, Tom. We judge him by his character!”
“So, wealthy men must needs be possessed of bad character.”
She threw a cushion at him. “No! But wealthy men presume that they must only drop the handkerchief to get their bride.”
“Ah,” said Tom, raising a finger in enlightenment. “So, they are in need of a good set-down.”
She eyed him with hostility. “Humility is a virtue of unsurpassed attraction, I will have you know. A vain man too easily forgets to whom he owes his happiness, while a humble man will fight for his beloved, through deprivation of every kind, and will never take glory to himself.”
“I see,” Tom said, still quite at a loss, but put in recollection, by this talk of fighting through deprivation, of a scene from one of Elvira’s novels that he had come upon one day, quite by accident, when it had dug painfully into his ribs upon his nestling into the sofa for a nap. Wresting the book from its hiding place, he had stared blankly at the cover, then flipped through its pages, and read a most edifying passage about just such a humble man as Lenora had described. That man had taken a wound, in a very chivalrous act, and had nearly fainted from loss of blood, but had stoically refused to take honor for his actions, even at the hands of his beloved.
Nauseated by such exaggerated virtue, Tom had immediately consigned the novel to the depths of the wing chair cushions and carried on with his nap, thus relinquishing all hope of knowing our hero’s fate, but the connection effectively set the wheels turning in his mind now. Considering Lenora’s hitherto bewildering expostulations in light of the book’s passage, it occurred to Tom that what Lenora and Elvira desired was a man of action, but one who would make his way without wealth or title. Presumably, allowances were to be made between the romance of novels and that of real life, for Tom had never known Barnabus, dubbed romantic, to engage in any heroic activities. Additionally, he had gathered from long association with his sister that the heroines of novels constantly flitted in and out of the clutches of villains, which Lenora had never done in her life, and nor had Elvira, and yet they deemed themselves worthy to ally with such romantic men as they could find. The attraction seemed to be in a man’s beating the odds.
But the issue of humility Ginsham may be unable to circumvent, wealth and pride apparently being one and the same in Lenora’s mind—yet he had a vague notion that all the humble men in the novels Lenora read ended up the long-lost heir to some vast fortune anyway, and though he could not depend upon Elvira’s accounting for that, he was shrewd enough to suspect that in the appeasement of some of their scruples, though ridiculously impractical, the others would be forgotten.
“So,” he said, standing from the stool with exaggerated resignation, “shall I give poor Gins
ham the hint that he has no chance with Elvira?”
Lenora turned sharply toward him. “No! Oh, no, Tom. He has every chance with Elvira.”
“But he has a title and a fortune, Lenora,” he said, ingenuously. “You have informed me—”
She got to her feet. “That is neither here nor there! Gregory Ginsham is just the man for Elvira, if she could only be brought to comprehend it! It is the veriest coil, Tom! She is besotted with Barnabus, who doesn’t give a fig for her, while poor Ginsham truly loves her, I know it!”
Less experienced gentlemen may have reeled under this display of feminine logic, but Tom had not passed the greater part of his life in the confidence of a youthful sister for nothing, and he merely uttered a noncommittal acknowledgement while Lenora turned about the room, deep in her cogitations. “He would have her for the taking, if only he was more romantic.”
“Do you mean romantic like Barnabus?” inquired her brother.
“To be sure! How else could I mean it?” she replied, opening her eyes at him.
“Never mind. So, how do you propose to bring Elvira to imagine that the Honorable Gregory Ginsham, standing to inherit six thousand a year, and without physical defect, is romantic?”
“It is a quandary.” Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, Tom, if he could only be made to look sensitive, or brooding, or something to justify his birth! I’ve tried my possible to help him, but he cannot say the right things, not with Mr. Barnabus there to say just what he ought.”
Deciding the time was right to play his cards, Tom said, “What about humility, and fighting through deprivation?”
“If I could but arrange deprivation, or even a fight against insuperable odds, I am persuaded it would be just the thing!” cried his sister positively. “But I cannot!”
“My dearest Nora,” he said, putting an arm around her, “you should have come to me. Who better to arrange a fight than your brother?”
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