by Amy Sandas
“He is a womanizer?”
Lady Blackbourne’s face scrunched into an expression that revealed her reluctance in uttering a clarification.
“Well, it’s a bit worse than that, dear. His women are sometimes widowed, sometimes married, but always very, very wealthy.”
Understanding flew through Abbigael’s mind with reckless speed, burning the tips of her ears and causing a heavy fist to squeeze about her chest. She looked to Lady Blackbourne with eyes wide in shock.
“He is a…?”
The countess smiled ruefully. “I believe he uses the term professional lover.”
Abbigael struggled to categorize the unexpected information in her mind. Though she knew it had to be true, she still fought with the full meaning of what she had heard. “But he is a nobleman.”
“True. Leif’s father is the Viscount Neville. His family history traces back to William the Conqueror. For a few centuries, they basked in the glow of royal favor until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when things took a drastic turn. Apparently, one of Leif’s ancestors offended the queen and the Neville family never recovered. By the time Leif was born, the grand Neville holdings had become nothing more than a crumbling castle set on a huge and wasteful plot of land. Leif’s childhood was destitute and lonely. His mother…” the countess paused to find the right words, drumming her elegant fingers against the arm of the chair, “…well, she wasn’t there and his father was quite worthless. Leif was left in the care of servants for months at a time as his father indulged in dissolute pursuits in town. I think some of the servants may have tried to make up for the lack of love in Leif’s life by overindulging him as a boy. I am sure that is where he learned that he could get what he wanted by flashing his impish smile.”
Lady Blackbourne stopped abruptly and glanced at Abbigael from the corner of her eye, perhaps realizing she may have said too much.
“Not that any of that excuses his current behavior. There are many impoverished families of noble lineage in today’s world that continue to exist with honor in spite of dire circumstances.”
“However, Lord Riley is not one of them,” Abbigael offered.
“Correct. As much as I adore the misguided lout, his chosen path is one that I do not understand. He has been a loyal friend to me through very difficult times. I know he has a heart, it’s just…I don’t think he knows what to do with it.” She focused on Abbigael with those deep-reading eyes. “For all of his roguish allure, his interest is very calculated. He does not engage in flirtation without a reason and does not give of himself without expecting something in return. I implore you for your own sake, do not think any more upon Lord Riley. He may easily steal your heart, but he will not cherish it.”
Abbigael’s stomach gave a subtle twist.
“Thank you, my lady, I know he is your friend and I appreciate your honesty.”
Lady Blackbourne smiled with encouragement. “You are a practical and intelligent young woman, Abbigael. I am sure this infatuation will quickly pass and you will be able to return your attention to what is truly important.” She lifted an elegant hand and waved it through the air as if shooing a fly. “Besides, Leif has absolutely no interest in fresh unmarried girls. Your very innocence will be a deterrent to his attention.”
Nearly an hour later, Abbigael lay unsleeping in her bed.
Much of what Lady Blackbourne told her about Lord Riley disturbed her. It was nearly inconceivable that a gentleman would choose to trade his intimate company for financial recompense. Then again, women did the same thing all the time. Mistresses were an accepted and even expected element among the nobility as long as they were discreet. That a man might engage in the same practice shouldn’t be so shocking. Abbigael was not naïve, and some of her own experiences had proven just how far a person could go if given enough cause.
She wondered what Lord Riley’s motivation might be.
Even knowing the full truth about him, unsettling as it was, didn’t disturb her quite as much as Lady Blackbourne’s final statement.
Because the dastardly Baron Riley, seducer, manipulator, womanizer, had shown an inordinate amount of interest in Abbigael already.
Chapter Nine
The man found him at his club.
Leif had been playing cards for the last five hours and was finally seeing luck turn in his favor. The hand he had just been dealt was so strong that even with poor strategy there was very little chance he could lose. He glanced at the other players at the table, trying to discern by gesture or manner whether or not there were any other contenders for the pool. Women he could see through in an instant—know exactly what they wanted, what they needed, what shocked them and what titillated them. But Leif was horrible at reading other men. His opponents could have been holding solid trumps for all he could tell by their expressions.
He chose a card and tossed it onto the table.
Leif had gained a reputation for recklessness at the tables. Because he relied solely on his instincts, his card play was often risky and unpredictable. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t. Tonight, he was hoping desperately for the former.
He took that trick, but decided to switch tactics on the next round and led high to see what he could draw out. It was a move not typically played at this stage of the game and he heard more than one grumble around the table. He enjoyed throwing serious players off with something unexpected. It made things more interesting.
Leif glanced away from the table as the other players contemplated their strategies and caught sight of movement across the room. A small man of indiscriminate years dressed in the stoic black uniform of a city clerk was trying to get past the two large footmen at the front door with such persistence that it was drawing significant attention from the club members.
The small clerk was Mr. Lawrence Charles, and the instant he saw him, Leif knew why he was there. His hands tensed around the cards, slowly folding them in half, all thoughts of the game drowned out by the cacophonous thudding in his brain. A sluggish mixture of icy dread and noxious anticipation replaced the blood in his veins as he watched the drama escalate.
The clerk was loudly insisting on being allowed into the private club in spite of not having a membership. Though he knew the man was there to see him, Leif didn’t move from his seat to assist him.
A twisted and malicious part of his nature, the part that most resembled his father, wanted see how far Charles would go to make it past the guards. Leif knew the clerk well enough to know he would go to great lengths to accomplish what Viscount Neville required of him.
After a few minutes, Charles stopped struggling with the much larger men. He started gesturing with his slim, feminine hands and flapping his thick lips in what must have been a convincing litany as the footmen grew still and glanced warily toward Leif.
The rules of the club were as strict as most in that no one was to enter if they were not a member. There were however, a few very rare instances of exception.
This being one of them.
Leif tensed to the point where the muscles along his spine cramped in protest, but he did not allow any of his tension to show in his face or posture.
The footman escorted the intruder past the openly curious gazes of the other club members right up to the card table where Leif sat waiting.
Mr. Charles bowed stiffly, and when he straightened, his beady little eyes met Leif’s with open disgust and disdain. The little clerk had always been infinitely loyal to Leif’s father, though Leif could never imagine why since the viscount treated him like a rodent to be kicked aside unless Charles were engaged in some nefarious task on the viscount’s behalf.
“My Lord Riley,” the man sneered. “Viscount Neville requires your presence.”
Considering how he had just been addressed, Leif realized his father wasn’t dead yet. He glanced from the clerk back to his cards.
“Can it wait until after this hand?” he drawled. “I’ve got a good one here.”
“Really, Lord Riley
,” This exclamation came from Lord Balcon, a player at the table. “I should think a family matter would take precedence.”
Leif cast a quick and careless glare toward the dour-looking gentleman seated across from him. Clearly, Lord Balcon was not well acquainted with his father.
Then Leif smiled and set his crumpled cards on the table as he stood. Perhaps it would be best just to get the ugly scene over with, though he didn’t relish the thought of having to endure whatever pearls of wisdom his father had for him at this eleventh hour. Waving a hand before him, he addressed his father’s errand boy with a smirk.
“Lead the way, Mr. Charles.”
Not twenty minutes later, Leif entered his father’s townhouse. It had been nearly six years since he had stepped foot in the place. Six years since he had spoken with his father face-to-face. At their last encounter, the viscount had furiously declared that he didn’t want to see Leif again unless one of them were on their deathbed.
For Leif, it had meant liberation.
For his father, it had obviously been intended as fact.
Leif followed Charles through the darkened home and up the stairs. The noxious stench of medicines mingled with the odor of stale alcohol. There was no one else about. No servants, no loved ones. Leif wondered if Charles had become his father’s nursemaid as well. He wouldn’t be surprised. The small man was always desperate for the viscount’s approval, doing anything to remain fully seated within the old reprobate’s good graces.
Halfway down the upper hallway, Charles stopped and gave a dramatic flourish of his arm to indicate a closed door. “Your father awaits you in his chamber, my lord.” He looked up at Leif with a slightly bowed head, implying deference, but the cold loathing in his small black eyes belied the submissive posture.
The viscount’s animosity for his only son had rubbed off onto his loyal servant ages ago.
Leif said nothing as he pushed through the closed door.
The bedroom was well-lit compared to the rest of the house and a blazing inferno roared in the grate. The viscount always ensured his own comfort regardless of means or necessity.
“Leif? Is that you? Get your ungrateful arse over here, boy.”
Even on the verge of death, the viscount’s voice held an iron note of contempt. Leif couldn’t yet see his father, concealed as he was behind the privacy curtains that had been drawn around the bed. He strode further into the room. The heat rolling out from the fireplace made his clothing feel sticky and cumbersome and he wondered if he hadn’t just walked into hell itself. He stopped at the side of the large four-poster bed where the curtains were drawn back. A heavy sense of inevitability drowned out the emotions he had expected to experience at this moment. There was no relief, no sadness or regret. Not even a touch of expectancy for what his future would soon hold. There was just the dark weight of impending death. It didn’t matter that it was his father who was nearing his end. Leif felt his own mortality like the slow and steady approach of night.
Viscount Neville lay propped up on a mound of pillows. Blankets surrounded a body that had become shrunken and frail. His black hair had grown long and hung in limp strands along the sides of his face to his shoulders. His skin held a greenish tinge from a failing liver and open sores were apparent on his face and hands, likely evidence of a disease contracted from one of the back-alley brothels the viscount loved to frequent.
Leif noted the odd justice in the fact that his father lay dying from the vices that so consumed his life.
“Closer, dammit. I can’t see you.”
Leif stepped right up to the edge of the bed. His arms hung heavily at his sides. The fire behind him burned against his back. He looked down at his father with silent antipathy.
The old man eyed him with a serrated gaze, no less vicious in his weakened state.
“Eh! You look more like your whore-mother than ever before. A curse on that ungrateful slut for leaving nothing of me in you.”
Leif stiffened, but it was a familiar diatribe. He only wished it were completely true. There was far too much of his father repeated in the soulless black of his heart.
“You’ve done well enough, I hear. Pandering to the rapacious sexual demands of your women. You have your mother’s talent for whoring.”
Leif clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists at his sides. “Why have you called me here?”
“Impatient to be done with me? Anxious to get your hands on your inheritance?” The viscount’s voice rose with each word until the last, which broke off on a violent fit of coughing. He lifted a claw-like hand and brought a handkerchief to his mouth. The white scrap of cloth was stained brown and reddish-black with blood both old and new.
Leif did not attempt to help him. His assistance would have been rejected and would only anger his father further. So he waited until the fit passed and the viscount looked back to him with murder in his eyes.
“You have been awaiting this day with bated breath, haven’t you?” Leif didn’t deny it. “Soon, all that has come down from the time of the Conqueror will be yours, my son.”
Leif ignored the way his father spit out the last words. The viscount had forever enjoyed the torment of implying that Leif was not truly his son and so not a rightful heir to the Neville legacy. As much as he would have loved to believe otherwise, it was an indisputable fact that he was the viscount’s son.
“Is that why you sent Charles to fetch me? Have you finally found a way to keep me from having it?”
The viscount’s smile was an ugly twist of his lips. “Quite the contrary, boy. I leave it all to you willingly. It is exactly what the son of a whore deserves. Dunwood Park is a wasteland,” he gasped. “Nothing can grow there. The land is barren. The tenants who haven’t fled are wretched and useless. The castle is a pile of falling rock.” He paused to cough harshly, and when he was able to speak again, his voice was raspy and weak, but it had not lost any of the raw hatred. “And the coffers, my boy, have been drained dry long ago. All you’ll inherit from me is a mountain of rubble and insurmountable debt. I only regret your dear mother is not around to see the fruits of her faithless betrayal.”
The viscount started laughing then. The ugly cackling scratched over Leif’s nerves and caused the hair to stand up on the back of his neck.
He had expected nothing less from his father. And now that it was finally stated, he felt relieved. At least, it would finally be his. The Neville legacy could be restored. It had to be. It was what Leif had been working toward with relentless focus for the last twelve years.
Leif met his father’s glassy eyes and saw only a wasted human being allowing hatred to consume the last hours of his life. He tried very hard in that moment to feel some pity for him and the tragic state to which he had reduced himself. But no matter how deeply he searched, there was no compassion left in him for the man who had done nothing but spit poisoned words at him his entire life.
The viscount took a gasping breath, the pain caused by the effort twisted his features even more and his body became taut and drawn with the physical exertion. But he was determined to say one more thing.
“I have rued…the day of your birth, boy. And now…you will too.”
Leif laughed. It was a dry sound and the action caused a raw ache in the muscles of his throat. He shook his head. “You are too late. I lament the facts of my existence every day I breathe. Becoming master of Dunwood Park will be my saving grace.”
The viscount glared with evil intent. “Ha! May the curse bring to you all the destruction it wrought on me.”
“The curse is nothing more than an excuse created by men unwilling to take responsibility for their failures. You brought destruction upon yourself.”
The viscount’s laugh was mixed with raw hacking gasps. “And you’ll do the same, boy. The curse is real…and it’ll drag you through hell for the rest of your rotten life.” His words tumbled into a severe fit of coughing that eventually brought Charles charging into the room. He went directly to the old ma
n’s side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to offer support as the coughs wracked his frail frame.
Leif turned and left.
As the sun rose the next morning, a messenger arrived at Leif’s townhouse. He answered the door himself. He had not gone to bed, but had spent the night sprawled in a chair, slowly nursing a bottle of Irish whisky. When the knock sounded just as the gray light of dawn started to dispel the heavy darkness he had surrounded himself with, Leif experienced the wave of triumph he had been waiting for.
Finally, it all belonged to him.
Chapter Ten
“Lord Neville, you have absolutely nothing.” The old solicitor’s sagging face was expressionless.
Leif’s was not.
He could feel the hopeless frustration in every twitch of the muscles in his jaw and every furious furrow of his brow. His eyes ached from three hours of pouring over ledgers and account books and deeds, trying to see something that wasn’t there.
“Let me correct that,” the solicitor said as he pushed a final book across the desk toward Leif. “You have exactly 500 acres of ruined soil in northern Sussex, all that was safely entailed by long-ago ancestors who understood the duty of preserving a legacy such as what your family once honored.”
Leif curled his lips and nearly growled at the insinuated judgment, though he couldn’t disagree. He knew how wretchedly his recent ancestors regarded the once-revered Neville holdings.
“The house, once a grand and opulent manor, is now crumbling to the ground with only one-fifth of it even slightly inhabitable, and of course you own whatever the structure may contain. For now anyway,” he added solemnly. “Only a few families remain to farm the land and a few more reside in the small village. They are all now your responsibility. On top of that, your father and his father before him managed to compile a near insurmountable debt.”
“But I have money,” Leif insisted, pushing forward his own book of accounts. “What about my personal funds?”