by Jude Knight
He was right. Hugh went home the first year sated and satisfied. He rode up to London the second year looking forward to his holiday rather than backward to his guilt and grief, eager to renew his acquaintance with at least some of the widows he had enjoyed the year before.
The second year was even wilder. In certain circles, the story of the scarred baron’s three weeks had made the rounds, and Hugh found himself propositioned endlessly. Though three of the five widows he’d known the previous year were now married again, and one was out of town, he had no difficulty finding a bed partner.
His conscience troubled him when he discovered some of the ladies who approached him had living, if neglectful, husbands. He couldn’t understand being so casual about a solemn vow, made before God. He consoled himself that he wasn’t party to the vows strangers made. And he only tupped women whose husbands were unfaithful. He wasn’t doing to another man what the unknown John had done to him.
Still, he was saddened by it, and besmirched, too. Riding home that second year, he decided he’d show more discretion in future, avoid the worst of the debauchery.
This year had started like the second, but halfway through the second week, in an idle conversation about the morals of the ladies of the ton, Aldridge claimed he’d known whores with fewer lovers. They were at White’s, and already well down the brandy decanter, or perhaps they would not have accepted Hackenburg’s now-infamous bet: two ladies each in every 24-hour period, in two different sexual positions, with no repeats for a week.
At the time, drunk as they all were, the bet had seemed like fun. When they left to plan their approach, Aldridge’s suggestion—swapping partners partway through the day would make winning easier—sounded logical. They’d swapped partners before, especially in their youth when, it sometimes seemed, they’d sampled half the female population of England, Wales, and lower Scotland.
But the execution of their plan left him feeling dirty and despicable.
Was it the cold-blooded plotting? The fast succession? The feeling the ladies they’d played clicket with were interchangeable body parts instead of real people? The undeniable fact, emphasised by that damnable queue on the last night, that the ton was riddled with ladies who were little more than whores? No, worse than whores, for at least a girl selling her body up against the wall in Covent Garden knew no better, and did it so she could eat.
The Ballingcrofts broke his heart. An adultery virgin, Aldridge had called Lady Ballingcroft, and laughed. Hugh had looked into Lord Ballingcroft’s wounded eyes and seen himself. Stupid bastard. He’d promised before God to honour Lady Ballingcroft and protect her, not to drive her into the arms of other men. Hugh’s self-hatred had fuelled the punch that broke the idiot’s jaw.
Word was, on that last day in London, Lady Ballingcroft was hovering over her wounded lord and smothering him in kindness, so perhaps some good would come from it.
In all three weeks, he’d met only one woman who epitomised the qualities he thought of as ladylike: demure, graceful, dignified, discreet. What an upside-down world, when Aldridge’s kept woman was more of a lady than the peeresses and their friends who trooped through Aldridge’s disgusting tupping palace.
The exquisite Mrs Winstanley had haunted him since he’d returned home. He could barely remember the faces and forms of the women he’d actually bedded. But Mrs Winstanley, who had given him no cause for his fevered longings, welcomed him in his dreams, capturing him between the soft thighs of the Astley rider; offering her soft curves, porcelain skin, and silken hair; leaving him awake, hard, and lonely, night after night.
She was not for sharing. He’d hinted to Aldridge before he was sober enough to think better of it. Aldridge had donned the ducal mantle he never wore with his friends, and frozen the thought in its tracks with a terse, “No.”
Hugh scythed two rows of barley and was back where he started, half a row ahead of the other workers. Stretching a kink out of his back, he watched them approach. They would soon be done for the day. It would be a good harvest.
A familiar voice echoed his thought. “It looks a good harvest.”
Aldridge? What on earth was he doing here? Looking, from the top of his exquisite beaver to the toes of his highly polished boots, as if quietly hacking in Hyde Park, not a speck of dust or a thread out of place.
“They said up at the house you were down here. Can I help?”
“Dressed like that?” Hugh laughed, and Aldridge examined his coated arms with a smile.
“I would, of course, take my jacket off.”
He could do it, too. They had worked side by side before, on holiday from school and rejoicing in their youth and strength. And they’d basked in the appreciation of the village girls at the harvest dance afterwards.
“Thank you, Aldridge, but we’re nearly done.”
The tenant had finished his row and was stretching at the end of it, keeping one eye on his lord. “Beckham, I’m going to take my guest up to the house. It’s been a good day’s work.”
“That it has, m’lord,” the tenant agreed. “And we’ll have her finished this half hour, never you mind.”
Aldridge hadn’t visited Overton Park since those long-ago school days. Still Hugh asked no questions. He sluiced his head with water from one of the buckets under a tree by the fence, shook it to disperse the worst of the water and pulled on his coat. His horse had been saddled and bridled for him while he’d been washing.
Mounting, Hugh called to Aldridge, “Race?”
The Park was twenty minutes away across country, and Hugh’s horse had been resting all day. Aldridge’s horse was one of Hugh’s, too; clearly the Park’s stable had mounted him for the short ride to Beckham’s field.
Aldridge’s only reply was to nudge his mount into full flight and, with a whoop, Hugh was after him. With evenly matched riders and horses, they thundered neck and neck into the courtyard and pulled to a stop in front of the stables.
The Marquis of Aldridge had arrived shortly after noon, Hugh’s valet told him while he had his bath and dressed for dinner. The marquis had read in the library for a while, visited Miss Sophrania and Miss Emmaline in the schoolroom, then called for a horse and directions to Beckham’s farm.
Aldridge in his daughters’ schoolroom? Whatever for? Not that he minded, of course. Even if they were not gently-born virgins, a species Aldridge avoided like the plague, at 10 and 8, they were safe from the man’s incessant pursuit of women.
The Astley’s exhibition had shown an unexpected side to his friend. Aldridge mediating a quarrel between two girls, putting out a protective arm when a carriage came too close, sharing the birthday cakes in a way that gave each child precisely the same number of sugar roses. The little girls all treated him like a favourite uncle, and Aldridge was respectful, tender, and protective.
Even so, Hugh went downstairs to dinner still trying to think of a reason why Aldridge would want to visit Sophie and Em.
Aldridge was a few minutes behind him, immaculately dressed in a dark blue coat, grey breeches, and a silver and blue waistcoat, flamboyantly embroidered. A sapphire-and-diamond pin studded his intricately tied cravat, echoing the sapphire-and-diamond buckles on his shoes.
“You are welcome, Aldridge, of course,” Hugh began, “but I must admit, I wonder why I am being honoured with your presence.”
How ungracious that sounded. Aldridge couldn’t be blamed for Hugh’s fevered dreams of Mrs Winstanley, after all. The man had been his host in London for three years running, and was, besides, his last surviving school friend. Hugh’s last surviving friend, in truth. The men he’d known in the army were all gone, killed in the continuing war with Napoleon. And he didn’t mix much with the neighbours, three of whom were called John. Not, perhaps, the John—it was a very common name—but still.
Aldridge did not take offence. “I do have something I wish to discuss with you, Overton, but it can wait until after dinner.” Not in front of the servants, then.
Usually, Hugh ate h
is meal in the study, to avoid the solitary splendour of the dining room. It was nice to have company, someone with whom to discuss the harvest, the war, the rioting in Manchester, and the health of the King’s youngest daughter.
But after the second remove, Hugh dismissed the serving footmen. If privacy Aldridge wanted, privacy he would have. He slid Aldridge the port and watched his friend focus too much attention on pouring himself a glass. Aldridge sat back, holding the tumbler with both hands and stared down into it, uncharacteristically silent.
“Well?” Hugh asked.
Aldridge took a slow sip before replying. “How much do you remember about our talk in the tavern after Astley’s?”
Bits and pieces. Surely he hadn’t told Aldridge everything? He was afraid he had, but why would Aldridge raise this now?
“Why?”
Aldridge answered with another question. “How much does it matter to you that the title will go to the King when you die?”
“And the land,” Hugh said, gloomily. Clearly he had told all and Aldridge remembered the lot. “My uncle and my cousin renewed the fee tail; the land goes with the title.”
Aldridge said nothing, waiting for an answer to his question.
“Damn you, Aldridge. I can’t change it. I’ve tried. The lawyers say breaking the fee tail might take a hundred years and cost more than I could ever pay. I’ve had them hunt every little twig of the family tree. Nothing. I am the last of the Overtons.”
The wound was always raw. The Overtons had never been prolific breeders, but they’d held this land and served these people since Charles II had rewarded a faithful ancestor at the Restoration. And Hugh would be the last.
Aldridge couldn’t possibly understand, with his younger brother and cousins and second cousins and, for all Hugh knew, sixth and seventh cousins. And who knew how many by-blows to prove he could do his duty by the title when the scab-scratching louse finally settled down.
“But you would change it if you could.”
Hugh clenched his jaw to keep from cursing his response, but Aldridge hadn’t finished.
“I have an idea that might answer your need. Just might, mind you. It’s a gamble, but I promise you’ll not be worse off, and you might just win the heir you want.”
Hugh’s cynical snort was propelled by ten years of broken hopes. “So what have you got? A gypsy remedy? I’ve tried them all. It won’t be prayer and fasting, not from you. I know: you’ve a pregnant lover to offload.” He choked on the joke when he saw Aldridge’s face.
“No.”
A flat and uncompromising no. He’d not give his name to any bitch who’d whore herself to the likes of Aldridge. “No, Aldridge. No. I’ll not do it.”
“Hear me out, Overton. Will you do that for me? It will be your choice in the end, but hear me out.”
Hugh refilled his glass, hand shaking slightly. Aldridge had only one woman he wanted. But in her proper place—set up in a house in the nearest town, where he could sink himself into her softness when not doing his duty to his people and his stepdaughters.
He pushed the port decanter back towards Aldridge, and Aldridge shot out a hand to stop it tipping. Hugh had no choice. He could hardly turn the man out of his house, and Aldridge wouldn’t go until he’d had his say.
Aldridge took a meditative sip of his port, then studied it as if the words he needed were written on the ruby surface.
Hugh wasn’t going to say anything. Aldridge wanted to talk? Let him talk.
And eventually he did. “My mistress is with child.”
“Mrs Winstanley?” Hugh was horrified.
That surge of hope was just his cock talking. It didn’t rule him. Aldridge couldn’t know... Or did he? Had he guessed? Did he hope to use Hugh’s reaction to offload his leavings on Hugh and his daughters?
His daughters. “Do you think I would let a woman like her anywhere near my daughters? How dare you suggest I should give them a harlot as a mother!” He was on his feet, shouting. “A doxy’s bastard as Overton? Over my dead body!”
“Well, obviously,” Aldridge drawled, and something in the tone penetrated Hugh’s fury. People who didn’t know him said Aldridge never lost his temper. Hugh had been at school with him during the years he’d struggled to contain the volcanic anger that, when it flared, consumed everything in its path. Hugh knew that drawl. He knew the white lines around the lips and the glitter in the eyes.
“Your dead body is rather the point.” Aldridge was on his feet, too, leaning forward over the table, his voice quieter than ever, his eyes chips of brown glass. “And sooner, rather than later, if you continue to insult Mrs Winstanley.”
He pushed away from the table, throwing his energy into pacing the room punching his fist into his other hand. Hugh, his own anger high, would have preferred the punch directed at him, though a small voice cautioned that Aldridge would undoubtedly win in a fair fight. Hugh was fit, but Aldridge boxed with Jackson three times a week, fenced with a master every day, and fought scoundrels in low dives for the sheer joy of battle.
Might as well live dangerously. “How can I insult a whore?” he asked.
Aldridge stopped in his tracks, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“This was a mistake,” he said at last. “You have always been a bit of a prig, Overton. And a hypocrite. You’ll swive anyone who offers, but you’ve another rule for the rest of the universe. I’ll leave in the morning.”
He crossed to the door, but stopped with his hand on the latch, and met Hugh’s eyes. “You know nothing about what brought her to the life she’s led; a life she has survived with dignity and grace. She shows more honour in her least action than most women of the ton can muster once in a lifetime. Brave. Honest. Clever. A devoted mother. I’m leaving because you don’t deserve her. You aren’t fit to kiss the hem of her robe.”
Hugh opened his mouth to ask Aldridge why he didn’t marry this paragon himself, but before he could speak, Aldridge laughed with a decide lack of humour.
“God, she would have sent that governess of yours packing the first time she raised a finger to your little Emmaline.”
He was only just in time to arrest Aldridge’s exit.
“Wait. Aldridge, the governess hits Emma? What are you talking about? What have you seen! You know what I think about hitting children.” He and Aldridge had made a pact at school to never beat a child the way they’d been beaten themselves. They’d been sleeping on their stomachs at the time, after an escapade had come to the attention of the masters.
“Ask your daughter. My concern is my own child.” Aldridge put his hand on the door, then heaved a sigh and turned back. “Look, Overton. Open your eyes. The woman favours the older girl, who does her best to step between the governess and the little one. Little Emmaline has bruised knuckles, sits awkwardly, and flinches when the governess looks at her. And she’s a hard-eyed, grasping, bitter, old bitch, that one. I’ve seen her like before.”
His narrowed eyes looked into a childhood populated by the succession of nursery tyrants he’d described many times, before he returned to his grievance, sneering, “But perhaps you don’t care. She isn’t yours, after all.”
“But...” Overton was quickly reviewing every visit he’d made to the schoolroom, every time the girls had been presented to him in the parlour or his study. Little Em had been quieter since the new governess had arrived, a month before his London trip. Sophie had taken to answering for her, and Hugh couldn’t remember when he’d last heard Em’s sweet little chuckle. Em’s cheek was bruised just last week. An accident while playing, the governess said. The governess. She’d been all that was civil to him, even charming. But the other servants didn’t like her, and—yes—he’d noticed the girls’ reserve, even after several months.
Aldridge, damn him, was right. The clues were there, and Hugh had been too deeply buried in his own misery to notice.
“I care.” And he’d be checking with the housekeeper, who would tell him the truth if he asked a direct que
stion. And with the girls. He sighed. It had taken him months to find a governess who would live all the way out here. Now he’d have to find another.
Aldridge was leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed on his chest and his head tilted to one side.
“Damn it, Aldridge, how can I marry someone with a secret like this? We’d be living on a powder keg, waiting for someone to find out... If she marries into the peerage, Society will tear her to pieces, and me and my daughters with her. And your child. Set her up as a widow somewhere.”
Aldridge nodded. “I can do that. It’s what she’s asked of me, actually. But she deserves better, Overton. She deserves to be treasured, to grow old in the protection of a husband, with her children and grandchildren around her.”
“Marry her yourself, then,” Hugh scoffed.
To his surprise, he caught a hint of longing, before Aldridge answered thoughtfully, “I wish I could. I’d have to leave England, of course...” One side of his mouth quirked in a half-grin. “...but I could fake my death so Jonathan could have Haverford.” He laughed at the shock on Overton’s face. “Yes, I’ve plotted it all out. I don’t love Becky, and she doesn’t love me. But we’re fond of one another, and marriages have been built on less.
“Still, she won’t have me. She says I will make some poor woman a terrible husband, and she’s right, of course. I cannot imagine sticking to only one woman, and Becky—well, she is a faithful soul. Believes in the sanctity of marriage.”
He crossed back to the table and picked up his abandoned drink.
“And she says I would hate her after a while, if I left Haverford for her. I suppose that’s true, too. I’ve trained to be Haverford my whole life. I don’t know who I would be, if not Aldridge, the heir.”
“Make her your marchioness, then,” Overton suggested. “Your duchess, one day. She’ll stomach your infidelities for that kind of title.”