Wages of Sin (Regency Rebelles Book 1)

by Jen Yates

  Liberty rose up on her toes to meet him, breath for breath, moan for moan, hope for hope.

  The distant rumble of a horse and cart on the London road penetrated their wooded sanctuary, reminding them the morning was advancing.

  Liberty pulled back, her heart hammering at her ribs.

  ‘I have to go. I love you.’

  ‘Wait for me?’

  ‘Forever.’

  For as long as I can, she amended in her mind.

  She was far more of a pragmatist than Levi.

  But he needed to believe the dream, while she needed to know she could continue to function if the dream was all they were able to have.

  Pulling the cloak tightly about her, she gripped his hand tightly, leaned in for one last lingering kiss then dragged herself free and ran.

  At the edge of the woods she stopped to look back. He stood just as she’d left him, hand outstretched, leaning forward as if to catch her back, prevent her from leaving.

  She would never stand at this spot again without seeing that image of him, statue-still as if etched in stone.

  Slamming her hand over her mouth to prevent the howl of pain from ripping open her lungs, she raced back through the orchard, took her boots off in the conservatory and crept up the back stairs and along the hall to her room.

  With trembling hands she hung the cloak in the armoire, hid her boots in the bottom, tossed her dress over the back of the chair and scrambled into her night rail and back into her bed.

  With the blankets over her head she surrendered to ugly sobs, all the more painful for her efforts to suppress them.

  She could see no hope for them no matter how she wished she had even half Levi’s optimism and determination. What would he do when he had to face that truth also?

  Dear God, she had to fight for them.

  Which meant she had to strive to believe at least as hard as he did.

  ***

  Chapter 3.

  1807

  ‘You haven't stepped a foot inside the mill since Da died.’

  There was an unusual hint of belligerence, or even aggression in Phil’s voice.

  It caused a slight hitch in the smooth slide of Levi's shovel and for a brief moment he considered the stinking pile of stable detritus at his feet. He should have let young Cam do the job, but he’d felt the need to shovel shit and Phil's challenge didn't change that.

  Shit was tangible.

  He could shift it, dispose of it, control it. Unlike much else in his life.

  Levi let his gaze rest on his brother. Standing just inside the door with feet planted wide and arms folded across his massive chest, it could have been their father standing there. Phil was like him in every way, even down to the quiet, steady temperament.

  Stare at his own reflection in a mirror as long as he would, Levi could never find any resemblance to the man who’d raised him and loved him.

  That last he’d never doubted. Still didn't. But everything else?

  Doubts screamed in his head.

  For if Arthur Longfellow was not his father, who was?

  ‘Da separated the businesses. From here on you work yours and I work mine. I have plans for this place.’

  ‘Why do you think he did it?’ Phil asked, genuine perplexity on his broad brow. He eased his stance a little and dragged a large hand through his sandy hair. ‘The two businesses always worked well together. He always ran them together. Why? That's what I don't understand.’

  Levi resumed shoveling, moving the pile of manure and old straw through the door at the far end of the stables where Cam would load it into a barrow and wheel it away to the midden at the bottom of the field.

  Standing the shovel in the corner, he absently stroked a velvety nose poked over a box door and scooped a handful of wizened apples from the barrel and offered them one at a time to the animals.

  He wasn't ignoring Phil. He just couldn't decide what to say in response to his pained question. Finally he looked up at his brother.

  ‘Perhaps he just realized I had a passion for the horses—and you don't?’

  Phil shook his head.

  ‘They've always run together,’ he said again. ‘He never even gave any indication he was thinking that way. And Ma just goes all tight-lipped and teary-eyed if I ask her. Starts babbling that she knows nothing because Da never discussed business with her. In fact, she said she didn't understand why I was asking because it's obvious I'm suited to be the miller and you to run the stables. I know that's the obvious answer, but I can't help thinking there's more to it than that.’

  ‘He was a good man, our Da,’ Levi said slowly, knowing that what he'd say next would unsettle his brother. ‘But, you know, I've always felt like a cuckoo in the Longfellow nest. I cannot find one feature among mine that resembled him. My temperament is opposite to his in every way—opposite to yours, because you have to know when I see you standing there, I also see him. No one would ever mistake me for Arthur Longfellow.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I'm saying, I don't believe Da was my father.’

  ‘Well, Mama would be the one to ask about that. Though—’

  ‘Yeah, how do you ask your mother a question that basically doubts her morals and veracity? Besides, I did that already.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I asked her why I was different, why I was the only one with black hair and much darker blue eyes. She looked a bit stunned, as if she wondered where the question even came from, then she said I was likely just a throwback to a distant ancestor and that there was no knowing when such traits would choose to manifest in later generations.’

  ‘And you accepted that?’

  ‘I was about ten at the time. Easily distracted.’

  ‘Doubtless plotting mischief with Lady Liberty.’

  Levi grimaced, every thought of her a lash of a whip across naked flesh.

  ‘I also asked her when I was fourteen where my name came from. Because more than one old biddy in the village has called me a heathen because of it. She said she read it in a book and liked the sound of it.’

  ‘You could ask her again. She's never talked about her early life—before she married Da. It is a bit unusual, your name. And a governess marrying a miller. It wouldn't have been any more acceptable back then than it is now. You were always her favorite, you know.’

  There was no animosity in Phil's tone. It was just a statement of fact.

  A fact Levi couldn't argue with. He'd always thought it was because he was the eldest, but Arthur Longfellow leaving the stables to Levi and the mill to Philip had raised the questions in his mind again, made him wonder about things he’d always taken for granted.

  All his life, Mama had made the daily trek through the village to the Hall to preside over the school room there, and Grandma Joan had run the mill house with a stern but loving hand. He'd never seen his mother cook a meal, wasn't sure she even could. But she’d given him a thirst for knowledge and encouraged his education well beyond anything a miller would normally have received.

  He’d been tutored by the vicar for several years and he’d tried to pass on those lessons to Phil.

  ‘I'm sorry I wasn't better at sharing what I learnt from the vicar,’ Levi growled self-consciously. ‘I was very fortunate—’

  Gruff laughter rumbled up from Phil’s barrel chest.

  ‘I didn't envy your opportunities. Books and study were never my thing. I know what I need to know to run the mill. That's all I care about.’

  Another way in which they were opposite. Levi soaked up knowledge, craved it. He'd gone happily to study with Vicar Coutts for three hours every morning until he was sixteen, had actually regretted when the lessons stopped.

  Vicar Coutts was a good tutor. He made history and geography exciting. Mathematics was easy and even Greek.

  ‘Another way in which I’m an anomaly. We rarely saw our Da reading a book.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Phil said. ‘I much preferred when we escaped to play on the rive
r. Remember the raft we made?’

  ‘The one that sank?’

  Phil chuckled.

  ‘It's a wonder it floated at all. Those old barrels were rotting.’

  ‘It took us well down the river though—and nearly got us drowned.’

  ‘As I remember,’ Phil said with a wry smile carrying a hint of the old hero-worship he’d had for Levi when they were younger, ‘my big brother saved me.’

  ‘It was my idea to build the bloody raft and put it in the river when it was in flood. I've never panicked so badly as when you swept away in the current. The first time I grabbed you your damned coat came off. How I got us to the bank I don’t know, but we would probably both have drowned if Lord Davencourt and his steward hadn't been out riding.’

  ‘Curmudgeonly old buggar,’ Phil muttered. ‘Miller's brats, he called us. I don't know which terrified me more, nearly drowning—or him. I thought you were going to try and bluster your way out of trouble, as you like to do, and then we were going to be in all sorts of hot water.’

  He'd been a brash and confident young fool at fifteen, Levi ruminated, and vividly remembered the furious glare Lord Charles Davencourt had loosed on them. At eleven, and still coughing up river water, Philip had been easily cowed.

  But Levi had almost choked on the hot words of defiance, already understanding the futility of expecting any sort of consideration from the aristocracy.

  They had rights and privilege. He had nothing.

  God knows why, but he’d never really known his place—or accepted that being the son of the miller made him any less than a son of an earl.

  ‘I nearly did let my hot head take over, but Da always said losing your temper makes a man weak. He was very wise, our Da. I keep reminding myself of that. He knew I was ambitious and probably would not be satisfied with the mill. The stables offer much more potential for expansion—and I have some ideas about that. Because if I am ever to have anything to offer to Lou, turning this operation into a stud is my best option.’

  Phil had followed him down the central aisle of the stables, stopping to lean against a stall while Levi hung over a half door holding an apple for the big dun stallion to lip off his hand.

  He knew his brother felt uncomfortable that their father had cut Levi out of the mill, which had always been deemed the primary family business and as such should have gone to the eldest son.

  Levi thought he’d understood Arthur’s decision, for clearly he and Phil were well suited to run the businesses they now had, could each develop those businesses how they wanted.

  Doubting their father now only raised questions he was no longer here to answer.

  ‘Stannesford will never consent to you marrying his daughter. For Christ’s sake, Lee, why can’t you see that?’ Philip growled, falling back on the old childhood nickname. ‘You’ll only bring his wrath down on all of us if you persist. And turning this place into a stud? Like Lord Wolfenden’s? You've got one small field. And a dozen loose boxes, which accommodate the hacks you rent out. Where are you going to house a stud—or finance it?’

  ‘There are acres of Larkhurst land behind us that are effectively lying fallow. I've been thinking about it for some time. I'm going to have to beard the curmudgeonly old buggar in his den.’

  Phil’s sandy brows danced high on his forehead.

  ‘Bloody hell, do you think he’ll go for it?’

  ‘Won't know till I ask. Can't see why he’d turn down the chance to get a regular income from land he does nothing with.’

  Phil made a sound somewhere between a guffaw and a belly laugh.

  ‘And finance? Da left us a bit each but—’

  Levi kept his back to Phil, but he could feel the disapproval and skepticism rolling off him in body-slamming waves. Phil had never had an imagination and Levi sometimes wondered if he even had dreams, or understood the concept.

  ‘I intend to approach Lord Wolfenden.’

  ‘You’ve thought it all out then?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The silence stretched behind him and for a moment he thought Phil had left.

  ‘And you don't mind that Da left me the mill? Because you're the oldest and I just presumed he would leave it to you. I imagine that’s what you thought too.’

  Still there then. Voice flat. Devoid of all emotion. So Phil.

  Another way they were different. He turned to face his brother.

  ‘No, Phil. I don't mind. Like I said before, our Da was a wise man. He worked out what was best for both of us—and left it all accordingly. You love the mill. Always have. While I take every opportunity to be with the horses. T’is best this way.’

  Phil sighed and heaved off the post he'd been leaning against.

  ‘How are the renovations going upstairs? Do you need a hand with anything?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Come up and have a look.’

  Levi led the way up the narrow stairs just inside the main door and stepped into the loft that ran the full length of the building. Standing aside, he let Phil survey the partitioning he’d put in to turn the open area into a comfortable living space.

  ‘Trying to make it fit for a lady?’

  Levi gulped—surprising himself at the hit of emotion momentarily closing his throat at the thought of Liberty living here.

  Liberty living with him.

  Loving him—the miller’s son.

  But he couldn't deny that's what was in his mind.

  With every slam of hammer on nail.

  ***

  ‘Mr. Levi Longfellow to see you, my lord.’

  Lord Charles Davencourt only just stopped his head from whipping around in shock at his butler’s announcement.

  So the moment had finally come. He’d been expecting it any time these last twenty years.

  He didn’t rise from his comfortable leather chair behind the massive rosewood desk.

  The young whelp hadn't earned that respect yet.

  The man who entered the room bore little resemblance to the stripling his steward had fished out of the river a few years back. Broad muscular shoulders filled the doorway and then he was standing before Charles’s desk, tall and straight, and looking him in the eye.

  No hint of subservience or hesitation.

  It could have been Jonathan standing there. He'd had the same unruly black hair, a lock of which he’d been constantly tossing off his forehead, and those defiant navy blue Davencourt eyes.

  Thank God he'd had years of practice at concealing the pain for he’d definitely not show it to the boy before him.

  Not a boy, he mentally corrected himself. A strong, handsome young man.

  It would make no difference. Things were best left as they were. He'd only just averted the scandal years ago and he certainly had no intentions of dredging it up now.

  Louis was his heir—indeed had no notion that could even be challenged.

  Charles would make sure it couldn't.

  ‘There's nothing here for you, boy,’ he growled, deciding he might as well set the tone from the start of this interview.

  As he’d made it plain to the boy’s mother all those years ago. Just as well he’d not allowed her to name him for his father. Not that he approved of the heathen name she had given him. But it suited him somehow.

  Damn. He was like his father.

  Jonathan. He’d not allow the old grief to surface or to change anything.

  Jonathan was dead and his twin would inherit. It would all go to Louis.

  Would he ever come home?

  Charles forced his grip to soften on the arms of the chair and his body to relax back into the body-molding leather.

  Not waiting to be invited, his visitor folded his big muscular body into the chair on the opposite side of the desk and pulled it closer so he could lean his elbows on the polished rosewood surface.

  Confident, determined and clearly wanting to take control of the interview.

  Like Jonathan. Damn.

  ‘I beg to differ. I don't know what you th
ink I want, but it would be to your advantage to hear me out.’

  Straight onto attack, just like his father. It was eerily similar to the very last interview he’d had with his first born. He’d sat in that very chair, when he wasn't pacing about the room making damned stupid threats—

  Jagged pain threatened to rip open the barely healed laceration in his heart and he cut off the thoughts, but it was difficult with Jonathan’s son sitting across the desk from him.

  Surreptitiously he pressed his hand against the ugliness in his chest.

  ‘My advantage, huh? And what might that be?’

  ‘There are four fields directly behind the stables which you don't appear to do anything with and I’d like to lease them from you.’

  The constriction in his chest abated and he could breathe easier.

  The boy had no idea who he was. He could work with that.

  ‘Why? What would you be wanting land for?’

  The achingly familiar eyes across the desk bored into his, and Charles found himself intrigued by the gamut of emotions he saw there. The whelp hadn't learnt yet to shield his feelings, and his next words told Charles he'd clearly decided not to even try.

  ‘Because, my lord, I have a dream. Most would say it's a young man's foolish dream, but I find I cannot rest unless I at least try to realize it.’

  ‘What dream would that be?’ Charles barked, intrigued in spite of himself. He’d watched Levi Longfellow from afar the whole of the man’s life. He’d seen the lanky, ill-formed youth grow into a formidably well-built man, handsome and upright.

  He’d listened and knew young Longfellow was intelligent and talented, honest and dependable in all he did.

  Knew also he was handy with his fists if aroused to the point he lost control of his volcanic Davencourt temper.

  Right now however, he appeared straightforward, earnest—and very serious.

  ‘I love Lady Liberty Davencourt and wish to be in a position to offer for her hand.’

  Charles found himself speechless for a moment, realizing he had the power to grant Levi his dream beyond his expectations.