Home of the Marquess of Stroud
One did begin to question one's own powers of intellect when every single invitation to dine with family resulted in the same, dreary combination of Spanish Inquisition meets Fordyce's Sermons.
Not that either Ethan's father, the Marquess of Stroud, nor Ethan's brother, by virtue of being the heir to the Earl of Elbridge, had ever read Fordyce's Sermons.
Actually, he had no memory of either of the two men seated at the elegantly appointed table with him ever having even held a book in his presence, let alone having read one.
And Elbridge had supposedly attended and finished his studies at Oxford.
In spite of this knowledge, Ethan had shown up on time and properly dressed at the invitation of his father to share a somewhat early dinner with the only two living members of his family. Perhaps invitation had been too genteel a term.
A somewhat high-in-the-instep footman had awakened Ethan at the ungodly hour of two in the afternoon to inform him that his presence was requested at dinner that evening.
He should have climbed out of bed then and made his escape.
As with all other dinners with his brother and father, he had been set upon the moment he sat down and placed his serviette in his lap.
Why, after all these years, had he thought tonight would be different?
"Have you heard a word I've said, sirrah?" his father demanded.
Ethan glanced up in time to spot the smirk his brother tried and failed to hide. "Actually no, Father, but as I suspect tonight's sermon differed little from the one you delivered on the last occasion I was so fortunate as to dine with you--"
"You listen to me, you sniveling molly-boy.
" The marquess pounded his fist on the table with such force his wine glass fell over.
A red stain began to spread across the fine linen and lace tablecloth.
"Your brother has had to put up with your scandalous behavior for far too long.
You will not spoil his courtship of the Devonworth chit with your scandalous antics and shameful, disgusting liaisons.
You are to turn down invitations to any events he attends, and you are to confine yourself to this house until he secures Lady Drusilla's hand. "
"Lady Drusilla?" Ethan stared at his brother in disbelief. "You have developed a tendre for Lady Drusilla?"
"A tendre? For that whey-faced cow?"
"Elbridge," their father warned.
"Ah," Ethan said. "I should have known. You've developed a tendre for the handsome funds and properties her father has settled on her. Do you really think the Duke of Devonworth will allow his only daughter to marry a mere earl?"
Whilst he awaited his brother's certain-to-be-witless-and-demeaning reply, he speared a piece of glazed pork and carefully chewed what should have been a delicious morsel of food. His father kept an excellent cook, but dining with his family tended to make everything taste like paper.
"He is heir to a marquess," their father said. "In case you have forgotten."
"Perish the thought," Ethan said solemnly.
"He is more than worthy of Devonworth's simpering dullard of a daughter. Having you as his brother will make the task of winning her hand difficult enough. You will not interfere in any way. Have I made myself understood?"
"Infinitely." Ethan kept his head down, determined to finish his meal.
He was long past the age of fleeing the table in tears as he had in childhood.
For some unfathomable reason, his father and brother still had the ability to wound him.
He'd grown impervious to those wounds at some point along the way.
Perhaps he inflicted these dinners upon himself to make certain his armor still held.
Ethan actually liked the Duke of Devonworth's daughter.
Lady Drusilla was a shy, rather soft-spoken woman of about twenty-five years, closer to his own twenty-eight years than to his brother's thirty-five.
She was well-read. Spoke several languages with more than competent fluency.
She liked birds and had a pet parrot that was known to swear quite profusely in mixed company.
God help her if she ended up married to Elbridge.
Speaking of his brother, the man suddenly stood and bent to whisper to their father who scowled but waved him off nonetheless.
"Off to start your courtship?" Ethan inquired with feigned disinterest.
"None of your bloody affair. You remember what father has said and stay out of my way, or you'll find yourself without funds or a place to lay your head, you fucking catamite." Elbridge strode for the doors out of the dining room.
"Says the man who is pockets-to-let a week after receiving his quarterly allowance," Ethan said affably, as Elbridge drew even with his chair.
His brother stopped and drew back his fist. Ethan picked up the carving knife from the china platter of pork on the table. He aimed the point at Elbridge's groin. "Do try, brother dear. Lady Drusilla will likely thank me for rendering you incapable of getting an heir on her."
"Ethan!" his father roared. Ethan gazed down the table. His father had half-risen from his chair, his face a florid shade of red. "Drop that knife and go to your chambers this instant."
Ethan began to laugh. He stood and drove the knife into the long, expensive dining table through the equally costly tablecloth.
"I'm no longer a child, old man." He pushed his brother back a few steps.
"And I would not dream of depriving you of your heir.
The last thing I want to be is the next Marquess of Stroud.
" He strolled out of the dining room and made his way to his chambers on the second floor.
He allowed his mind to go blank and simply breathed long, deep breaths as he ascended the stairs.
He had settled into the worn leather wingback chair before the hearth in his sitting room with a volume of Burns' poetry when a light scratch came at the door.
"My lord?" Claxton, the family's butler opened the door enough to stick his head into the room. Ethan waved him in and dropped the book onto the sturdy cherrywood fireside table.
"What news, Claxton?" He shifted forward to the edge of his seat, hands clasped between his knees. The butler stepped inside and closed the door carefully behind him before he drew closer to where Ethan sat.
"He is off to that new gaming hell on Pickering Place, my lord, with a rather large purse of money."
Ethan snorted and rolled his eyes. "Nothing to surprise us there." He raised a hand to tap a forefinger to his chin. "One does wonder where he acquired the money. His quarterly is long gone."
Claxton cleared his throat. "Your father gave him the money, my lord. I saw it myself."
"Father?" Ethan flinched against the sudden standing of the hair at the back of his neck. "How did you...You've been lurking about the servants' passages, haven't you?" He smiled at the sudden flush to the butler's face.
"Lurking is such an unattractive word, my lord." Claxton clasped his hands behind his back. His expression grew suddenly earnest. "I could not hear all that was said between them, but I would respectfully suggest you have a care. They are up to no good, my lord, and I suspect their target is you."
Ethan rose and glanced about the room before he turned his attention to the butler once more. "Isn't it always? Can you send to the mews for my carriage?"
"Done, my lord. Young Jack will drive you."
He should have known Claxton would anticipate his next move. The butler's assignment of the task to Jack, Claxton's own nephew, ensured Ethan's intention to follow his brother would remain amongst the three of them.
"Might I suggest the back stairs?" Claxton asked, as he and Ethan left the sitting room and headed down the corridor toward the rear of the house. "I took the liberty of handing your hat, gloves, and greatcoat to Jack to put into the carriage."
They hurried out a side door, across the moonlit garden, past the mews to the lane that ran behind the houses on Grosvenor Street.
Jack, perched on the driver's bench, touched his hat with a nod.
Ethan hauled himself into the carriage and leaned out the window to clasp Claxton's shoulder. "What would I do without you, Claxton?"
"Let us hope you never find out, my lord. Do be careful. Your brother and father working together makes me uneasy." He turned and walked back to the house.
"That makes two of us," Ethan muttered as Jack set the carriage in motion and turned the horses toward Pickering Place.
An hour later, Ethan sat slumped in his chair at a table overlooking the gambling floor of London's latest addition to the host of gambling hells all too willing to take a young aristocrat's money.
The club was elegantly appointed, large enough to accommodate several expansive gaming tables around which small crowds of well-dressed gentlemen took their chances against the house.
Two to six card players matched their wits and purses in hands of whist and vingt-et-un at a number of smaller tables.
The furnishings were tasteful without being garish with deep blue and gold silk wall-coverings, French décor, and several buffets of decent, though not opulent, foods.
The brandy Ethan had been sipping for the last hour was French, not the finest, but palatable.
In one corner of the gaming floor below him was a large desk behind which the director sat and extended credit to those the hell's owner had deemed worthy.
He found it curiouser and curiouser that his brother had ventured to none of the games, nor had he approached the director.
Elbridge had been seated alone at a small private table below and just in front of where Ethan sat.
Alone until twenty minutes or so past when a gentleman in an expensive many-caped greatcoat had appeared from somewhere behind the table and joined Elbridge.
The newcomer wore the collar of his coat up, obscuring his face.
From what Ehtan could see he was tall, somewhat lanky with hair the color of a raven's wing in the sun.
The discussion between his brother and this mystery gentleman had grown intense over the last twenty minutes.
Elbridge was gesticulating rather wildly.
His face was flushed and his movements abrupt and ungraceful.
The dark-haired gentleman, however, appeared completely at ease and almost bored.
Almost. The longer Ethan observed him the more he was able to discern a sort of restless edge to the man's posture, like a hungry cat ever ready to pounce on a mouse.
Finally, Elbridge slid a heavy pouch across the table.
His companion extended a long-fingered rather elegant hand, covered the pouch, and with a modicum of movement said pouch disappeared into the man's coat pocket.
Ethan's brother leapt to his feet. The other man raised his head at last and said something to Elbridge that made him back away, nearly fall over his chair, and flee to the faro table across the room.
He glanced over his shoulder several times as if he expected the other man to follow. He didn't.
No, the raven-haired gentleman in the expensive coat sat at the table and studied the room as if committing the sight to memory.
His features were harsh, sharply cut as if with a blade rather than a sculptor's chisel.
His hair hung down to his shoulders with no discernible style or cut Ethan had ever seen, at least not on a gentleman.
The slight movement of the fingers of one hand tapping on the table was the only indication he lived and breathed, so still was his presence.