Page 3 of Introducing Mr. Winterbourne
“So,” the earl said briskly, interrupting Lysander’s thoughts. “Can I rely on you to show Freeman around? Simon did particularly ask that it be you. He probably thinks that if people believeyoulike Mr. Freeman, they might warm to him a little more themselves.” He gave a humourless laugh. “As if you’d ever respect a man like that. He practically reeks of his filthy mills.”
Lysander couldn’t bring himself even to look at his father or acknowledge his vitriolic remarks.
“Well, Lysander?” the earl prompted sharply. “Will you do it? God knows, we’ll probably have to go back to the man with a begging bowl soon enough. I’ve just had a letter from Holmes to say the roof on the west wing of the Abbey is leaking badly.”
A small, disloyal voice in Lysander’s head whispered that if the earl hadn’t squandered the family fortunes at the gaming tables and had instead mended the roof of the west wing ten years ago when it hadstartedleaking, they wouldn’t have been having this conversation now. But he didn’t say anything. There was no point—it wasn’t as though anything he said would change the earl’s mind.
“All right,” he said flatly, not really caring anymore. “I’ll do it.”
It wasn’t as though he would have any better use for his time, was it?
The earl nodded, pleased at last.
“Good man,” he said heartily. “I won’t pretend it’ll be an easy few days—Freeman’s a thoroughly disagreeable fellow, but if anyone can manage him, it’s you. You always could charm the birds from the trees, my boy.”
Chapter 2
Adam Freeman scowledat the front door of the Winterbourne townhouse. It had recently been painted in bright bottle green. A lion’s head door knocker gleamed at him with brassy impudence.
Adam wondered if Lord Winterbourne had actually paid the painter yet. Another sheaf of bills had been delivered to him yesterday, some of them shockingly old and for tragically small amounts—bills that should have been given to him already. Did the earl ever think of the tradesmen and suppliers who waited months on end for payment? Did he spare a thought for their wives and children? Did it occur to him that his actions might force some of them into a debtors’ prison?
What manner of man lived like a king and didn’t pay his bills?
Lord Winterbourne’s approach to life was entirely at odds with how Adam had been raised. His father would be turning—whirling—in his grave right now, to see his sons cultivating such a man.
Damn Simon and his ambitions. Simon and his“If I want to change things, I need to be accepted by these people.”
Sometimes it seemed to Adam that Simon was changing before his very eyes, turning into the sort of man he’d always professed to despise. Was that what compromise did to a man? And if so, what did that say about Adam himself, who had come here today to spend the day with Lysander Winterbourne, the youngest—and arguably most useless—of the whole sorry Winterbourne clan?
Firming his lips, Adam took a hold of the brass lion head and delivered three sharp raps. The door swung open almost immediately, revealing the lugubrious countenance of Lord Winterbourne’s miserable butler.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “His Lordship and Mr. Winterbourne are expecting you. Please follow me.”
The butler’s invitation was delivered in accents that could only be described as tragic—Adam half expected to be shown into a room containing Lysander Winterbourne on his deathbed, the earl weeping at his side, but instead the unsmiling servant led him to a bright and sunny drawing room.
The earl was pacing in front of the fireplace, wearing a hole in the rug. He looked up at Adam’s entrance with an expression Adam had come to loathe. A flicker of dislike, quickly disguised by a fawning expression that turned his stomach. He walked forward to greet Adam.