Page 16 of The Secret Word (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #10)

C hris waited anxiously in the private room at Miss Clemens’ Book Emporium and Tea Rooms. He was about to meet cousins from both sides of the family, and he was far from certain about the reception he was about to get.

Clem squeezed his hands and he smiled at her. He wasn’t at all certain he would be facing this if not for her. She gave him strength.

She had done so at Aunt Fern’s ball. Both his mother’s brother, the Earl of Crosby, and his father’s cousin, the Earl of Halton, were there. Later, he found that the public repudiation had been organized by Aunt Fern. But whether they meant it or not was the question.

Both reacted with the same disdain when Chris was presented to them.

Lord Halton said, “Reginald Satterthwaite’s son? I have no wish to meet anyone associated with that scoundrel.”

And Lord Crosby looked Chris up and down and declared, “No, thank you, Lady Fernvale. With all due respect, I see no reason to acknowledge this person.”

Chris wanted the floor to open up and swallow him, and then Clem had slipped her hand into his, and all was right with his world. He had not had their approbation before, and had not felt the need for it. He did not need it now.

Nonetheless, as the minutes ticked by, he acknowledged to himself his deep yearning for a family.

He would have Clem, of course. Somehow. With or without Wright’s blessing.

But, for as long as he could remember, he had longed for brothers and sisters or—failing them—cousins.

Perhaps, if this meeting went well, his children with Clem might grow up knowing their cousins.

The first to arrive was Lord Crosby’s son, a tall man with that gaunt, stretched look of a youth who was still growing—one who ate like a horse and put on no weight.

“Are you the son of Reggie Satterthwaite, who ruined my father’s sister Christabel and ran off with her to Gretna Green?

” he asked. “I am Michael Thurgood, Lord Crosby’s son and your mother’s nephew. ”

He held out a hand to be shaken, so Chris figured his somewhat hostile first question could safely be ignored.

“Clem,” he said, figuring a female—and a non-family member at that—might help to keep the conversation civil, “May I present my cousin Michael Thurgood? Thurgood, Miss Wright has done me the honor of accepting my suit. I have yet to convince her father.”

“Miss Wright.” Michael Thurgood’s nod was perfectly polite, but his attention remained on Chris. “Is it true, what Lady Fernvale said? That your grandfather abandoned you in the streets after your father died?” he demanded. “Father says he would have taken you in if you had come to him.”

Chris was about to protest that his nine-year old self had had no idea where the Earl of Halton lived, and no expectation of being welcomed, in any case. But they were interrupted by another arrival. A second man, this one around Chris’s age, so perhaps five or six years older than Thurgood.

Chris would have known him for a Satterthwaite, even if he had not been expecting him.

He look more like Reggie, Chris’s father, than Chris did, though his hair and complexion were fairer and his chin was firm and determined where Reginald Satterthwaite’s had been weak.

He wore the flashy uniform of a horse guard.

“If you’re Satterthwaite, so am I,” he growled. “Hello, Thurgood.”

Thurgood nodded. “Satterthwaite.” He gained a bit of respect from Chris when he then turned to Clem.

“Miss Wright, may I make known to you Captain Satterthwaite of His Majesty’s 27th Regiment of Horse, and Satterthwaite, this is our cousin Christopher Satterthwaite and his betrothed, Miss Clementine Wright. ”

As with Thurgood, Satterthwaite greeted Clem politely, but then turned his attention back to Chris.

“Is it true you did not go overseas with your grandfather? My father wants to know why you didn’t come to us. We would not have turned you away.”

“You did,” Chris said, dryly. “Or at least, your grandfather had me and my grandfather thrown out of the house, and when my grandfather sent me back on my own, the butler would not let me in.”

“You were nine or ten,” the guard’s officer said.

“I was nine.”

“You went back out into the road, and then what?”

“I ran back to where my grandfather had been, but he was gone. I called out for him. I asked other people if they had seen him. Then I ran down the street he’d left by. But I never found him.”

“I saw you,” Satterthwaite said. “I was watching from the schoolroom. You turned at the corner. Do you remember? You shook your fist at the house.”

“I did,” Chris said. He had forgotten that detail until this moment. “I was angry with my grandfather and with yours.”

“It is you,” Satterthwaite said. “Chris, isn’t it?

Chris, I’m Harry. I’m pleased to meet you at long last. I told my father what I had seen that afternoon, and he went after you, but he never found you.

We hoped you might have caught up with your grandfather.

” Harry shrugged. “Better that than the streets.”

“I didn’t,” Chris said. “I haven’t seen my grandfather from that day to this, though Lady Fernvale says he is back in England, or was six months ago, when she saw him.”

“He came to my father, six months ago,” offered Thurgood.

“Father saw him, if only to ask about you, but he said what you did—that he hadn’t seen you since he left you with Lord Halton.

Which we knew he hadn’t, for Harry’s father, had come all those years ago, asking mine if he knew where you were.

If he’s going to be Harry to you, I’d better be Michael.

Once all the secrecy is over, you’ll have too many cousins to be Thurgooding and Satterthwaiting everyone. ”

“What is the secrecy for, by the way?” Harry asked. “Lady Fernvale said something about Miss Wright’s father? Will it not help you for him to know you are supported by your family? Everyone knows he has been looking to breed his daughter to a blueblood.”

He choked on the last word and cast a guilty glance at Miss Wright. “I beg your pardon, Miss Wright. Should not have said that.”

“It is true, nonetheless,” Clem told him, “but not in the way you might think. He wants a blueblood, as you call your class, as a grandson, which means a blue-blooded husband for me. That much is true. Chris, you worked it out. You explain.”

“His hopes are pinned on his grandson,” Chris agreed.

It bore repeating. “He wants no interference in how the boy is raised. Indeed, he wants the grandson’s father to be utterly under his thumb, without allies who might support any rebellion, or, indeed, any attempt to influence the grandson’s upbringing. ”

Michael was nodding. “That explains why he has been turning down some of those who are hanging out for a fortune. I take it you mean to marry Miss Wright, then let Wright know you have an estate of your own and family who will acknowledge you?”

Harry looked as if he was bursting to say something, but it appeared Clem’s presence was inhibiting him. Clem must have thought so, too, for she said, “Spit it out, Harry. I will try not to take offense.”

Harry was the sort of fair-skinned man on which every blush was painfully obvious. He reddened, but still said, “No offense intended, Miss Wright, but Chris, you don’t need to marry for money anymore.”

“And is that not fortunate?” Chris said. “Clem will be able to walk down the aisle knowing I married her for her own lovely self, and not for the dubious rewards that her father might or might not distribute my way.”

Michael’s eyebrows shot up again. “This is a love match then? Well. Our family would certain not wish to stand in the way of true love. Not again, anyway. My father thinks that, if he and his father had stood by his sister, we would have been able to save her life, or at the very least save you.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed. “I don’t have the authority to speak for my father, Chris.

He and his cousin did not get on, and that is putting it mildly, I gather.

He’ll need to know more before he decides to take you into the bosom of the family.

But he won’t queer your pitch.” He paused. “What do you need us to do?”

Chris exchanged glances with Clem. This had all been much easier than they expected. “Thank you,” he said.

Michael handed Chris his glass in a mute request for a refill. As Chris refreshed all the glasses, his cousin asked, “Who rescued you when you were turned away by Harry’s grandfather, if I might ask? Lady Fernvale said some kind person took you in.”

Again, Chris and Clem exchanged glances. They had been tolerant so far. But how would they react to his personal history as a street rat, a pickpocket, and then an errand boy for Ramping Billy? Ah well. It was the truth, after all.

“A gang of pickpockets,” he said. “They robbed me and then took pity on me. They gave me some rags to wear and taught me their trade.”

Harry was staring at him with his mouth open. “You were a pickpocket? Good God!”

Michael, meanwhile, was chuckling. “I cannot wait to tell my father. You must have been a good one, for here you are.”

“Not good enough,” Chris said. “Ramping Billy O’Hara caught me picking his pocket, and decided to keep me. You’ve heard of Ramping Billy?”

Harry nodded and Michael whistled. “He was your kind person?”

“When I told Aunt Fern that, I meant the pickpockets, but yes. Billy has been surprisingly kind to me. He gave me a job upstairs in the brothel above his first gambling den—emptying chamber pots, sweeping the floor, and collecting dirty linens, mostly. And then different tasks as I grew older. He made sure I was educated. And when I showed some talent with mathematics, he hired me as his bookkeeper.”

“I’ve never seen you at O’Hara’s places,” Michael commented.

“I work out of sight and I don’t gamble or frequent the ladies,” Chris told him. “I mostly work out of Fortune’s Fool.”