Page 81

Christ God, he needed to fight, but not as a soldier, not anymore, not as a raging second son. He had to let those selves go.

He would learn to fight as the Duke of Weston, damn his father to hell. Damn Yardley, too, for giving up on him.

But first he had to get there. Three weeks remained. Twenty-one days until his birthday.

He shoved more pennies on the bar and cursed himself. The young idiot, fulfilling his destiny yet again.

He knew better. And he did worse.

When he stumbled out, the lamplighters were on the streets with their ladders, turning off the gas. By the time he stepped down from the cab in Mayfair, the sky was nearly light. The moon, faded, still floated above.

Luckily, he’d climbed up the side of Weston Hall and into his second-floor window often enough that he didn’t slip.

He got into his bed but lay awake, a roaring in his ears. He wanted oblivion but he’d settle for sleep.

It was a long time coming.

Chapter Fourteen

For the first time in months, Anthony’s days fell into a pleasing pattern. After breakfast, he would pore over the newspapers, working doggedly through the accounts of parliamentary debates. He wrote letters—shaping the words carefully—letters to Cruitshank, to Mabeldon, and tucked them himself into the bottom of the mailbag. He held a few meetings with his father’s political cronies, elder statesmen he’d been putting off for months. On three occasions, Yardley called while he was thus engaged. How shocked Yardley must have been, turned away at the door, the young idiot too occupied with important business to receive him. The reversal made Anthony smile.

In the late afternoon, he would stroll to the mews, pass through the coach house, linger in the stables, and make his way into the southeastern corner of the garden. If Anthony’s mother were still alive, the glasshouse would glow green, a profusion of leaves, brightly starred with new blooms, pressing the translucent walls. No trees, no plants, grew inside. But now, for first time in years, the glasshouse was filled with life, with color.

He would hallo softly from the doorway, and Lucy would acknowledge him with a word, a nod, or not at all. She worked in the center of the space, where his mother used to sit in winter. He’d lounge against the brick foundation, sitting on a shallow sill, the glazed glass rising behind him, and nurse a tumbler of whiskey. He watched Lucy at work. My God, he pitied her canvas! Trapped on its easel, nowhere to run as she approached, brush raised, face twisted in a ferocious scowl. Painting, she looked twice as alive as anyone he’d ever seen, pacing, spearing her hair with distracted fingers that left streaks of paint at her temples. Her eyes seemed lit from within, slits of gold. She circled the easel, darting and feinting, like a novice fencer sent into a frenzy by a motionless master. Or she was motionless, standing stock-still in the flooding light in the attitude of a saint communicating with angels. Little happened hour by hour to the canvas itself, but he could see by her face that a brushstroke had transported her into raptures or dashed her against the rocks of despair.

He was enthralled by the drama. Enthralled by her.

Sometimes they spoke as she washed brushes or stretched her back, folding forward at the waist, leaning back, in an awkward, wide-legged stance. Her frank, unselfconscious physicality delighted him, and he stretched too, striking even more ridiculous postures that made her laugh. Encouraged, one afternoon, he stood on his head, which turned her laugh into a growl.

“If you kick the easel, I will bury you.”

But he was far enough from the easel, to the side of it, the crown of his head aching where it ground into the iron grating. He took a deep breath, tensing his muscles, and lifted into a handstand. If he tipped too far over, his feet would hit the lower curve of the glass dome. But he didn’t tip, didn’t even wobble. Blood rushed to his head. Probably good—to drain the blood from that other part of him, the one making him show off for her like a green boy.

“You are a dolt,” she said as he lowered himself slowly, straight down, tucking into a crouch to prevent his legs from flailing. He grinned as he stood up, shaking the hair from his eyes. Dolt was high praise, considering her usual run of epithets.

Whenever he returned to the house from one of these too-brief idylls, he felt enlivened, as though a golden spark from her eyes had touched fire to something long dead in his chest.

• • •

One week passed and the next began. No matter how packed his schedule, he couldn’t avoid the confrontation forever. He knew it. He didn’t startle to hear Yardley’s voice, even though he’d told Collins to admit no one after his noon appointment.

“That wasn’t Samuel Lawford?”

Yardley stood in the doorway to the study, briefcase in hand, looking down the hall. Despite his irritation, Anthony felt amused by his expression. Yardley looked as gobsmacked arriving as Lawford had looked leaving.

Anthony dropped the report Lawford had handed him onto the desk.

“Nice fellow,” he said. “Principled.”

Lawford was motivated by ideals. Unlike the other politicians Anthony had invited into his study, Lawford hadn’t framed the laws he was drafting in terms of party strategy or personal gain. He hadn’t referred, ominously, to favors owed and grudges earned, to votes for sale. He hadn’t attempted to flatter Anthony by praising his father, or attempted to manipulate him by assuming his support for bills explained via references to the financial backing of wealthy constituents.

Refreshing. Lawford made politics seem palatable, even noble. A public service.

He should have held meetings with his father’s enemies sooner.

Yardley let the door bang behind him. His ginger brows had crept so high up his forehead they seemed in danger of annexation by his hairline.

“That man was a thorn in your father’s side. Did he come to threaten you? His muckraking friends in the press made a hell for this family. What did he want?”