Regency Society. Ann Lethbridge
note says she will find something larger, since simple presents do not seem to entertain you.’
He imagined her voice, framing those words with a hint of disapproval. ‘If her man is still waiting, tell him that I will be by this evening to deliver my thanks in person. I would go now, but there is a large piece of furniture blocking my way to the door.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
The men cleared away, leaving him alone with his present. And it was as though he could sense the interloper in the room, without even approaching it. He could feel the faint vibrations of the strings inside, for they still hummed with the recent disturbance.
He walked towards it, bumping into the corner and hearing the hollow rap of his cane against its body, running his hand along the side and hoping that she had not wasted money on some gold, heavily ornamented monster of an instrument. It felt simple enough. Rectangular, and with the slightly sticky feel of varnish rather than paint.
So she thought he should keep busy. Clearly, she did not understand what it meant to be a gentleman. His status in society removed the whole point of an occupation. He was not supposed to make work for himself. And many of the things that might have kept him entertained were quite lost to him, now that his eyes were gone. Even gaming had lost its lure. He could no longer read the cards without help, and his need to touch the face of the dice, to feel the spots and assure himself of the roll, was often taken as cheating by his opponents.
He sat down on the bench and laid his hands on the ivory keys, depressing one to hear the tone of it, and depressing his spirit as well. It would need continual tuning, of course. These things always did. But was he expected to know by listening whether it was right or wrong?
He walked his fingers up a scale and sighed, already bored with it in a few short notes. He laboriously picked out a folksong, and then a familiar hymn. The tunes were thin, and he was sure that a talented musician would be searching for seconds and thirds, and chords, finding harmonious combinations by trial and error.
What had he taken from the few music lessons of his youth? Damn little. While his mother had thought it a good idea to give him some understanding of the arts, his father had thought it a waste of time. The clock on the mantel chimed a quarter past the hour. It was just as it had been when he was a boy. He had been sitting at the instrument for only a few moments, and already he was stiff, bored and aching to leave it behind.
‘A visitor to see you, my lord.’ Abbott had entered with the announcement, and Adrian looked up with eagerness, forgetting for a moment that he had not accepted a guest in months as his condition had deteriorated.
‘Mr Eston.’
‘Damn and hell.’ Emily’s brother, and the last man on the planet he wished to see. ‘Put him off. Any excuse you like, I do not care.’
‘He will not be denied. He says that he means to wait in the entry until he meets with you, either coming or going.’
It sounded very like his old friend David, who in comparison to Adrian had both the patience and morals of a saint. ‘Give me a moment, and then show him in.’
When he heard the door close, he hurried across the room to the brandy decanter, filling a glass with such speed that he spilled some on his sleeve. Even better. The smell of the liquor burned in his nostrils, making an attempt at the appearance of drunkenness more obvious. For good measure he dipped his fingers into the glass and sprinkled more of it onto his coat then took a mouthful and swished it about a bit before swallowing. Then he went back to sprawl in a chair by the fireplace with the decanter in one hand and the half-empty glass in the other, barking his shin against the piano bench on the way, then sitting down again just as the door opened.
He looked up as though the hulking shadow in the doorway seemed the least bit familiar, and raised his glass in salute. ‘David, it has been so long.’
‘Over a year,’ his brother-in-law grunted at him.
‘And what brings you to London?’
‘I have come to fetch you home.’
‘Why, my dear sir, I am home.’ He waved the glass to encompass the room, spilling more of the contents in the process. ‘Please, avail yourself of my hospitality. A drink, perhaps?’
‘It is just gone noon, Adrian,’ David said with disgust. ‘Far too early for brandy.’
‘But this is a special occasion, is it not? We have established that you do not visit often. To see you now is a cause for celebration.’ To see him at all would be more of a miracle. But for now, his unfocused gaze and unwillingness to meet his friend’s eye would be blamed on a guilty nature and the glass in his hand.
Eston grunted again, and he did not need eyes to guess the expression of distaste on the man’s face. ‘You celebrate too often, as it is.’
‘There is much reason to make merry, for London is a fine town.’
‘But not so fine that you would bring my sister to it.’
‘I did not think she would enjoy it. You said often enough, before we married, that she was a simple girl.’
‘She is a woman, now. And she is here in town.’ David paused to give significance to the next words. ‘But she is not staying with me.’
Adrian gave an uneasy laugh. ‘Is that so?’
‘She has taken rooms, and refuses to tell me where. I assume that she is using them to receive someone that she does not want me to meet.’
‘I do not mind her coming to town. Nor have I forbidden her from socialising. There is money enough to take lodgings of her own, should she choose to. And there is hardly space enough here, should she want to come to me.’
‘If there is money enough to maintain two residences,’ David said with irritation, ‘then there is also money enough to get a town house large enough to share.’
‘But would that allow her the privacy she seeks?’ Adrian said with mock innocence.
David made a noise of exasperation. ‘Why should it matter to you? She is your wife and should not require more privacy than you wish to give her.’
Adrian took a swig of his brandy, and waved his other hand, as if the concept were too much for his addled brain. ‘Well then, we are in agreement. I wish to allow her as much privacy as she wants, and to allow myself the same.’
‘So it does not bother you that she has taken a lover?’
There would be no way of avoiding the truth if David insisted on sharing it with him. Adrian poured himself another brandy and drank deep, pretending that he cared for nothing but the spirit, ignoring the tightening in his guts. ‘And who might that be?’
‘I do not know his name,’ David said. ‘But I ran into her today, shopping on Bond Street. And it was obvious what she has been doing with the days she has been absent from my lodging. She positively glowed.’
‘I am encouraged by her continued good health,’ Adrian said absently, feeling both relieved and discouraged by the sketchy information.
‘It is not health I am referring to, you drunken ninny,’ David snapped back, all patience gone. ‘I have never seen my sister looking thus. She has been with a man.’
Adrian sipped his drink, looking down into it as though he could see it. ‘And I have been with a woman. I can hardly blame her, David. You know we are estranged.’
‘But I do not know the reason for the separation.’
He took another drink from his glass. ‘Perhaps not. But it is no business of yours. It is a matter between my wife and myself.’
‘And now it is a matter between you and me. You have made no effort to be a husband to her, and now she is likely to shame herself and you with a public affair.’
‘With my blessing,’ Adrian said, gritting his teeth.