As was inevitable, Eliot’s father ordered him into his presence three days later. He was surprised that the earl had taken so long to react. He’d expected a report of his encounter with Verena in the park to reach his parent’s ear within the hour. The Pater was getting slow in his old age.
Eliot strolled through a beautiful spring afternoon to Lorimer Square, where his father had rented an opulent house for Imogen’s season. The weight in his gut was familiar from childhood, although at least today his father was unlikely to beat him for his sins, the way he had when Eliot was a boy. It always struck him as odd that while he’d long ago lost any respect for his father and thanks to a godmother’s generosity, he no longer relied on the old man for money, the words, “Your father wishes to see you,” still turned his blood to ice.
Brent the butler opened the door and took his hat. “You’ve got his lordship in a right spin, Mr. Eliot. Everyone downstairs has been walking on eggshells the last day or so. He knocked one of the maids down this morning, because she made too much noise putting fresh eggs on the breakfast table.”
Brent and he were old friends. As a child at Hamble Park, Eliot had often run to the servants for comfort after his father’s temper had left him bruised and bewildered, and wondering why he always did something wrong when he tried so hard to do right. While it might be many years since Brent and his wife, the housekeeper, had mopped up blood and tears after an encounter with his enraged sire, the fondness remained.
“Send the girl to Trentham Hall, if she wants to leave my father’s employ. I’m sure Mrs. Oates can find a place for her.” A fair proportion of the staff at his country estate were refugees from his father’s violence.
“Thank you. She’s a good lass.” He and Brent shared a steady look that spoke of years of cleaning up the results of his father’s anger. Several times, Eliot had asked Brent to work for him in Wiltshire, but the man came from a long line who had served the Earls of Deerforth. And as he said, he needed a more challenging role than running a house that Eliot seldom visited. Challenging certainly described Lord Deerforth’s household.
“Is he in the library?”
“Yes.”
“And where are Imogen and Stella?”
“Lady Imogen and Miss Stella are paying calls this afternoon, I believe.”
“Let’s hope that he’s cooled down by the time they come back,” Eliot said without much optimism.
Over recent years, his father’s resentment of Eliot’s growing independence had only deepened. Their rare encounters grew ever more acrimonious. Today’s promised to raise the roof, so he was glad his sister and his cousin were out of the house.
“Indeed, Mr. Eliot,” Brent said, and Eliot’s heart sank further as he heard an equal lack of conviction in Brent’s voice.
“Don’t show me through. I can make my own way to him.” He’d make his own way in any case, but that didn’t mean he looked forward to the histrionics to come.
While he’d kept his rooms at the Albany during his family’s stay in London – he only lived under his father’s roof when he couldn’t avoid it – he knew his way around the house from his visits to Imogen. The library was on the ground floor at the back, overlooking the generous garden. All these houses on Lorimer Square occupied what were, in London terms, large plots of land.
He walked along the corridor and knocked on the closed door at the end.
“Come,” his father barked from inside.
With grim fatalism, Eliot opened the door and stepped into the library. “Good afternoon, Father.”
With difficulty, Lord Deerforth rose from behind the large desk and glared at his only son. As a younger man, he’d been handsome, but years of bad temper and self-indulgence had taken their toll. There was a portrait of a young Deerforth at Hamble Park that could have been a picture of Eliot. But little of that angelic, golden-haired gentleman remained now.
The earl was still tall, but time had added stones to his weight and the chiseled features had coarsened and settled into a permanent peevishness. The golden hair had turned gray and sparse, and the pale eyes were sunk in pouches of fat. He looked what he was – a selfish brute with no tolerance for anything but his own desires and opinions.
Eliot couldn’t remember ever loving his father, but as an adult, he’d come to hate him. If he hadn’t been so fond of Imogen and if he hadn’t owed a duty to the family name, he’d have broken off relations long ago.
“Well may you call me father when I’m ashamed to call you son.”
Eliot bit back a sigh. He already saw that this was going to turn out to be one of his father’s more self-righteous tirades. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with the deliberate calmness that he always cultivated with his sire. It drove Deerforth demented when his temper raised no reaction. Eliot had started it to annoy his father, but these days, he was calm because mostly he just didn’t care.
“Sorry? Sorry? Sorry?” Deerforth repeated on a rising note. “You should be on your knees and begging my pardon, you brainless fool.”
Eliot arched his eyebrows and spoke even more coolly. “Is that so?”
His father hadn’t invited him to sit down. These days, Eliot didn’t seem to be a welcome visitor wherever he went.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know why I called you here.” His father lumbered out from behind the desk. His bulk and height always conveyed a threatening air, although Eliot was now two inches taller and his days of cowering beneath his father’s overpowering anger were long past. “Not even you could be as stupid as that.”
Eliot’s supposed lack of intelligence was an old insult, and one that had long ago lost its sting. He rested his weight on one hip and folded his arms with an appearance of casual interest. “I assume you’ve heard of my pursuit of Lady Verena Gerard.”
His father growled and stepped close enough to breathe into Eliot’s face. This time, only the strongest willpower kept Eliot where he was. The reek of stale tobacco smoke and brandy would topple a weaker man. “You dare to speak that whore’s name in this house?”
Eliot met his father’s glittering eyes. His voice emerged edged with icicles. “You will not insult the lady in my presence, sir.”
His father snarled. “She’s no lady. Her name is infamous throughout the land. And you had the temerity – the madness – to introduce this harlot to your innocent sister? What the devil were you thinking, you idiot? When I heard the tale, I didn’t believe it. By God, you’ve always been a disappointment, but that you should show such profligate disregard for the most basic rules of propriety leaves me speechless.”
Unfortunately that was far from the truth. If only it was. “Lady Verena is a duke’s daughter, and she’s accepted everywhere. I’m proud to call her my friend.”
His father went an alarming shade of crimson and puffed up with such fury that Eliot feared for the old boy’s health. “Proud? The woman is a living example of vice and degradation. You will wait in this house and apologize to Imogen for exposing her to such contagion. Then you will break off all connection with this shameless harpy.”
Eliot found it in him to smile. It was either that or punch his father in the jaw. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, sir. I intend to make Lady Verena my wife.”
His father’s color flared even higher, and he staggered back to seize the mantelpiece in a shaking hand. “You…”
For once, Eliot had succeeded in silencing his father, but there was no satisfaction in it. The earl looked like he was about to suffer an apoplexy.
Eliot filled a glass from the decanter of brandy on the desk and extended it toward the gasping man. “Father, drink this.”
“Sod off, you swine,” the earl said with an uncontrolled gesture that caught Eliot’s hand. The glass flew out of his hold and shattered on the fireplace surrounds. “I don’t need your pity. I’m all right. Or I would be, if I had a son who hadn’t lost his mind. What the devil insanity is this? If you want the wench, go ahead and fuck her. A thousand other men have.”
Eliot’s eyes narrowed on this ranting hypocrite, familiar to every brothel in London. “If you were one ounce fitter, I’d beat you to a pulp,” he said through lips that felt like they were made of wood. “As it is, I bid you good afternoon. I’ll inform you when I’ve gained Lady Verena’s consent.”
His father gulped in a mouthful of air and straightened, although his hand still gripped the edge of the mantel so hard that the knuckles shone white in his fat fingers. “So you haven’t asked her yet?”
Eliot paused in the act of walking out and faced his father. “Yes, I have.”
Then he wished to blazes that he hadn’t admitted that. It gave his father the advantage.
“But she hasn’t given you an answer.” His father studied him with the contempt that he was used to. “Wait, she did answer. But she said no, didn’t she?”
The problem with his father – one of the many problems with his father – was that while he might be a loathsome individual, he possessed a razor-sharp mind. What Eliot would give right now to present his marriage to Verena as a fait accompli. “I hope to persuade her of the advantages of the match.”
Deerforth broke into a delighted cackle and started to look a little better to Eliot’s relief. “Bugger me if I don’t almost admire the wench. She knows she’s no fit wife for you. She knows she’s no fit match for any man. At least old Horsham taught her that much, and she’s no fool, even if she’s got the morals of an alley cat. I wish my son had half her brains.”
“As I said, I’ve proposed and I intend to press my suit,” Eliot said in a flat voice, one hand closing into a fist at his side. How he itched to smash that crowing leer from his father’s face. Maybe if the man was ten years younger and ten stone lighter, he might have done it.
“She won’t say yes. Whatever else she is, she’s a woman who knows what society will accept.”
“I believe you’re wrong.”
His father must have felt on firmer ground because he took an unsteady step toward Eliot. He made a visible effort to sound calmer. At last, he gestured Eliot toward a chair. An invitation he ignored.
“Come, lad. Put this insanity behind you. If you persist in associating with this woman, you’ll lose any chance of making your mark in parliament. They’re talking of you as a future prime minister. You’ve got a brilliant career ahead. You can place your stamp on the country. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to make your old dad proud?”
What Eliot wanted was a chance to shove his old dad’s teeth down his throat. He reminded himself again that he, more than anyone, knew violence solved nothing. Enjoyable as clouting the earl might prove.
“No, I don’t.” He didn’t point out that his father wasn’t talking about him as too stupid for his own good anymore. His father had never been one to let logic lose him an argument. “The only thing I want is to be Lady Verena Gerard’s husband. That would indeed be an achievement worth boasting about.”
His father jerked as if Eliot had struck him, and the temper stirred again. “Then to hell with you. I can’t stop you. You’re of age, more’s the pity. It makes me sick to the stomach that I can’t bar you from the succession. You’re not fit to hold the Deerforth title.”
Eliot’s disdainful bow conveyed no respect. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”
“I won’t inform Imogen of your blatant disregard for her welfare and reputation. It will only cause her distress.” If his father loved anyone, he loved Imogen. And she’d always had the knack of handling the old man better than Eliot ever did. “I’d like to avoid a scandal as long as I can, although if you continue along this absurd path, you’ll ruin the whole family in the end, you useless cur.”
In truth, Eliot felt a twinge of guilt about the impact that his courtship might have on Imogen’s season. Although as he’d said to Verena, the girl was such a catch, her brother’s behavior wouldn’t destroy her long-term prospects. “If I wed Lady Verena, Imogen will know.”
“I hope she’s safe by then. The engagement to Lord Halston is close to done and dusted. I’m expecting him to offer for her any day now.”
“Yes?” Eliot asked, not liking where this was going. He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he should to Imogen’s beaux. The end of his love affair with Verena had left him too sunk in despair.
He’d heard rumors about his sister and Halston. The man struck him as too experienced for a girl of only twenty. His reputation as a ladies’ man wasn’t much better than Shelburn’s. On the other hand, Eliot could imagine the licentious earl was more to Imogen’s taste than prosy, middle-aged Lord Chippenham. And perhaps Halston was sincerely in love with Imogen. Eliot might be biased, but he thought that his sister was a genuine prize. Too good for Halston, in truth.
Of course, whispers of engagements were meat and potatoes to society. Most of them ended up being as insubstantial as sea mist. But Halston had danced with Imogen at every ball that Eliot had attended lately. Not to mention that the man had invited Imogen down to the country for his recent house party, which seemed a marked sign of favor.
“I can’t stop you from pursuing this disastrous course, much as I want to,” his father said. “But if you have an ounce of love for me, if you have an ounce of love for your sister, don’t do anything to spoil her chances with Halston. Her marriage to him will be a triumph, and it will put her out of reach of the catastrophe that you threaten to bring down on this family.”
Eliot frowned. His father sounded desperate, which wasn’t his usual manner. His standard tone was command not entreaty. Despite everything that had just passed between them, Eliot couldn’t help considering his father’s request. Because while he didn’t give a rat’s arse about his sire, he dearly loved his sister.
If Imogen wanted Halston and he wanted her, Eliot owed it to her not to stand in their way. He pointed out the obvious flaw in his father’s plan. “The season has just started. What if Halston doesn’t propose until August?”
What if Halston didn’t propose at all?
“Then give me a month.” Now that his anger seeped away, his father look tired and unwell. Pity made an uncomfortable bedfellow with Eliot’s long-standing hatred. “Why the devil would Halston delay, if he’s found the girl for him? And he must know Imogen doesn’t lack for admirers. He won’t want to take the chance of losing her.”
Eliot’s lips closed against an instinctive urge to deny his father. Verena wouldn’t wait a month to choose another lover. That oily bastard Shelburn was already hanging about like a bad smell. Every time Eliot turned around, the rogue was dogging Verena’s steps.
On the other hand, Eliot continued to pursue Verena because he suspected that he was more to her than just a passing amusement. If she forgot him so easily, perhaps he should just accept his broken heart and give her up.
Not to mention that he owed Imogen his loyalty. He’d never underestimated the almighty scandal that would break out if he and Verena married. Their association would set every tongue in society wagging, which was one of the reasons that he’d tried so hard to keep their affair secret until now.
He was willing to pay the price to win the woman he loved. But must his sister pay the price, too?
“A month’s delay won’t change my mind about marrying Verena,” he said coldly.
Eliot knew his father well enough to realize that he didn’t just make this plea on behalf of Imogen’s happiness. The earl hoped that if his son had time to weigh consequences, he’d repent of his imprudent intentions. But none of that changed the fact that wooing Verena could disadvantage Imogen.
“That may be,” the earl said. “But it will give Imogen a chance to marry the man she wants. When Halston proposes, she can push for a quick wedding. I doubt he’ll kick up a fuss.”
The man she wanted, not to mention the man with the Prince Regent’s ear and a network of connections at the top levels of society and business. His father wasn’t thinking of Imogen’s heart, but how he could take advantage of his influential son-in-law.
“After a month, you will make no public complaint about my courtship of Verena. If we marry, you’ll come to the wedding.”
Displeasure flashed in the earl’s eyes, but after a moment, he nodded. “Agreed.”
Eliot despised his father, but the stamp of parental approval on the match might start to rehabilitate Verena as a respectable member of society. Given Imogen’s situation, what else could Eliot do but cooperate?
Squaring his shoulders, he told himself that it was only four little weeks. He tried not to think of how this last fortnight since his beloved had broken with him had seemed to last a thousand years. He could survive a month. Even if Verena took another lover, it didn’t herald the end of his hopes. Although every masculine cell in his body howled in protest at the thought of her turning to another man.
Taking a deep breath, he bent his head in grudging surrender. His heart remained heavy. “In that case, we have a deal. I’ll delay my wooing of Lady Verena for a month, or until Halston and Imogen sort everything out between them.”
His father’s gloating smile deepened his disquiet. He didn’t trust the earl not to do his best to use these four weeks to scupper Eliot’s hopes.