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June 16, 1815
Maplecrest House
Hanover Square
London, England
Mr. Adam Coventry—Viscount Maplecrest—frowned as he came into his drawing room. He’d barely gotten seated and ordered tea before the butler returned.
“What is it, Bilson?” God, the exhaustion was beginning to take a toll, for three weeks ago, he’d walked off a ship from a voyage from America, and since that time, he’d suffered through innumerable meetings with so many people, he’d forgotten their names.
“I apologize for the interruption when you just arrived home, but there is a Mr. Langley here to see you.” The man of indeterminate years, employed by the previous viscount since Adam had been a youth, shrugged. “He says he won’t go away until he’s able to talk directly with you, because, and I quote ‘Maplecrest had the audacity to take off for America without a word and he owes me two years of conversations and drinks.’”
“Of course he did.” Adam shook his head with a slight grin. “Show him up. He can take tea with me, and to be fair, I haven’t seen him since I left.” Though he should have at least written to his best friend and told him of his intentions to come home.
“Of course, my lord.” Then the butler departed, and Adam sat heavily in a chair.
Is this really my life now? Thrust into the middle of society where everything is a whirlwind.
Unfortunately, this was what his father had prepared him for since he’d been a boy at the age of ten. That didn’t mean he wanted to enter this world and neither did he wish to tarry there. After his stint in America, he’d begun to realize there was a whole world outside of England that he might to explore... if he wasn’t tied down to his title and responsibilities.
A few moments later, his friend came into the room with his face wreathed in smiles. “As I live and breathe, it is truly you in the flesh.”
Adam briefly pointed his gaze at the ceiling before standing and meeting his friend and shaking his hand. “Do shut up. You know why I had to leave.”
“I do know, but you could have warned me of your departure.” Thomas dropped into a chair, and since he was a barrel-chested bear of a man—a former Navy man at that—Adam feared for the longevity of the delicate, gilt-painted legs of the chair beneath his weight. “And alternately, you could have written that you were coming home.”
“Yes, you are correct, and on both occasions, there wasn’t time. However, I am in London now, and you have my undivided attention for at least the summer,” he said as he sat in the chair near the other man’s location.
Thomas frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be here through August. After that, the future is unclear.” Not that it had truly been realized to begin with, not since that horrible time nearly three years before when the bottom had fallen from beneath his feet.
Which was one of the reasons he hadn’t wished to come back to England to begin with. But his father had died two years before while he’d been in America, and the letter informing him of those circumstances had been four months old by the time he’d received it. Since there had been nothing he could do about it, he’d spent the time smuggling brandy and rum through British naval blockades. Made a fortune in doing so, and now he couldn’t ignore the responsibilities of his new title. It was a difficult endeavor, for he wanted nothing to do with the country, the ton, or anything connected to it.
The other man rubbed a hand along the side of his face then shoved his fingers through his carefully arranged blond hair that had no doubt taken his valet a bit of time to style. “Then you mean to run and hide again.” It wasn’t a question. “Like a coward.”
“I don’t believe that is quite the description of what I’m doing.” Adam paused when a footman brought in the tea service on a silver tray. With a nod, he thanked the man and then waited for the footman to leave the room before he spoke again. “I am removing myself from a certain situation as a form of protection.”
The only thing he wanted now was to buy property in America and just live a life where no one knew him, where no one would remember the scandals and rumors, no one would judge him based on things he didn’t do.
But that would mean abandoning his title and everything connected to his responsibilities here, and in doing so, he felt it might be a betrayal to his father’s memory. To say nothing of how disappointed his mother would be.
Thomas huffed. “If you are worried about the Watterson family, don’t be. They haven’t shown their faces in Town since that night.”
“I don’t know if I can risk it.” After he poured out a cup of tea, he handed it to his friend then made one for himself but didn’t add sugar or even milk. Above all, he especially didn’t wish to see Penelope Watterson again. He’d been a nodcock to ever fall in love with her, an even bigger idiot to think something might brew between them...
...and then the horrible scandal inserted itself into his life and it spiraled out of control before he could even think of a way to stop it. All at the hand of Penelope’s family.
“What happened to you, Adam?” Thomas frowned as if he truly couldn’t puzzle out the problem. “When we were in the navy together, you were fearless, brave, brash. You cowered before no one, you never let anyone or anything dictate to you.” He shook his head. “Now, because of one horrible family, you’re ready to turn tail and run, to hop countries merely to maintain distance between you.”
That was a fair question. “The trouble is that I fell in love with Penelope. I hadn’t planned on it, hadn’t wanted to do such a stupid thing, couldn’t prevent it. Those feelings just happened.” He sipped his tea while eyeing the plate of seed cakes and date scones. “She had recently turned two and twenty and had been in Town for her first Season. Older than most debutantes but damn if my head hadn’t been turned.” Her launch had been delayed due to her parents wishing to give her older sister a chance to take in society. Sarah had been popular, to be fair, but it had only taken one misstep with a bounder to ruin... everything.
The fact that said bounder had been a close friend of Adam’s made the whole Drury Lane affair even more ridiculous.
“Ah, and now you consider your heart smashed. Because you are so stubborn, you feel you can never recover so therefore will never love another woman.” Thomas’ expression suggested that was also a nodcock idea. “Who among us hasn’t had our heart broken?”
“There is more to it than that.”
“Such as?”
“It isn’t my place to say, so please don’t question it.”
Three years ago, when he wanted to tell the truth, to convince the gossips and the matrons of the ton that he hadn’t done those horrid things to Penelope’s sister or brother, he had chosen to turn the other cheek, to walk away and let the public think the worst of him.
Besides, speaking that damning truth had been thwarted by the woman’s family. Before her father had succumbed to an attack of his heart, Adam had been threatened by the man, and again by her brother, and so his words were muffled.
Truly, there had been no recourse at the time, so he’d been forced to bury those feelings deep down, didn’t care if he ever saw her again for he had to move on. For his own peace of mind. For his own future. And he had thrived in America.
After seeing a different way of life in Virginia following his smuggling stint, he longed for the simplicity of that place, the removal from history and responsibility, a way to begin anew without the past forever shadowing his future.
“However, I do owe you stories and explanations, so let me tell you this.” He trusted the man with his life. Hell, they’d rescued each other a time or two onboard ship during the ill-advised War of 1812 against America’s navy. Thomas was more like a brother to him than anything else. “That time in my life will forever serve as a warning against giving out my heart where it’s not appreciated.” He pressed his lips together as he thought over his next words. “Sometimes I dream about that night; it loops over and over through my brain, but my hands were proverbially tied.”
“How?”
“Penelope’s father came at me after he found me holding her sister in my arms. She was in tears and in a sorry state. He argued with me, demanded that I marry the woman, but I wasn’t about to put my foot into parson’s mousetrap when I hadn’t done the crime.” A shrug only lifted one shoulder. “At my refusal, the man turned livid. His face went purple. He kept poking at my chest with his forefinger saying this was my mess and that I owed it to his family to keep the scandal away.”
“What did you do?” The light of interest was in the other man’s eyes.
“What could I do? I was brash and incensed for my own reasons. I threatened him right back. Told him that he would well know about scandal, and that his hands were dirty from it, that one of his on-dits was a huge secret that would destroy not only his family if it got out but also put an immediate end to Penelope’s prospects.”
“Damn. You were protecting her, and that’s why you fought with the baron.” Understanding dawned on Thomas’ face.
“Yes, and you have no idea how much it cost me to keep all of their sordid secrets.” He shook his head. “The baron grew ever more agitated. Told me if I spread that tale, he would make sure I didn’t live to take my father’s title when the time came.”
Thomas gawked. “And you didn’t report his threats to a constable or even Bow Street?”
“What good would that have done? It was my word against his, and I was literally holding damning evidence of a crime.” But it had been vital to keep everything from Penelope. She suffered from bouts of intense anxiety that sometimes made her faint, and he would not put such a huge strain on her health. Especially not after he’d done a bit of digging with the information his father had given him. “It was better that I stopped my whole life and faded away.”
“And your father agreed?”
“Both my parents did. He’d told me the baron was a different person while out in society, especially once he hit his tolerance for brandy, that he’d had numerous indiscretions over the course of his life.” After a sip of tea, he felt marginally better. Not at peace, but better. “I still believe the truth will win out against the lies.”
“You are a good man, Adam. I would have landed the baron a facer.” For long moments, Thomas rested a speculative gaze on him. Finally, he drained his teacup. “Let’s say you toss out your history and unsavoriness from that time. The fact remains that you have your father’s title now. It is your responsibility to build it up and keep it respectable. In order to do that, you will need to marry, perhaps a woman whose reputation is above reproach.”
“I am well aware of what I should do.” Yet the thought of doing that left him more annoyed and angrier in a different sort of way than before. The need to marry and beget an heir left him almost sick to his stomach. “I have half a mind to toss everything to the wind, move to America, marry a woman from that society, and then let my son—should I have one—handle all the responsibilities of the title while I wash my hands of everything.”
Interspersed among those worries and thoughts were images of Penelope. Those doe-like eyes with golden specks when she was happy had haunted his dreams for years. That blonde halo of hair that he’d longed to bury his fingers in but had never materialized wouldn’t leave his thoughts. To say nothing of the flawless alabaster skin that resembled satin he’d wished he could have caressed before everything had blown up.
Hell, he’d only kissed her lips once, and even that had been a fleeting gesture and one not properly enjoyed at the time.
“That wouldn’t be entirely fair to your son, would it?” Thomas leaned forward and refilled his teacup. “I have known you for years, man. You were the most honest and upstanding person throughout your time in the navy and beyond. Whatever the truth is about what occurred between you and the Watterson family three years ago, I know you aren’t as involved as the gossips indicated at the time.”
“I appreciate the support.” It humbled the hell out of him to have such a loyal best friend. “It was one of the reasons I didn’t tell you of my departure. I was embarrassed and livid at the way I’d been treated; I’d thought any denial on my part would have only substantiated my guilt in something I didn’t do.”
Thomas nodded. “We both know how fickle and destructive the silver-tongued vipers in the ton are. Sometimes, there is no escape from them. However, they are always thirsty for the next scandal, the next misstep, the next on-dit. That means yours of three years ago has been all but forgotten beneath the large pile of others that have happened in the interim.”
“There is that.” Yet the moment he stepped out into society with the new title of Viscount Maplecrest, would the rumors start to fly once more? It was difficult to say. “If you are certain the Wattersons are not in London, perhaps I’ll be able to manage the summer.”
“I am quite sure. It is my business to notice things.”
Another truth. After Thomas left the navy, the war had still been raging. Both he and Adam had wanted nothing else to do with that sort of ugliness, so while Adam had gone abroad, his friend had decided to lend his organizational talents and abilities to ferret out people’s secrets to Whitehall. Currently, he was a principal officer for Bow Street, and from all accounts, he was quite adept at it.
He nodded. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t even know where to begin. There is a pile of correspondence in my study I need to look through. Perhaps there are invitations in the stack.”
“Indeed, there probably are. Despite the gossip, this time around, you are a viscount. That is nothing to sneeze at, and you are single besides and have a decent fortune. Matchmaking mamas and desperate widows will find you exactly what they need this summer.” Humor clung to the other man’s voice.
“Don’t joke.”
“I can’t help it. These are facts. You are already two steps ahead of me.” He tapped his broad chest. “I’m a decent enough fellow. Middling income. Rough and tumble. Mildly attractive. But since I’ve no title, I’ll be overlooked.”
“Bah.” Adam shook his head. He then busied himself with refreshing his teacup. “The way women yearn for a title and a fortune is off-putting. Why can we not be admired and loved for ourselves?” If things had been different, would Penelope have fallen for him before he’d taken the title? For that matter, would she have been a good viscountess?
Not that he wished to align himself with the insanity that was her family.
“Only the best of women will give you that, my friend.” Thomas popped a seed cake into his mouth, chewed, then chased it with a swig of tea. “As luck would have it, I have an invitation to a ball my cousin is throwing in a few days. Since he married an earl’s daughter last year, he’s put on so many airs, I’m surprised he hasn’t floated away, but it could be a good introduction back into society for you, and a better way to scope out the petticoat line.”
“Oh, God.” Everything was becoming far too real. He rubbed an eye with his free hand. “Won’t that upset the hostess’ numbers?”
His friend shrugged. “I don’t guess it will matter, for your title—again—carries a bit of weight to it, as is the fact you remain unmatched.” Thomas uttered a sigh that sounded as if it came from his toes. “Women get excited if a good society match happens at their event. Somehow, it elevates their ‘worth’ within the beau monde.”
“Women are odd creatures, Thomas.” For as long as he lived, he would never be able to puzzle them or their intent out.
“I’ll agree with you, so does that mean you’ll attend the ball?”
“Yes, I suppose I will. And I’ll probably need to see a tailor.” He hadn’t purchased new clothes since he’d left England, and all that he had were a bit out of date, not that men’s styles changed that much from year to year.
“Excellent. It will be nice to prowl about Town with you again.”
“We did have some fun in our salad days while on liberty from the navy.” It was a bloody miracle they hadn’t both fallen into trouble.
For the foreseeable future, he would remain in London at least over the summer while he attended to his holdings, met with his man of affairs, set things in place, and decided whether he wished to be everything a viscount meant. Society was a veritable lion’s den guarded by dragons. Was he ready to run that gauntlet?
Only time would tell. God help me.
