Regency Society. Ann LethbridgeЧитать онлайн книгу.
been with Emily for three years, and it is clear that you do not mean to get her with child or show her even the slightest modicum of respect. If she looks elsewhere for affection, it is quite possible that your heir will be illegitimate, and then all will know you for a fool, and my sister for a whore.’
Adrian stared into the faint orange glow that marked the ashes from the previous night’s fire. ‘I think there is little doubt already that I am a fool. And as for her reputation?’ He shrugged. ‘She is my wife. Any child of hers will be my heir, no matter who his father might be.’
‘Are you saying you cannot stir yourself sufficiently to care for Emily that you would be with her long enough to ensure the parentage of your children? If you had so little regard for her, then why did you marry her?’
Adrian drank again. ‘Perhaps I never for a moment wanted her. But I saw no way out of it. My future was sewn up tight by my parents and by yours, before I had any say in it. I am willing to abide by my obligations. But it is a bit much to expect me to do it with a light heart.’
‘You selfish bastard,’ David said with disgust. ‘I remember you of old, Adrian. And I thought you near to fearless. Now, you are telling me that you lacked the nerve to stand up to a slip of a girl and trapped her in a sham of a marriage rather than set her free to find the love she deserved.’
‘It is not as though she gained nothing by marrying me,’ he muttered. ‘She has the land.’
‘You have the land,’ David reminded him. ‘And she has the running of it.’
‘And a fine job she does,’ he nodded, smiling. ‘In reward, I have given her the freedom to find love where she likes. That is what you wished for her, did you not?’
‘But it is not what she wishes,’ David insisted. ‘She adores you, Adrian. At least, she did when you wed her.’
‘She gave no sign of it, at the time,’ he answered. Not that he had made any great effort to discern the feelings of the woman he had married. But suppose there had been some affection there that he had been too thick to notice? The tiny portrait in his pocket seemed to grow heavier at the thought.
‘I know her, even better than I know you. She was too shy to say so, but she was overjoyed at the match. And at the time, she had great hopes that you would learn to love her as well. Emily wanted more than what you have given her.’ Now David spoke more gently. ‘When I press her about the estrangement, she claims to value her freedom. But I can see the look in her eyes. She wants a husband and children more than your estate. And though she might settle for any man willing to show her affection, her heart is not involved. There is a chance, if you return to her now, that it is not too late. Her tendre for you could be rekindled.’
Dear God, no. ‘And what would make you think that I had any desire for such?’ It was the last thing he needed to hear, now of all times. Sometimes it seemed that his only source of consolation was that his death would be a relief to her. But suppose it was otherwise?
‘Perhaps I think you should care less about what you desire, and stop behaving like some stupid young buck, fresh from the classroom and eager to indulge every whim. Go back to your wife before she sinks as low as you have and cares for naught but meeting her own needs.’
‘Now see here,’ Adrian snapped back, feeling the beginnings of a cloud over his thoughts from the brandy he had bolted. ‘What I do or do not do with your sister is no affair of yours. The only reason it bothers you, I think, is because you had some designs on my land yourself. See it as an extension of your own park, do you? Hunting and fishing and riding on my property as though you own it. You must think that I will go the way of my short-lived ancestors, and that when I am gone, you will twist my heir around your little finger.’ He laughed and took another gulp, letting his imagination run wild. ‘That’ll be much harder to do if the whole thing passes to some cousin, won’t it? If there is no heir, your sister will be put off to dower, and your plans will all be for naught.’ It was a disgusting picture. And he wondered if there was any truth in it.
David cursed and knocked the glass from his hand onto the hearth. ‘It is only affection for Emily that keeps me from calling you out.’
‘And I might say the same. If any other man had dared to come into my study to tell me how to organise my life and my marriage, I’d have run him through.’
He could almost hear David’s eyes narrow. ‘You needn’t fear that in the future, Adrian. All who once claimed you as a friend are gone, driven off by your shameful behaviour. But if they still existed, they would also tell you that you are a sot and a wastrel and they are embarrassed to know you. You lose yourself in liquor and whores, intent on destroying yourself like your father and grandfather did before you, little heeding the pain you heap on your wife and friends. I rue the day that a union of our families was suggested. I do not need access to your land, and will keep within the boundaries of my own estate, if the thought of my trespassing bothers you so. From now on, I will live as a stranger to you.’
‘At last! He means to leave me alone!’ Adrian hoped that volume would make up for the lack of true feeling in the dismissal.
‘And it is a shame, Adrian, for I once thought of you almost as a brother. I welcomed the connection between us and hoped that a wedding would bring you happiness, moderate your character and be a benefit to Emily. I have proved myself a bigger fool than you are for putting my trust in you.’
His childhood friend spoke with such disappointment that he almost admitted the truth. But what good would that do? The man would be just as angry that poor Emily had been tricked into such an ill-fated match. ‘You must have known,’ Adrian said softly, ‘that there was a chance that you were wrong. That blood might tell, and I would be no better than the rest of my family.’
‘But I knew you. Or thought I did. And I was sure, at one time, that you had a heart to be touched. I am beginning to suspect that it is not the case.’
Adrian hid his confusion in a cold laugh that he knew would enrage his guest. ‘Then you are learning me right, after all these years,’ he said looking up at the hazy spectre of his oldest friend, looming over him.
‘Very well, then. The interview is at an end, as is the last of our friendship. You have treated my sister abominably. You have scorned my efforts to intervene. What is likely to occur from all this will be entirely on your head.’
And even without sight, Adrian could chart David’s passage out of the rooms by the slamming of the doors.
‘Hendricks!’ Adrian bellowed. If the man was still in, there would be no way for him to escape the sound of his master’s voice.
‘My lord?’ His response was so prompt that Adrian wondered if the secretary had been listening at the door.
‘I was just forced to undergo an excruciating fifteen minutes with Eston. Am I mistaken, Hendricks, or do I pay you to prevent such things?’
‘I am sorry, my lord.’
If he wished to be rational, he would admit that it had been the distraction of the piano delivery that had left the doors open and allowed the guest to enter, not any carelessness on Hendricks’s part. But the excess of spirits was making him irritable, as was the disapproving sniff that Hendricks gave at the spilled brandy. Adrian set the decanter aside. ‘To avert questions about my behaviour, I let him think me drunk. I have most likely ruined this coat by dousing myself with liquor. But he felt the need to tell me that my wife has taken a lover. What do you know of the situation?’
‘Nothing, my lord.’ But the man said ‘nothing’ with such a lack of conviction that he might as well have said everything.
‘Really. But you have seen her recently, I trust?’
‘Yes, my lord. This morning.’
‘And how did