England, October 1911
You know what they say about the old boy…” Lord Caruthers murmured as Leopold Graham stepped into the main reading room of Brooks’s Club on St. James’s Street. The words stopped Leo cold.
“No…what do they say?” another man whispered, his face half hidden behind a newspaper. The two men were sitting close to a fireplace beside the door. They were both older, with graying hair and extended waistlines that showed their well-off lifestyles. Leo scowled at them, but deep inside he was afraid of their whispers.
“Kept an Italian opera singer in a cozy little love nest in Mayfair. Can you believe it?” Caruthers chuckled. “Damned if I’m not jealous of old Hampton for carrying on like that with a wife and son at home. Quite a bold move to bring down scandal like that so publically.”
“Wait…” The other man gasped, his paper rattling in his hands with excitement as he leaned closer to Caruthers. “The old fellow who died in his mistress’s bed? I heard about that!” The older gentlemen were leaning close to each other, gossiping like a pair of old ladies, using their newspapers much the way women would use fans.
“Yes! The late Lord Hampton…Had to carry him out of that woman’s house. She didn’t even care about him. I heard she was determined to keep the home. Messy business leaving that to the son to deal with. Even now that the family is out of their year of mourning, everyone hasn’t forgotten old Hampton’s sins.” Caruthers sniffed pompously. “I wouldn’t let my son be seen at dinner with that family, not with that sort of talk still hanging about.”
“Indeed,” the other man agreed. “Quite so—”
“Ahem,” Leo growled softly as he stalked past the two men, his fists clenched in rage. Both of them jumped; apparently they’d deceived themselves into thinking he couldn’t hear them. Deaf old fools. Even at his own bloody club, he couldn’t escape the rumors, the whispering, the damned utter black scandal that his late father had brought down on his head. He didn’t want to remember having to deal with his father’s mistress or paying her off by letting her keep the house his father had purchased. The need to silence her and quiet the scandal as quickly as he could hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped. London ballrooms and dinners caught rumors and scandals, spreading them like wildfire.
Caruthers and his companion, now silent, watched him with keen interest as he settled in the only empty seat, one by the window facing St. James Street. On the street there was a mixture of motorcars and carriages. London was always busy in the fall with the season in full swing. For a brief moment, he let his thoughts wander away from the pain of listening to his family’s private business be fodder for entertainment. If only he could get in his car and drive away from it all…
Despite the silence in the room, Leo knew that every man was focused on him.
He raked a hand through his blond hair and stifled a groan. He’d been in London for all of three days, feverishly trying to secure investment opportunities and join in speculation schemes but it was no use. No one would work with him.
Father has damned me and Mother for his selfishness!
The spike of rage inside Leo was startling and so unlike him, but after having more than one door closed in his face today, he was exhausted. Even though it had been a year since his father had died, the scandal and the fervor behind it had yet to fade. His poor mother, Mina, refused to leave the countryside, knowing she’d have no real friends left in London who would allow her entrance to their homes. All because his father hadn’t been faithful. It was an accepted albeit awful practice for a man to carry on an affair, but a man didn’t die in his mistress’s bed after a night of bed play, and he certainly didn’t wrack up debts to pay for the care and keeping of that mistress. Yet that was exactly what his father had done.
Leo reached into his pocket and removed a letter that his footman had delivered to him before he’d left for the club. He opened it, smoothing out the paper and reading the hastily written lines from his banker, praying for much needed good news.
Lord Hampton,
It is with my deepest regret that we cannot extend any of your family’s lines of credit at this time. We will be happy to discuss more credit if you can bring us new collateral but until then, the estate and all of your tenant farms connected thereto are fully mortgaged and cannot be further used to obtain additional credit.
Sincerely,
Thomas Atkinson
The words filled Leo’s stomach with an empty ache. He had to find a way to stabilize his family’s estate or he would risk losing his mansion in the country. Hampton House was his home, more so than London ever would be, and to think of creditors pawing at his family’s furniture and running amok through the rooms of his childhood…
I won’t let it happen. He would find someone to invest with, and he would bury his father’s scandal in whatever way he could by living a life above society’s reproach. He was going to marry a good English rose and not make the same mistakes his father did by allowing himself to become obsessed with some exotic beauty. Those sort of women were always trouble.
He had always believed he might marry someday for love and have a wife who was as passionate as he was, but those dreams were dashed now. He had chosen a neighboring viscount’s daughter as his future bride for financial reasons. It was a chilling thought that he would soon tie his future to a woman without love, but it must be done.
“Hampton?” A familiar voice shook him from his dark thoughts. Striding toward him was a man he recognized.
“Hadley!” He grinned as relief at his friend’s appearance swept through him. He got to his feet and shook Owen Hadley’s hand. His dark-haired friend was smiling widely. Once, as boys at Eton, they had been inseparable, but then Owen and their friend Jack had gone off to fight in South Africa in the Second Boer War. When they returned, Jack and Owen had…changed. Leo hadn’t been able to leave to go fight; his father hadn’t allowed it. The estate was entailed to a male heir and as the only son, if Leo had perished beneath an African sun, some distant cousin would have taken over Hampton.
“Haven’t seen you at the club in ages.” Hadley sat across from him at the small table beside the window. It didn’t escape Leo’s notice that Hadley’s clothes, while finely tailored, were a season out of fashion. Money troubles were apparently all the rage this season for young bachelors. Leo had enough money to pay his creditors now, but if he didn’t find a way to produce new income soon, he would be in trouble.
“I’ve been in the country.” Leo hastily tucked the banker’s letter back into his coat pocket.
Owen’s keen eyes missed little but he didn’t ask what the letter was about. “You look tired, old friend.”
“Do I?” Leo mused glumly. “Since my father died, it has been a trial to set the estate to rights.”
“Are you afraid you’ll lose it?” Owen asked quietly.
“No…at least not yet.” Leo sighed. “But I cannot get a single man in London to let me partake in investments or speculation. The economy of the tenant farms simply isn’t what it used to be and we need more stability.” He leaned back in the leather armchair, wishing he could stay here in the club and not have to face the world outside.
“Cheer up!” Owen grinned. “Why don’t we go find something to entertain us? It’s been months and you could use some fun.”
Leo shook his head. As much as he wished to throw his cares to the wind, he couldn’t. His father’s scandal had forced him to live a life of boredom. It was the only way he might find favor with society again, and that was crucial if he was to preserve Hampton House and everyone who depended on him.
“Perhaps another time. I suppose I ought to get back to Hampton at any rate. Lord knows what Mother will have gotten up to while I was away.”
His friend laughed heartily. “Your mother is a dear. Any trouble she causes is a delight.”
Leo brushed his hair back from his eyes. “You don’t have to live with her.”
“Touché.” Owen shrugged. “At least she’s not involved with those suffragettes. You know they’re having meetings all over the country right now?”
“Lord, don’t even breathe a word of women’s rights around my mother.” Leo and Owen both glanced around the club to make sure no one was listening. Talking of suffragettes had a way of rousing trouble in a gentleman’s club, one of the few places that completely barred women.
“Well, I won’t keep you, Hampton, but write to me the next time you’re in town. We should have a drink.”
“Agreed.” Leo shook Owen’s hand and they both rose from their chairs. It would have been a fine thing to sit and talk with his old friend. They’d survived much together, but after today with his failures and knowing the talk of scandal was still clinging to his family even after a year, he was ready to run home with his tail tucked firmly between his legs. Tomorrow he would find another way to protect his home…tomorrow.