Chapter Three
Corin pounded on the door of Lord Youngtown’s residence. He’d spent all night fuming, and no matter how much he tried to calm down, he only got more and more upset. When no one answered the door, he pounded on it again, this time making sure he was louder.
The footman opened the door, and before he could greet him, Corin blurted out, “I insist you bring that loathsome creature down here to talk to me at once!”
Just as it occurred to him that the footman might not know if he meant Lord Youngtown or his younger brother, Stephen Bachman, the footman waved him in. “Mr. Bachman will be down shortly.”
Corin paused for a moment. The footman knew exactly who he’d been talking about? Did Stephen upset other gentlemen to the point where they also came here to express their grievances?
The footman cleared his throat and waved him in again.
With a curt nod, Corin went into the townhouse and followed the footman to the drawing room.
“Help yourself to the brandy,” the footman said. “Most gentlemen need it in order to talk to Mr. Bachman.”
That might not be a bad idea. Corin went over to the decanter and poured himself a glass. He never had brandy this early in the morning, but desperate times had a way of driving a gentleman into doing something he didn’t ordinarily do.
He took a deep breath and swallowed the entire glass of brandy in one large gulp. At once the sensation burned his throat.
Laughter came from behind him. “If you’re that thirsty, I would have advised you to drink water.”
Corin scowled. He recognized that whiny voice. He slammed the glass on the table and spun around to face Stephen. “I want my money and my pocket watch back.”
“Oh, well, I might be inclined to give them back if I still had them,” Stephen replied, “but alas, I lost a few games at the gambling hells.” He shrugged and gave Corin what was probably supposed to be a sheepish grin. “I’m afraid they belong to someone else now.”
Without thinking, Corin gave him a good punch in the jaw. Stephen reeled back as Corin clasped his wounded hand. That hurt more than he thought it would. The blasted cad had steel for a jaw. He should have known.
Stephen found his balance and rubbed his jaw. “What did you do that for?”
“As if you don’t know,” Corin barked.
“What’s going on here?” Brad Bachman, the Earl of Youngtown, asked as he hurried into the room. “What’s all the yelling about?”
“I’ll tell you what all the yelling’s about,” Corin said, turning to him. “That simpleton you have for a brother didn’t keep his promise. I paid him good money and lost a family heirloom last night so he would make sure I didn’t get tangled up in a scandal. But he went back on his word.”
Stephen shook his head. “That’s not true,” he told Brad. “I only promised I would make sure Celia didn’t get caught in a scandal with him. I didn’t promise that I wouldn’t involve another lady into it. So no one can blame me for this. I kept my part of the bargain.”
Corin’s face got so hot with anger that he thought for sure steam was coming out of his ears.
Brad stepped in front of him before he could swing his fist at Stephen a second time.
Stephen backed up and shook his head. “I must say that I find your behavior appalling. I was under the assumption you were a mild gentleman, but here you are showing the most outrageous display of violence I’ve ever seen.”
“Please sit,” Brad told Corin, gesturing to the chair. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I don’t want to sit,” Corin replied through gritted teeth.
“Then at least calm down,” Stephen said. “Unless you want the Ton to know you are prone to fits of rage.”
“Fits of rage?” Corin asked. “This is all your doing. You’re like a fox. You’re sly and manipulative. You are in need of a good hunt.”
Stephen gasped and looked at Brad as if he’d never been more insulted in his life. “Can you believe what he just said to me?”
“You are sly and manipulative,” Brad said.
Stephen straightened his frock coat and lifted his chin in the air. “I don’t need to stand here and be insulted. I have other places I can be right now.”
But before he could leave the room, Brad intercepted him and dragged him over to one of the chairs. After he made Stephen sit, he said, “Tell me what you did to Lord Durrant.”
“I’ll tell you what he did,” Corin interrupted. “He lied to me. He said my friend wished to have a word with me in the den last evening at Lord Edon’s ball. The only reason I believed him is because my friend has discussed investment opportunities with me in the past when we attended balls. But when I got there, Lord Worsley wasn’t there, and that traitor,” he gestured to Stephen, “spilled a drink on me in order to get me out of my frock coat and breeches. Then he revealed the truth of why he lured me there. Lord Worsley’s sister, Celia, paid him to get me into the den so that she could slip into the room. Once she had me alone, she would cry scandal, thereby forcing me to marry her.”
Brad grimaced. “Marriage to Celia?”
“Yes. Celia Barlow, the most annoying lady in all of London. Now you can see why I was desperate to avoid the trap that she and that fox set out for me.”
“And you did avoid it,” Stephen piped up.
Brad shot his brother a pointed look. “You’re not helping the situation.”
Stephen sighed and leaned back in the chair.
“I didn’t end up being trapped with Celia,” Corin admitted. “So yes, that part he did manage to get right. But he worked something out with Lady Hedwrett instead. When he returned, he was with her, and she was holding my clothes. Then she forced me to the floor and tried to have her way with me.”
Stephen threw his head back and laughed. “Is that how you think it all happened?”
Corin glared at him. “I don’t think it. I know it. Her hands were all over the place. Even now, I feel violated.”
Stephen only laughed harder. “Lady Hedwrett is one of the best looking ladies in London. She can touch me wherever she wants whenever she wants.”
Brad punched him in the shoulder.
“Ouch!” Stephan rubbed his shoulder. “That hurt.”
“Lady Hedwrett,” Brad hissed at Stephen. “You know very well I would have liked to have married her.”
He shrugged. “She had no such interest in you. You’re better off without her.”
“She had no interest in me, either,” Corin told Stephen.
“I disagree,” Stephen replied. “With the way her hands were all over you, she wanted you. She didn’t touch Brad that way. She only took him by the arm, and that was because she had to. But you’re right, Corin. She wanted very much to make mad, passionate love to you. I advised her against it, but she insisted on being with you. It turns out she’s been secretly in love with you for a long time now.”
“I don’t even know her.”
“It was admiration from afar.” When Corin frowned, he added, “Don’t ask me to explain the way a lady thinks. It’s all a mystery to me.”
Brad didn’t hide his disappointment. “She wanted to be with Lord Durrant when she was at my dinner party?”
“Like I said,” Stephen replied, “the way a lady thinks is a mystery. Well,” he stood up, “I believe that clears everything up.”
“Not so fast,” Corin said before he could head for the door. “I want my money and the pocket watch back.”
“I already explained that I lost them last evening,” Stephen replied, speaking slowly, as if he were explaining it to a child. His voice returning to normal, he added, “I can’t give you something I don’t have. And as it turns out, I have nothing.” He glanced at Brad. “And I won’t get my allowance until next week.”
Brad looked between Stephen and Corin then sighed. “Very well. I’ll take the money from Stephen’s allowance and pay you. How much does he owe you?”
“Two and a half shillings and a pocket watch worth a pound,” Corin replied.
The pocket watch had much more value than that, given that it had been something his father had handed to him on his deathbed. His father had inherited it on his own father’s deathbed. The pocket watch went back five generations, and the eldest son was the one who received it. He had hoped to give it to his eldest son someday.
“There’s no way that pocket watch was worth a pound,” Stephen argued. “It was old and had a small chip in the back.”
“There were diamonds embedded in it,” Corin said.
“Really? I didn’t notice those.” Stephen frowned. “I can’t believe I let something of that much value go for a mere groat.”
Corin bypassed Brad and grabbed Stephen by his frock coat. “A groat?” He shook him. “You gave up my pocket watch for something worth so little?”
Stephen coughed and glanced over at Brad. “Aren’t you going to help me?”
Brad crossed his arms. “You are irresponsible, Stephen. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Get him off of me,” Stephen pleaded with Brad as he tried to pry Corin’s hands off of his frock coat.
With a groan, Brad went over and separated Corin from Stephen. Turning to Stephen, he asked, “Who has the pocket watch? We’ll get it back.”
“I don’t know,” Stephen replied as he made a big show of straightening his coat. “Well, this is just great. I have a wrinkle now. I can’t leave the house with a wrinkle in my clothing.”
“Why don’t you let me kill him?” Corin asked Brad. “I have a feeling I’ll be doing us both a favor.”
“He’s my brother. I can’t do that to him,” Brad said. “Though I admit, it’s tempting.”
Stephen scowled at Brad.
“I’ll pay you the full amount of everything he lost,” Brad told Corin. “It’ll come out of his allowance.”
“Do you mean that you won’t pay me anything until the debt’s been paid off?” Stephen asked.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Brad said. “You have behaved irresponsibly, and you need to deal with the consequences of your actions.” He turned to Corin. “We’ll take care of this in the den.”
With one last glare in Stephen’s direction, Corin followed Brad out of the room.
“I know it’s not my place to interfere in someone else’s business,” Brad began, “but my brother is not the most honest gentleman in London. I think he’s lying to you. When Lady Hedwrett came to my dinner party, she behaved honorably. I don’t believe she is the way my brother made her out to be.”
“She was touching me in places she had no right to,” Corin replied. Even now he could feel her hands on his penis. Would he ever live down the humiliation of being nothing but a plaything for her amusement? He shuddered. “It was inappropriate, and I cannot forgive her for it.”
Brad stared at him. “She really did that?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not think about it.”
Brad nodded. “I understand.”
They walked the rest of the way to the den in silence.
***
Later that day when he was home, Corin stared at the money in his hand. Brad had made good on his word, even adding extra to make up for the loss of the pocket watch. But the money felt empty in his hand. He would rather have gotten the pocket watch back. Sighing, he put the money into the pouch and then placed it in his desk. He had just locked the drawer when a knock came at the door of his den.
“Come in,” he called out.
The butler opened the door. “Lord Worsley wishes to have a moment of your time.”
“Send him in.”
As the butler left to do so, Corin stood up and grabbed two glasses and poured brandy in them until they were full, though there wasn’t enough brandy in the world to make him feel better.
It wouldn’t change anything. He had still been tricked into marriage. The lady he was to chain himself to for the rest of his life was a conniving creature. And he lost an important family heirloom because of her. Deciding not to wait for Anthony, he drank half of his glass. The brandy might not help, but it did dull some of the aggravation.
Corin set Anthony’s glass of brandy on the other side of the desk, sat back down, and put his feet up.
Anthony came into the room and stopped as soon as he saw him. “You look terrible.”
Corin glanced over at him. “I feel worse than I look.” He gestured to the glass of brandy he had set out for him. “Partake in my sorrows.” Then he picked up his own glass and finished the rest of it.
Anthony sat across from him but didn’t take the drink. “I know Celia is responsible for this, and I am punishing her for it.”
“So you’ve already said.”
“Well, I hope this isn’t something that’s going to come between us. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I don’t want that ruined because of something she did.”
“It wasn’t all her. Lady Hedwrett had a part to do with it, too.” He paused and added, “I think word is getting around London that I’ve fared very well in my investments. Every lady out there wants to get her hands on my money. You know how greedy a lot of the ladies are. They spend money faster than a gentleman can make it.”
“Not every lady is Celia.”
Corin rolled his eyes. “I’ll admit that your wife is the exception. But most ladies are too happy to spend the money their husbands worked long and hard to make.”
“Is that what you’re worried about in marrying Candace?”
Candace. Right. That was her name. Corin didn’t know why he kept forgetting it. It must be because he resented her for getting him into this mess. He rubbed his eyes. “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t marry her at all, but if I want to do any investing in the future, I need to marry her because everyone assumes I wanted to be in that den with her.” He lowered his hand and looked at his friend. “There are too many businessmen who would never forgive me if I didn’t follow through with my obligation to her.”
“London is a fickle place. For all the talk of propriety, there’s so little of it.”
“As Warren often bemoans,” Corin added, thinking of how right their mutual friend was.
“There might be a solution to your problem. Not every married couple lives in the same townhouse. Some prefer to live apart. No one condemns them for it.”
For the first time since the scandal, Corin felt a spark of hope. “They do?”
Anthony nodded. “Lord and Lady Havenfield live in separate townhouses. The Duke and Duchess of Writherspoon even live in separate countries. There’s nothing saying you and Candace have to be together. Though you’re married, it can be in name only. As for money, you can offer her a monthly allowance. When she spends everything, then she must wait until the next month to get more money.”
He straightened up in his chair. “That’s a good idea. Why didn’t you ever do that with Celia? She spends more money in a day than most ladies do in a year.”
“I know I should have, but I always felt bad for her. She wanted so much to get our parents’ attention, but they were too busy living their lavish lifestyles in London that they didn’t pay much attention to her. I used money to compensate for how lonely she’d been.”
“Yes, but she turned out spoiled because of it. I know you were trying to be nice to her, but it didn’t do her any favors.”
“I realize that now. It’s why I’m making up for it. I’ll be marrying her off to the first gentleman who’s willing to have her.”
Corin should probably be glad that he wasn’t on the hook for marrying her, but it was little consolation when he knew he had to be with an equally horrifying lady instead.
But Anthony did have a good idea. If he lived apart from Candace, then maybe he could live his life as before. He could do his own thing and protect his money. Then the marriage would at least be bearable. With any luck, he could talk Candace into it.
“I’m glad you came by today,” Corin said. “Thanks to you, I don’t have to dread my upcoming marriage as much as I did before.”
Anthony smiled with relief. “Good. I worried you wouldn’t want to speak to me after what Celia did.”
“All I learned from last night is that there are a lot of ladies who are willing to take advantage of innocent gentlemen.” He filled up his glass with more brandy then lifted it to Anthony. “Here’s hoping your plan works.”
Anthony lifted his glass in return, and giving each other a nod, they drank their brandy.