“Wherein all is forgiven and Aubrey gets a pep talk.”

 

Aubrey stretched his long legs out before the fire and sighed, looking around him with satisfaction.

“I say, nice place you’ve got here, my lord.”

“Thanks,” Debdon replied with a grin. “And my friends call me Chance.”

Aubrey snorted. “Are you quite sure about that? You wanted my blood just an hour ago.”

Chauncey - Chance - Kendell, Viscount Debdon, shrugged and gave him another, rather rueful smile. “No, I didn’t. Went off the idea about ten minutes after leaving you. Got a frightful temper,” he admitted. “Though not as bad as the Countess Falmouth’s,” he added with a shudder of alarm.

Aubrey wagged a finger at him. “Watch your mouth or I’ll have to call you out!” he said with a chuckle. “She’s one of my dearest friends and a wonderful woman.” He pursed his lips, and then was honour-bound to add: “She does have a frightful temper, though. Terrifying creature when her blood’s up.”

Chance nodded, his face amused. “Well, anyway, all’s well.” He fell silent for a moment and stared into the fire. “I should apologise,” he said after a long moment. “I had no right to call you out. I’d been drinking and I’d taken a lot of stick over you and Dolly.”

Aubrey grimaced and shook his head. “Least said, soonest mended,” he muttered, feeling a trifle awkward. “And just for the record. There never has been, and never will be, anything between me and Mrs Dashton.”

Aubrey watched as the man laughed and waved his hand. “It’s of no matter, I assure you. Dasher and I had a good run, a lot of fun. She’s a wonderful woman, but ...” He gave Aubrey a twisted smile. “Devilish heavy on the pocket.”

Aubrey laughed and raised his glass. “To the expensive Mrs Dashton.”

“Dolly,” Chance agreed, raising his own glass and downing it in one large swallow. He got up and fetched the bottle of cognac they were working through, filling Aubrey’s glass with a generous measure. Settling himself down again, he gave Aubrey a curious look.

“Lady Greyston seemed to take exception to Mrs Dashton’s confession,” he said, his tone mild, and Aubrey coughed. He glanced up and noted the shrewd look in the viscount’s eyes with alarm.

“Oh, don’t look so panicked. I’m no gabble-monger, I assure you.”

Aubrey let out a sigh and then shrugged. “She’s quite above my touch,” he said with a despondent air. He turned as Chance sat forward in his chair.

“Wait, Lady Violette Greyston?” he demanded, eyes wide. “My God, I thought she looked familiar. She’s the Colonel’s sister!”

“You know Lord Winterbourne?” Aubrey replied, wondering if Chance could really be trusted.

“Knew,” the viscount corrected, shaking his head, a genuinely sorrowful look in his eyes. “He was my Colonel, 15th Light Dragoons. Died at Waterloo.”

Aubrey bit his lip before asking, “What happened?”

Chance shook his head, his eyes taking on a far-away look, as though he wasn’t really there at all. “I hardly know,” he said, his voice bleak. “It was ... God, it was ...” He stopped, clearing his throat and looking embarrassed. “He was injured,” he carried on, his voice a little firmer now. “Bad head wound, bleeding all over, but he wouldn’t get it seen to. Threw himself back into the fray. The Frog’s artillery were pounding us. God, the noise ...” He gave a visible shudder and downed a large swallow of cognac. “We were fighting side-by-side, pretty much, and ... well, one minute he was there ...” He drank the last of his glass and refilled it, offering the bottle to Aubrey who shook his head. “His horse was dead, and ... well, there wasn’t much left. I just assumed he took a direct hit.”

Aubrey swallowed, seeing the horror of whatever Chance had seen being relived in his eyes.

“Though it was the strangest thing,” he added after a pause. “His batman, a funny chap, name of Davis I think. He swore blind he saw the Colonel stumble away, towards the French lines. But after that ... we just assumed he was seeing things. So much bloody noise and confusion, it’s hardly surprising.” Chance sighed and sat back, a sad smile on his handsome features. “Poor Eddie, he was a very fine fellow.”

Aubrey nodded but said nothing. It wasn’t his secret to tell, after all.

“Had great plans for his sister, I believe,” Chance said, his tone thoughtful, and Aubrey looked away, staring into the fire once more. “I seem to remember that he was talking to Ranleigh about making a match when she came of age.”

Aubrey felt the colour leave his face in a rush.

“The Duke of Ranleigh,” he repeated, his stomach roiling. Nausea swirled in his gut and he thought perhaps he would cast up his accounts in front of Debdon’s shiny boots. Hauling in a breath, he gave Chance a twisted smile. “Well,” he said letting out a breath. “I told you she was above my touch.”

“Sorry, old man,” Chance replied, his eyes full of sympathy. “I think perhaps I’ve just spiked your guns?”

Aubrey shook his head and stared at the contents of his glass. “No. Not at all ... I ... I’ve been living in the clouds, that’s all. About time someone brought me back to earth.” He gave a laugh, quite the bitterest sound he had ever heard. “Hey, stop hogging that bottle,” he said, trying to sound jovial and light-hearted when that poor, abused organ felt like it had been dipped in lead. He snatched the proffered bottle and poured himself a large measure, ignoring the sympathy in his new friend’s eyes as best he could. “To Lady Greyston and her brilliant future,” he said, raising the glass high, and then downed it in one go.

***

Aubrey woke late in the morning, still stretched out in an armchair in front of a dying fire. Glancing at the clock on the mantle he saw that it was gone ten AM. The sonorous snores emanating from another room informed him that at some point Chance had taken himself to bed, pausing long enough to fling a blanket over Aubrey.

Realising he was still too drunk to be hungover, Aubrey decided he had no intention of sobering up anytime soon and reached for a half empty bottle of cognac. The empty one beside it told him just how bad the hangover was going to be when he finally sobered up. That was reason enough to put it off a bit, he decided, grimacing as the liquor burned down his throat.

Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now. He’d never been in love before, and he assumed that was what this dreadful pain behind his ribs was. If he didn’t love her so much, perhaps he would persuade her to run away with him, damn their families, and elope. But he did, and he wouldn’t bring that shame down on her head, especially not with a man of his newly minted rakish reputation. He loved her too well to allow her to be cut off from family and friends, or to be gossiped about.

Though he didn’t doubt his ability to persuade her to run with him. She had been all compliance in his arms last night, after all. If he’d have lived up to his own reputation, he couldn’t help but wonder where they might be this morning. God, had it just been last night they’d been together? It seemed a lifetime ago. He felt he’d aged ten years since then.

The remembrance of the feel of her in his arms, her soft mouth on his, made desire and frustration rage, fuelling a dark, nameless anger at the fact that he wasn’t enough. He didn’t have a title yet - and when he did, he’d be a mere baron, and he certainly didn’t have the finances to support her in the manner in which she had undoubtedly been raised. The Winterbournes were an old and vastly wealthy family. He doubted the daughter of a marquess had ever been told she couldn’t have something because it was too expensive. Whereas he couldn’t even afford to house them, and they could hardly live in his rented rooms. No. He’d been a fool. His determination the night of the ball had been based on romantic dreams and fuelled by desire. Daylight had brought clarity in all its cruel colours, and reality was full of impossibilities.

Perhaps he’d go to France, he mused, knowing he could not stay in London to watch Violette courted by the cream of the ton when she made her come-out. He’d go and visit Alex’s younger brother, Laurence. Aubrey liked both him and his wife Henrietta, and he thought perhaps Laurence could keep him occupied. He was involved in whatever work it was that kept Alex so busy. Perhaps he could even find a way to earn some money of his own so that he wasn’t so damned dependent on his allowance and his father’s grudging hand-outs. He’d not tell his father, though, that was for certain. Despite Alex’s obvious interest in his own business, the baron thought it beneath a gentleman to dirty his hands with work. So, naturally, Aubrey’s own family’s finances were dwindling away whilst Alex was rich as Croesus.

Well, damn his father. He was tired of trying to please a man who couldn’t be pleased. It was time Aubrey stood up for himself and followed his own path.

He realised that he’d made considerable progress down the remaining half bottle of cognac during the course of his dark musings, and pushed the bottle away. If he was going to go, then he’d damn well best get on with it. Violette had looked at him in such a way last night that made him believe she loved him. It would be too cruel for both of them to pursue a path doomed to failure.

Stumbling a little, he hauled himself out of the armchair. The walk to the front door seemed to involve a far greater effort of concentration than was usual, as he weaved his way with care around the furniture. He bit back an oath as he opened the front door and the daylight seared his eyes, but he screwed them up against the glare, sucked in a breath of fresh air that made him retch, and stumbled down the front steps.

Of course, it was inevitable that a run of luck that included the ruin of his good name and being called out by Viscount Debdon would not change for the better any time soon. The moment the imperious voice skewered through his tender brain, however, he knew fate had a very twisted sense of humour.

“G’morning, Grandmother,” he said as the glossy black carriage drew to a halt beside him. The slightly blurry image of his terrifying matriarch came into focus as she leaned out of the window and looked him over, cool grey eyes glinting with disgust.

“Get in,” she barked, sitting back against the squabs.

Aubrey groaned inwardly but did as he was told. Lady Seymour Russell had that effect on people.

“You’re drunk,” she said, with what Aubrey felt was unnecessary volume, as he arranged his unwilling limbs into something that wouldn’t get him shouted at for slouching. “Sit up and stop slouching!”

Aubrey muttered under his breath but tried harder to sit straight which was difficult as his stomach felt mighty uncertain now. He prayed he wouldn’t vomit in his grandmother’s carriage, the idea of which was so horrifying that he felt sicker than ever.

“Well then, what have you got to say for yourself?”

Aubrey looked over at the measuring eyes of the woman opposite him and shrugged. This woman had been the closest thing he’d had to a mother once his own had died, and he knew well enough that her sharp tongue hid a kind and loving heart. You just had to suffer a few lashes to get to it.

“I’m drunk as a wheelbarrow, Grand-mama,” he admitted, with a crooked smile, trying hard not to slur. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Lady Russell snorted and shook her head. “I can see that, foolish boy,” she scolded, though not unkindly. “Not like I’ve not seen a man in his cups before. But it’s not like you to go on the cut, not to this extent, anyway. What’s wrong with you? Been hearing the most ridiculous rumours spreading, you know.”

Aubrey groaned and put his head in his hands. Not now, please God. He could not stand a lecture about the sanctity of the family name, not now.

“That revolting mushroom, what’s her name ...” Lady Russell, demanded, waving one lavender kid leather gloved hand in his direction. “Ashley? No, that’s not it ... Ashton, that’s the one! Lady Ashton, vulgar, inching creature that she is, had the audacity to suggest you’d fathered a bastard child and left it with its mother to rot in the Dials.” Aubrey watched in astonishment as the old lady’s face lit with righteous fury. “Well, I told her a thing or two,” she said, eyes that were eerily like his cousin Falmouth’s glinting with the kind of cold fire that made both her and Alex so formidable. “She’ll not be spreading that little on-dit again,” she added with a sniff of disdain.

“Y-you ... you didn’t believe it?” Aubrey said, lifting his eyebrows.

Seymour banged her walking stick upon the floor of the carriage in fury. “Course I didn’t believe it!” she barked in fury. “Fool boy! I brought you up better than that, and so I told your idiot, good-for-nothing father.”

Aubrey choked and wished with all his heart that he’d been a fly on that particular wall. “You spoke to my father?”

“Of course I spoke to him. The ignorant creature was about to cut off your allowance.” Seymour grunted and turned her head to look out of the window. “What I ever did to deserve a feckless, gutless fool like your father, I swear I don’t know,” she muttered before turning back to her grandson, her eyes filled with warmth.

“Gutless?” Aubrey repeated, quite certain his eyes were on stalks.

His grandmother gave a laugh of contempt. “Oh, he’ll fight his cronies at Jackson’s, alright, never been shy of a mill. But he’s still gutless. Got no substance, your father, never been the man your grandfather was, God rest his soul. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think he was a blasted changeling.”

“Grandmother!” Aubrey exclaimed, not quite sure if he was really more scandalised than delighted at his grandmother’s decimation of his parent’s worth.

Lady Seymour snorted and shook her head. “To think there’s Sinclair blood in his veins,” she said with a dejected sigh. “I can’t see it,” she added with a sniff. “Not in him. But I see it in you.”

Aubrey blinked, too astonished to say anything, not that the old lady seemed to need him to.

“You’ve got the spark, same as Falmouth has,” she said, nodding to herself with a smug glint in her grey eyes.

That he was being compared in the same breath as his illustrious and terrifying cousin quite gave Aubrey a start.

“Well, don’t sit there gawping at me boy!” Seymour huffed with impatience. “Or I’ll think there’s more of your father in you than I believed. You wouldn’t want to prove me wrong, now, would you?”

Aubrey forced himself to sit straighter and look the old lady in the eye. He suddenly felt very sober. “No, Grandmother.”

“Hmph.”

She sat staring at him from across the carriage, which was a very unsettling experience. At first glance, she simply looked like an elegant older lady of the ton. Taller and straighter than one of her advanced years, perhaps, but the pale lavender silk of her outfit was soft and subtle and yet still didn’t hide the steel beneath and the mind like a damned man-trap. “Tell me about the gel,” she demanded.

“The g-girl?” Aubrey stammered, wide eyed.

“Good God, Aubrey, speak up and stop muttering!” she said, stamping her walking stick again and narrowly missing his toes. “Yes, the gel! Greyston, isn’t it? The Marquess Winterbourne’s sister. Alex told me about her. You going to marry her, then?”

Aubrey gaped at her. “I ... that is, Grandmother, Lord Winterbourne plans for her to marry the Duke of Ranleigh.”

“So?” she snapped, frowning at him. “There’s many a slip, twixt the cup and the lip.”

“Well ... yes, Grandmother,” Aubrey said, wondering what on earth she was doing, encouraging him to continue on a path that could only ever end badly. “But I am no duke, and I can barely keep myself on my allowance, let alone a wife.”

His grandmother shrugged, her frown deepening. “So?” she replied, making his eyes widen further. “She’s an heiress, she don’t need your money. Besides, once you buck up and stop wasting your time with those friends of yours, you’ll be every bit as successful as Falmouth.”

Aubrey opened his mouth and shut it again before he came to his senses.

“Her brother will never allow the match,” he said, his tone impatient.

Seymour frowned. “Thought the brother was dead?”

Aubrey shook his head. “No, Grandmother, but that’s something you cannot tell another living soul. It’s too complicated to go into now. You’ll have to ask Falmouth if you want the story.”

Those grey eyes, so like his cousin’s, glittered with interest. “Oho, an intrigue; Alex never told me that bit. How delightful. In that case, I’ll come in and see Falmouth with you.”

“But I ... I’m not ...”

“Yes you are,” she said, her smile smug as she knew damn well he wouldn’t argue with her. “And if you’ve got any sense you’ll marry that girl as soon as maybe.” She snorted at the astonished look he felt sure must be on his face. “You have my blessing,” she added with a regal wave of her hand, as if that had been the only impediment. In his grandmother’s eyes, it was likely the only one she counted as significant.

“Thank you,” he replied, feeling rather taken aback.

Seymour nodded and looked him over with a frown. “Think I’ll take you back to your rooms before we see Falmouth though,” she added, gesturing to his dishevelled appearance with a revolted sniff. “And you can make yourself look like a gentleman again.”

Aubrey sighed and leaned back against the squabs and closed his eyes. “Yes, Grandmother.”