James
He closes the heavy front door to the townhouse and rests his forehead against the cool wood. If he never attends another ball in his life, he could die a happy man. Between the politics, thedancing, and the endless stream of mothers and daughters he disappointed with his utter lack of social flair, he’s exhausted.
Dancing with Lady Gwen and his cousin MissBertram wasn’t terrible, but spending the night surrounded by their chatter, with Lady Gwen’s cousins Lord Mason and the younger Mason chiming in, was almost dizzying.
He’s not sure if it’s the hour, the faint buzz of alcohol in his system, or the lighting, but he thinks his mother may have purchased yet another bust. The statues and paintings all seem to meld together in the narrow, tall space of the foyer. It’s oppressive.
But it isn’t as if he tried to stop her. At least it gives her something to focus on, now that she’s here and separated from her friends back home. His stepfather couldn’t wait to get to the city, but he knows his mother took much solace in the community she’d made in Epworth.
She may have purchased herself an entire set of evening ball gowns for the season, but she didn’t even make it out of bed today. Her lady’s maid, MissMarina, said it was a headache, but he thinks it’s likely just melancholy. They don’t deal well with change, he and his mother.
His stepfather, on the other hand—
“’S that you, Demeroven?”
James winces, considering making a break for it up the stairs rather than facing the smoke-filled haze that is his stepfather’s study. What should be his study.
But if he doesn’t face the man now, he’ll be banging down his door tomorrow, bright and early, demanding a full report. So James shuffles across the narrow hall and into the study, coughing at the smoke. The man could at least crack a window.
The space is filled with heavy, half empty bookshelves. His stepfather brought down his own dark, dour chairs to face the enormous desk left behind by the late Viscount Demeroven. The room has a strange, out-of-time feeling, half full, half considered, half his stepfather’s and half a dead man’s. There’s nothing of James in here at all.
His stepfather looks up from yet another financial ledger. Ever since they arrived, he’s been nose-deep in the late viscount’s London accounting, not that he truly knows the first thing about managing an estate. Though neither does James, really.
His stepfather’s beady eyes peer through the haze, his round, ruddy face set in a scowl. “You’re home early,” he grunts.
James bites back the automatic retort that he is a man of age now and needn’t answer to his stepfather any longer. He’s in control of the title now. He’s the new Viscount Demeroven. His stepfather’s—the gentleman Mr. Griggs’—reign as regent to the estate is over. James is about to sit in parliament, for God’s sake. This is, in fact, his house now.
But the words never manage to pass his lips. Instead, he shrugs, like an insolent little boy.
His stepfather frowns and takes a swig of the late viscount’s brandy. “Did you meet Lord Henchey?”
James shakes his head. “No. Lord Havenfort introduced me to a fair few, but they were all his lot.”
His stepfather groans. “You let that man walk all over you, didn’t you? I told your mother you didn’t have the backbone for it.”
James tries to straighten said weak backbone, curling his fingers into fists as his stepfather slips into one of his tried-and-true rants. James is meek. James is fragile. James is bad with people. James isn’t cut out for this life, and if they’d just spoken to the late viscount, they could have ensured that Stepfather maintained official control of the finances once James came of age. But no, Stepfather is saddled with this lump of a boy instead of the man he needs.
“I’ll do better,” James cuts in, his ears ringing with phantom previous lectures. “Tomorrow. I’ll make sure to meet Henchey. Brighton wasn’t there, for the record.”
“Of course he wasn’t. Wouldn’t waste his time with something so frivolous.”
James yawns theatrically. “Right, well, I’m knackered. I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.”
He ducks out of the room before his stepfather can get another word in and pads back across the foyer and down the corridor to the kitchen. He can’t face his bed just yet, not with his stepfather’s tirade still ringing in his ears.
Instead, he collapses at the long oak staff table in the red-tiled kitchen and lets his head fall into his hands. He just needs a few minutes for the echo of his stepfather’s words, the latent sound of the orchestra, the chatter of his cousin, her stepsister, and the Mason boys talking too fast and too furious to fade away.
But as he stares at the backs of his eyelids, Bobby Mason’s face fills his mind. His broad jaw, his thoughtful hazel eyes, his frown at finding James as lacking as everyone else always does—
Their chef Reginald smacks a plate of scones down in front of James and he jumps.
“Jesus,” James says.
Reginald pours him a glass of milk, plops it down beside theplate, and strides around the table to sit heavily across from him. His blue eyes sparkle with interest and James wants to hide his face again.
Reginald has been teasing secrets out of James since he was small and Reginald was just a kitchen hand, plying him with cookies and shielding him from his stepfather whenever possible. Often his only refuge, and friend, Reginald knows every one of James’ tells, which is bloody annoying sometimes, even as the smell of the scones does release the tension in his shoulders.
“So?”
