Algenon waited a full minute before clearing his throat.
His father finally straightened, his green eyes narrowing under his steel grey eyebrows. “Well, it is about time. You were to be home a week ago. What took you so long?”
Nowelcome home. No,it is nice to see you. Not even an enquiry about his journey or how long he’d been in residence. Algenon supposed it was too much to ask for after so many years. He was just a glorified messenger boy who would one day inherit the chaos his father left.
“It took a little longer to settle all your accounts for the updates you requested, but the estate at Ipswich should finally meet your standards.”
Again, his father turned his attention to the ledgers. “I certainly hope so. After the mess that incompetent stonemasonleft last spring, it could not have gotten much worse. And did you ride over to Reading before coming here?”
Algenon swallowed. He had not. There was no use going to the same village that had brought him so much grief less than six months ago. Instead, he’d written to the steward and asked him to send the requested finance accounting.
His father would not be happy. When Lord Roberts gave an order, Lord Roberts expected it to be followed. It didn’t matter how subservient the task; his instructions must be completed to the letter.
The pencil stilled and his father pierced him with a look. “Roberts.”
Not Algenon. Not son. Just Roberts. A last name with little meaning since both he and his father shared it in both title and surname.
It was strange how much Algenon hated his presumptuous given name, but also desperately wish his father would use it, if only to show that he saw him as a person and not just an appendage of himself.
“I have the report you requested.” There. That wasn’t a lie. No need to divulge how he’d acquired it.
Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the sheets. He’d already removed the letter that had surrounded the folded pages in order to conceal the postmark that would give away how he’d got them.
His father snatched them from his hand and scanned the pages. “Just as I thought,” he muttered.
Algenon didn’t bother to sit while his father continued to talk to himself. Instead, he let his gaze trail along the rows of books behind his father’s desk. Not a novel in sight. Travel logs, historiographies, mathematical texts, but nothing that was fiction.
Lies, his father had told him when he was little. All novels were full of lies peddled to the foolish.
Maybe that was why Algenon had taken to reading them every chance he got. Lies were easier to stomach than the truth of his uselessness, at least in his father’s eyes.
He spun the gold and opal ring on his pinky. The tiny band was far too dainty for his big fingers, but he wore it anyway. It was the only possession of his mother’s; a woman he had no recollection of other than the small portrait that hung in the gallery on the third floor of Blackthorn Manor. He’d clung to the hope that if his mother were alive, she would see and love him for who he was, not what he could do for her.
But, like his father’s other wives, his mother had died from complications of labor. Unlike her three successors, who’d all died of childbed fever, she had died in the actual process, taking the baby with her. Even if she’d survived, the babe would probably have been a girl… just like the rest.
Even the current Lady Roberts had given Algenon not one, but two sisters when she’d given birth this last spring, much to his father’s dismay. And just like every other daughter before, the poor girls had been saddled with the female forms of masculine names.
The corner of Algenon’s lips twitched at the memory. It was his fault these last two sisters were condemned with such atrocious names. He’d thought by suggesting monikers so awful that no one in their right mind would choose them, he’d finally break his father of the eccentric habit.
He’d been wrong.
Now poor Richarda would have him to blame. Roberta was a bit better, but Roberta Roberts was laughable. He’d have to make it up to them someday. However, at eight months old, they didn’t know any better.
“What are you smiling at?” his father snapped.
“I was thinking of visiting the twins.” He ran a hand over his powder blue waistcoat, smoothing the wrinkles and fixing his posture.
His father’s gaze traveled over Algenon’s ornate apparel complete with yellow breeches and his signature three gold rings. “When will you learn not to dress like a peacock?”
Algenon stared back at him, not backing down. “Perhaps when I finally attract a mate. They tend to like pretty feathers.” In truth, he only dressed so flamboyantly to annoy his father. One way to be the complete opposite of the man who held him captive.
“Women are not birds, even if they preen like them,” his father grumbled. “However, now that you speak of it, I believe it is time you took a wife.”
“As you have told me many times before.”
“Yes, but this time I will choose one. I am sick of waiting around for you to make up your mind.”
“No, Father. I’d rather you not.”
