White eyebrows shifted like frolicking lambs. “Send her off to a school, man! Three nieces of mine attended Miss Goodacre’s Seminary for Elegant Young Ladies for twelve years.”
Quite.Faith had recently married yet chased everything except her husband, Charity was too fond of the laudanum, and as for Hope…there was none.
“No.”
Sir Edmund peered up. “No?”
“My ward needs me, and I have matters to attend to here.”
Those bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Your former mentor, Thornton… He said the same when I wanted to send him to Lancashire. I hope, Number Five, you’re not going to become like him.”
Was that a threat? Hugh idly smiled, every knuckle wishing to punch his superior’s lights out.
“There is a certain…” He leaned towards the desk. “Lady I am pursuing who is, shall we say, of a royal connection? A while ago, you wished for intelligence on the Prince Regent’s private finances for parliament. I am…pushing hard to get it. But if I leave London now, she may find an alternative man to lavish her time upon.”
A lie but one he could pursue should it be required.
“You old dog, why didn’t you say?” His superior’s eyes crinkled. “I’ll give you till the end of the month. Number Eight can get started but make arrangements for your ward. Then off to Derbyshire.”
With a flat-lipped smile, Hugh stood, but Sir Edmund Twyford’s nose had returned to his papers. “Of course, Sir.”
The monotonous Whitehall corridors blurred as Hugh strode them and descended the stairs, stepping out through a side door to the damp pavement.
A worn hackney happened to be loitering on the street, a fine drizzle repainting it in drab grey, so after shouting his address, he clambered in.
As wheel clacked over cobble, his thoughts turned to Phoebe and the shadow of sadness that hounded her. He vowed to give her back the Ross Thornton he’d known – not a scorned traitor but a brave and admirable man. A father to be proud of.
With a scowl, he shoved down the window, breathed in air redolent of damp coal and felt the light mist of drizzle upon his face.
Back in his native Wales, rain was a different commodity altogether. It could pour down as though the heavens wished to drown the populace, but the scent… Ah, the scent was of rugged moors and verdant valleys, coastal salt and fragrant heather.
As a rule, he would visit every few months to feel the sweet rain purge his jaded soul, to restore his belief in mankind, to revel in his two cousins’ affection and, over the past year, to watch them each fall in love with beautiful women.
For some reason, that thought caused a pall.
Perhaps because his own life was not compatible with such romantic sentiment.
For what woman would understand the life he’d chosen? His dangerous nights and damaged body.
Hanover Square came into view and his Palladian style home, with its three floors, porticoed porch and pedimented door surround – smidgeon extravagant perhaps but expected of the Scandalous Hugh Cadwalader.
He handed thruppence to the hackney driver and loped up the steps to–
The ever-attentive Cruikshank flung open the door.
His butler had worked for all the illustrious names of theTonover his career and was a bony body but corpulent mind of information. Five years ago, Hugh had snaffled him from a duke’s household for fifty quid a year and a sumptuous pension, but with Hugh’s employ, it had been on condition of signing a promise of confidentiality. When asked if he’d minded, Cruikshank had merely sniffed and declared it went without saying but signed nonetheless.
“Ah, Cruik, any urgent messages?”
Hugh divested himself of hat and gloves within the hall while his butler sorted through a raft of letters on a silver salver.
“I believe this is the most urgent. From a Miss Webster? Regarding your interview this afternoon, perhaps?”
Hugh narrowed his eyes, took the message and broke the seal.
I regret to inform you that…
And so on and so forth.
