At the word ‘obscene’ Miss Bradley-Hough jumped a bit in her seat, causing her elbow to catch a passing platter of duck in brown gravy. Alice watched in fixed horror as the tray overturned in a colossal arc through the air and rained a cascade of sticky, orange-scented sauce down the front of her beautiful pink gown.
The scream she let out was, Alice thought, a rather fitting conclusion to the meal.
Isabel leapt up and rushed around the table to come to her cousin’s aid as a cavalry of servants scurried about, attempting to staunch the worst of the damage. The whole chaotic party rushed out of the room, leaving two empty seats, and the rest of the Evesham family looking stunned.
“Jonathan, what has come over you?” his mother hissed from the end of the table. “Speaking of such things in front of a lady of Miss Bradley-Hough’s breeding.” She glanced at Alice. “And our guest, Mrs. Hull.”
Jonathan waved his hand expansively and rolled his eyes. “’Tis only the truth. Imagine, he could have been a bishop. Instead he traffics in hysteria and hellfire, yet condemns his own family for peddling porcelain.”
“I don’t condemn anyone,” Henry said heatedly. “I only suggested you not sell to traders headed to Barbados, as—”
“Oh please,” Jonathan Evesham spat. “You can spare us your moralizing. Save it for your sermons.”
Alice could see Henry forcibly restraining himself. His shoulder blades stood out beneath his artfully tailored coat, like they might burst through the fabric.
The senior Mr. Evesham held up his hand. “Enough, Jonathan.”
“No wine, no beef, no wife, no life,” Jonathan went on merrily, smacking his lips in satisfaction at his little poem. “But then, I suppose he has his choice of wayward women with whom to spend his lonely nights.”
“What an utterly preposterous statement,” Alice burst out.
Henry met her eye and subtly shook his head at her, as if to say don’t get involved—but his fingers clenched his glass of milk so tightly that she wondered how it didn’t shatter. She was so angry on his behalf that she wanted to leap up and push his brother into the remaining puddle of duck sauce. Instead she channeled this impulse into lowering her voice into the flat, belittling tone she’d perfected answering Elena Brearley’s door.
“It is true, sir, that Mr. Evesham is highly influential in London for his ability to provide solace to the suffering,” she said. “But he also strikes a great deal of fear into the hearts of drunken louts as result of the rather significant power at his disposal. Some might argue such a combination is terrifying enough to command respect. But then, one has to be clever enough to see it.”
Chapter 11
It turned out that a fearless, sharp-tongued woman trained by an expert in dressing down males who considered themselves superior was an effective accessory to bring to a family supper. Oh, the surge of pure, radiant affection he felt for Alice as she glared at his brother, like Jonathan was no better than a flea.
His entire family stared at Alice, as if not sure whether to be angry or afraid of her.
His mother, clearly noting that there was little hope of returning to civility, stood up before the verbal altercation could become more heated, or another dinner guest could wind up covered in roast fowl.
“Ladies, shall we leave the gentlemen to brandy and retire to the drawing room?”
“I will join the ladies,” Henry said, rising. He shifted his eyes to his brother. “After all, as Jonathan points out, I don’t drink.”
“Stay,” his father ordered. “We have things to discuss.”
His mother signaled to Josephine and Alice to follow her out of the room. Alice shot him a questioning glance. He smiled at her reassuringly, touched, if a bit ashamed, that she was worried about leaving him in a room with his own family. Imagine, he had worried she might lower him in his family’s esteem. He should have been worried his family’s crass behavior would lower himself in hers.
It no doubt already had.
As soon as the others were gone, his father turned to his brother, rage written on his face. “Jonathan, if you have any sense at all you would not malign your brother in front of Olivia after everything I’ve done to fix the hash you’ve made of things.”
Henry dearly wondered what Jonathan had done.
(He hoped, God forgive him, it was something unutterably terrible.)
“Olivia should know Henry consorts with whores if she’s going to marry him,” Jonathan shot back, before Henry could ask.
Marry him.
Oh.
Now he understood why he was here.
Not for a christening.
To pay the eternal debt.
To be given one last chance to prove himself of value to the family empire.
He should have assumed there was a cynical purpose to the invitation. His father had been eager to forge an alliance with the Bradley-Houghs for a decade, for they owned his largest competitor in the southwest of England. This revelation should not slice through him. But he could feel the stoic expression he’d managed to maintain withering on his face. He felt flattened.
“So that’s why you summoned me,” he said to his father, trying not to sound as disheartened as he felt.
His father rolled his eyes heavenward, as though to even imagine otherwise was foolish. “Of course that’s why I summoned you.”
“It won’t work,” Jonathan told their father, reaching for his wine. “Olivia won’t have a gelding.”
His brother smirked, enjoying his own wit.
It took every ounce of every promise Henry had ever sworn to himself or God or Reverend Keeper not to stand up and suffocate his brother with his ridiculous three-tiered wig.
Instead, he calmly folded his serviette and rose from the table. “Sir,” he said in a low voice to his father, “I’ll come to discuss the matter with you in the morning.” He looked meaningfully at Jonathan. “Privately.”
“Sit down, Henry,” his father commanded. “We’ll sort this out here and now.”
“No, sir,” he said, somehow managing to keep his tone polite but firm. He was far too angry to have this conversation with anything like filial respect, and he did not wish to say something he might regret. And he certainly was not going to say another word in front of Jonathan.
He bowed. “Good night, sir.”
“He’s never been worth a pence that you invested in him,” Jonathan slurred before Henry’d even reached the door.
Henry stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him, so he would not have to hear his father’s response. He held himself still, trying to breathe.
It had been so naive to come here thinking anything would be different. In his relief at being welcome home again, he’d let down his defenses.
It hurt to be reminded. He wanted to go to his room and lock the door so no one could take a look at him and see that he’d deluded himself into thinking he was wanted here.
Alice emerged from the privy closet at the end of the hall and saw him standing at the far end of the corridor. She paused, inclined her head, and smiled at him like she was his dearest friend.
Because she pitied him.
He forced a smile on his face. He couldn’t stand for her to think him pitiful.