Chapter 2
Kingston was not himself.
The signs were all there. Glaring and indisputable. Unwanted. He didn’t wish to be this way, and yet . . . he simply was.
He avoided all his usual haunts. His clubs. Tattersalls. The theater. His favorite bawdy houses. The gaming hells. The parties and routs in Town that lasted until dawn. The dissolute country parties that occupied his winters. The endless stream of women.
He eschewed it all.
Not only did he ignore his friends, he ignored his family, too. Well, the meager few in his life he could call family. It was a loose application. He did not have a family in the traditional sense.
Yes, he had a father. One who enjoyed having him around for some extraordinary reason. He knew it was irregular. Most noblemen did not want their bastards hovering about, but his father had never sired a legitimate child, so his favor was perhaps not startling.
Not that his father was the manner of man to care much what Society thought of him. The Earl of Norfolk was no gentle retiring middle-aged aristocrat. He still played as hard as he had when he was a young man fathering bastards about the countryside. Kingston should know. He was one such bastard, after all.
His stepmother was no demure lady either. She enjoyed all the same pursuits as his father. That was why they were so well-suited. Their parties were some of the most dissolute in the kingdom. His father and stepmother called their gatherings salons, but in truth they were little more than orgies.
They always invited Kingston. He had once reveled in their attention, feeling even—dare he say it?—loved when they included him in their lives.
Except now he did not feel like being included. Their sordid lifestyle no longer suited him. A year ago it had, but now . . .
Now, suddenly, it did not. None of it suited him.
Perhaps the most significant change of all was that Kingston had not been with a woman in thirteen months. Over a year. A record, for certain. Not since he’d visited his mother’s bedside. He’d known she was ailing before he called upon her, but being presented with the reality was an altogether different thing.
There was knowing and knowing.
Now he knew.
Now he had seen his mother ravaged by disease—a disease too ugly to name—and it had changed him. Soured him to his usual pursuits.
He did not like it.
He did not want this change in himself, but he could not shake this pall that hung over him.
His father did not understand this change in him. Nor did his friends. Not that he had explained it to any of them. He did not talk about things of a deeper nature with his friends or father. He was not about to start doing that now.
He could scarcely explain it to himself.
Avoidance was far simpler.
He had taken lodgings the last fortnight in the Cotswalds. Scenic, but there were far too many nosy guests about. The proprietor’s daughter was perhaps the nosiest of all. She was always cornering him and pelting him with questions and prying into his affairs in a poor attempt at flirtation. His monosyllabic responses did little to dissuade her.
He’d cut his stay short on the last night after arriving in his rooms to find the bothersome chit naked in his bed. He’d been abstinent for over a year. She was hardly the woman to entice him from his self-imposed ban on shagging. He didn’t know what woman could entice him, if any at all, but it was not the garrulous innkeeper’s daughter.
He’d tossed the lass from his rooms and departed the next day for the one place he knew no one would find him. Not his father or stepmother. Not any of his licentious friends.
He took himself off to see his bore of a stepbrother. If he could even call Warrington stepbrother. There was no love lost between them. Warrington couldn’t abide him. He’d merely tolerated him during all their forced encounters.
However, his father’s stepson seemed the perfect solution. Warrington lived like a hermit, eschewing Society. Never once had he attended any of Norfolk’s parties. Kingston assumed he’d find all the peace and isolation he craved at Haverston Hall where Warrington resided. Assuming the duke didn’t toss him out. It was quite possible that Warrington would slam the door in his face.
When he arrived at Haverston Hall, he was braced for a dubious welcome.
The last thing Kingston expected to find was his brother married and saddled with a gaggle of females in his house. Respectable females. A wife and her sisters.
Even more shocking, Warrington was entertaining guests—dinner guests—on the very eve of his arrival.
Indeed, he had not slammed the door in his face. Warrington had grudgingly welcomed him inside. Not warmly, certainly, but Warrington’s young wife had made up for that with her genial manner.
The young Duchess of Warrington was exceedingly comely and undaunted by her husband’s scowls. She invited Kingston to stay as long as he liked.
Although Kingston doubted that would be very long. Warrington wasn’t leading a hermit-like existence anymore. Unfortunately. And that changed all his plans.
He would, of course, stay the night, but tomorrow he could take his leave. He didn’t know his destination. Perhaps it was time to acquire his own residence. Then he would no longer be dependent on others for anything.
He had never bothered to obtain his own dwelling because there was no need. He’d never felt inclined to set roots down before.
He had never craved solitude—never a bedchamber or home of his own.
He’d enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle, moving from house party to house party or to any one of his father’s properties. There were too many invitations for him to even accept. He had his pick of places to go, and people who wanted him as their guest.
No more.
He’d had enough of his hedonistic ways. He might not be as rich as his stepbrother, but he was a man of comfortable means. It was time he put down roots. He could afford to do so. Then he could be alone whenever and as often as he wanted.
For tonight, however, he would suffer Warrington and his new family and his guests. He’d made the mistake of coming here. He would bear it for one night.
Standing in the well-appointed drawing room, Kingston peered out the window overlooking the front landscape. Leaning one shoulder against the frame, he watched as dusk gathered outside, streaking the sky in deep grays and purples with a hint of orange.
He listened to the others around him conversing with only half an ear, planning his escape the next day and contemplating where he might like to go next.
He’d never been to Shetland. The islands sounded appealingly remote to him. There had to be a nice little fishing village with a cozy cottage available for him there.
It wasn’t as though Warrington would miss him if he ducked out tomorrow. His expression had twisted into a grimace the moment he clapped eyes on Kingston today. There had never been warmth or affection between them.
Kingston was well aware the duke held him in contempt. He’d never cared what Warrington thought about him as he could scarcely tolerate the man either, kinsman or no. In fact, it amused Kingston that his presence so irked the bloody nob.
“Kingston, something so fascinating out on the lawn? Why don’t you join the conversation, my good man?”
He turned at the question. It came from an older gentleman in a bright plum-colored jacket. Kingston forced his gaze from the jacket. Much like the sun, he could only glance at it briefly.