Kindred Hearts (2 page)

London, 1810

“Sir?
Sir?”

Tristan Northwood opened one eye gingerly, feeling the rasp of eyelid across sandy eyeball. An impossibly bright light burned his retina; he quickly shut the eye but not before the flash of light revealed a face he thought he might recognize. Illumination came, though thankfully not the literal kind. “Reston,” he grated, his eyes still screwed shut. “What time is it?”

“Ten thirty, sir,” the valet’s voice said. It seemed to have an unnaturally loud, booming quality. Then the words sank in through the fog.

“Ten thirty? In the
morning
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Reston, you’re
sacked
.”

“Yes, sir. Would Mr. Northwood prefer the green waistcoat for today or the blue?”

“Mr. Northwood would prefer that Reston, along with all waistcoats of whatever hue, go straight to the devil.”

“Yes, sir. Prior to my leaving, however, may I remind Mr. Northwood that he has an appointment with Baron Ware at eleven thirty this morning?”

“Bloody hell.”

“Yes, sir.”

Another attempt at vision was made, this one more successful. Reston was in the process of drawing the drapes against the vicious morning sunlight. When the room was sufficiently dimmed, he picked up the tray he’d set on the table by the window and brought it to the bedside. “Your coffee, sir.”

Tristan sat up, grabbed at his head just as it was about to fall off, and said hoarsely, “You’re not only rehired, Reston, but I’m raising your wages.” He took the cup gratefully.

“Yes, sir. The blue or the green?”

“The blue. No. Where’s that orangish one I bought last week?”

There was silence in the room, then Reston’s sere tones. “I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Why not? You’re my damned valet.”

“Yes, sir. However, that was the waistcoat you wore last Thursday evening. You were not wearing it Friday morning when you returned home.” Nor the cravat, shirt, or boots, though the boots were later found where Mr. Northwood had apparently dropped them, in the mews some thirty yards from the stall where he himself had been discovered, dead drunk and wearing only trousers and a greatcoat. Reston privately thought it was only the pickling properties of the immense volume of alcohol that his master had imbibed that had kept him from freezing to death in the chill April air.

“Damn. I liked that waistcoat.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tristan drank his coffee moodily, then said, “Which is more likely to irritate my father?”

“The blue, sir. The—er—iridescent quality of the fabric is quite—eye-catching.”

“Blue it is. I suppose there’s no time for a bath?”

“Not if one wishes to be on time.”

“One doesn’t, but one wants to get this month’s lecture over with, so I suppose I shouldn’t dillydally. Damn. I wonder where I left the waistcoat? I don’t suppose I can advertise for it, after all—‘left in some lady’s bedchamber, one orangish-red waistcoat’.”

“Nor the shirt or cravat,” Reston said mildly.

“All that? I must have been on the verge of being discovered,” Tristan said. “Oh, well, that was last week and no one’s called me out yet, so I suppose I evaded capture that time as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s not like anyone could identify whose waistcoat it was, anyway—it was the first time I’d worn it, and… Lady Abernathy?”

“No, sir. Sir is accustomed to visiting Lady Abernathy on Wednesdays.”

“Drat. Oh, well. It’s not like I can’t afford to lose one waistcoat. I know—I’ll purchase another of the same hue, then if anyone
does
suspect, he’ll be flummoxed by the fact that I apparently still have it. Take care of it, will you, Reston?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What would I do without you?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.”

Tristan threw off the coverlet to find himself still nearly fully dressed. “Ballocks,” he said irritably and peeled off grimy trousers and drawers and shirt, then strode over to the washstand and soaped up a flannel with the cold water. Reston picked up the discarded clothing and said, “I’ll bring these out and return in a moment to help you shave and dress, sir.”

“Mm,” Tristan replied, staring at himself in the washstand mirror. He looked like hell, unshaven, eyes bloodshot, skin gray. He looked forty instead of his true twenty-eight. Twenty-eight, and still as tightly under the thumb of his father as he had been at eight. Worse—at eight he’d still had his mother to advocate for him. A year later she’d died and his newborn sister with her, leaving Tristan and his father to deal with their grief in their own separate ways. His father had chosen to control every waking moment of Tristan’s life, and Tristan had chosen to defy him just as thoroughly.

He was tired of it. Tired of waking every morning hung over or still drunk, with little or no memory of the night before; tired of rogering endless women with their soft, clinging hands and soft, clinging bodies and pervasive, nauseating perfumes; tired of hours spent in one club or another with the same obnoxious friends. Tired of the rebellion that never seemed to end, never seemed to do more than annoy his father. Not that the old man hadn’t tried everything to rein his heir in, including cutting his allowance. Tristan had merely cut his expenses to compensate, leaning on his friends and drinking cheaper gin instead of brandy, until his father got tired of hearing about it from his own friends and given in. He wasn’t a gamester, at any rate, and had never been a glutton; those activities bored him and did nothing to make him stop thinking. Sex and drink, those were the tickets to oblivion. But they never lasted long enough, and he was tired of waking up afterward. Tired of waking up, period. It was pointless, at any rate—even oblivious, he knew that he was a completely worthless individual, his sole value being that he was the heir to his father’s extensive properties. His father had made sure he knew that. “Ballocks,” he said again, and done washing, he pulled on fresh drawers and trousers just as Reston came back in, hot water and shaving gear in hand.

His
father was waiting in the library of his town house in Clarges Street when Tristan arrived on the stroke of eleven thirty. The butler showed him in, his face expressionless as usual, though Tris knew he was as much a disappointment to Fulton as he had ever been to his father. It was his role in life, and he was nothing if not consistent. After a moment of his standing in the doorway, his father looked up and said irritably, “Come in, then, don’t dillydally. Awful waistcoat—what made you spend your blunt on that atrocity?”

“The sure knowledge that it would annoy you,” Tristan said casually.

“You look like hell.”

“Thank you, sir. May I return the compliment?”

“Don’t try to be clever, boy. You missed the boat on that one years ago. Your way of life is going to be the death of you.”

“Life is the death of all of us, sir,” Tristan said, and dropped into the chair in front of the desk, lounging back carelessly. His father’s eyes narrowed at him, but he did not address the issue.

Instead, the baron drew a piece of paper from the stack on his desk. “I’ve been hearing things about you far too much lately, Tristan. Your drinking has become an embarrassment to the family name.”

“Everyone drinks,” Tristan said with a shrug, “and everyone drinks to excess. Far be it for me to fail to follow the example of those wiser than I—which I understand from you is everyone.”

“And this business of your womanizing….”

Tristan said lazily, “I have yet to be accused to my face of anything of the sort.”

“God, I hope so!” The baron glared at him. “But there are rumors, and they are growing. You will end up looking down the barrel of a pistol at this rate.”

Tristan shrugged again. “Dueling is illegal, or hadn’t you heard?”

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still go on!”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“You will not!” Baron Ware stood and glared down at his son. “You have sown the last of your wild oats, my boy. I’ll not stand by and watch you piss away what’s left of your life without leaving anything behind. I’ve arranged a marriage between you and—”

“Marriage? Me? My God, what poor woman has you so annoyed with her that you’d burden her with myself?”

“Lady Charlotte Mountjoy. The Earl of Chilson’s daughter. She’s twenty-four, and she’s agreeable.”

“I would think so,” Tristan said, “seeing as if she’s twenty-four and unwed and apparently invisible, since I have never met the chit, she must be not only on the shelf but unattractive to an apparently amazing degree. Or is she one of those who prefers the company of her own sex and thereby a womanizing sot who’ll leave her alone is precisely the kind of marriage she wants?”

“You may be a womanizing sot, but you’ll not leave her alone, if you mean leaving your marriage unconsummated. Your legacy—and the freedom you so cherish—is dependent upon getting an heir off this woman, assuming you haven’t caught some filthy pox that has destroyed your ability to do so. Or at least making a fair attempt to get an heir. And to answer your question—or rather assumption—Lady Charlotte is not at all unattractive. She does, however, prefer the country, so has spent little time in town.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” Tristan said. “Since I don’t want her in town anyway.”

“You’ll have her in town until you’ve got an heir on her—preferably two. After that point the two of you can both go to hell, or wherever you choose.” His father flung the document across the desk at him. “Sign it and show up Monday at St. George’s at ten a.m.—sober and not hung over.”

“Don’t I get to at least meet my blushing bride before the wedding day?”

“And have her cry off? Hardly.”

Tristan reviewed the document. He’d expected the usual sort of thing, settlements and whatnot, but this was specifically aimed at him. He was to produce a minimum of two children, at least one of them a boy, after which his father proposed to settle two of his properties and their income upon him personally and one on his prospective bride, for the maintenance of her and her children, with a trust that would increase for each additional child. He would live with his bride until the two children were born and during that time he would continue his usual allowance with the addition of a lease on a townhouse. His wife would receive the same allowance. Between them it was assumed they would be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.