Page 4 of A Fake Courtship with the Marquess
“What does she look like, these days?” He sat back in his chair and gazed listlessly out at the country road, watching the occasional cart trundle by, or blackbirds squabbling over a shriveled worm.
Seth shrugged. “Like… a young woman.”
“Details, my good man. I need details,” Henry urged. “Last I saw her, she was a gaunt, skeletal little thing that reminded me of a marionette. Her strings being pulled this way and that, to obey your mother and father’s every command.”
He vaguely recalled pitying her, back then, though he supposed he had not done much to make her life easier. He was well aware that he had been a terror in his boyhood. Being unfamiliar with girls, for he had no sisters to rein him in, he had played with Arabella as if she were also a boy. Although, he liked to think he had grown out of most of his mischief. Most.
Seth frowned. “They were only firm with her because they had to be. It is much harder to raise daughters than sons, for they are not granted the leniency that we are, in many things.”
“You can say that because you have been given all the freedom you desire,” Henry replied. “I never once saw you scolded, though you loosed the chickens from their coop, trampled the rose garden in an aggressive game of ‘find the medal,’ and doused your mother’s skirts in blackberry cordial. Your sister, however, was scolded for the merest trifle.”
A guilty expression transformed Seth’s face, prompting him to pour another glass of brandy from the bottle they had ordered. One of only three in the entire establishment, with a film of dust turning their fingertips gritty.
“That is why I would have my sister be happy in her womanhood,” he said quietly. “And that is why you must promise me you will treat her well, and with the utmost kindness. It does not matter if you do not love one another, but form a friendship, at the very least.”
Henry pushed his glass toward the center of the ale-stained table and waited for Seth to pour. “I would never deliberately hurt her, Milford. You are family to me and that, in turn, makes her akin to family.” He drew the glass back and downed it in one. “Although, at least you are aware this is not a union of love. I worried, for a moment, that you might have misjudged the situation.”
“I am no fool.” Seth snorted. “Soon enough, it will be my turn, and if I do not hurry along and find a lady I can adore, the option will be snatched from me.”
Up to now, they had both enjoyed a leisurely existence, doing as they pleased with little in the way of consequence. Occasionally, Henry’s father would chide him for spending too much on this or that, while his mother made a point of asking when he would find a suitable lady to wed, whenever he returned to the family estate in Somerset. It appeared they had grown tired of waiting.
“But you will be kind to her, will you not? You will care for her?” Seth’s eyes were slightly glazed by the bottle of brandy that only had dregs remaining in the bottom.
Henry beckoned the innkeeper for another bottle, which was hastily brought, and even more thickly encased in dust. Despite being upon a country road that was often used by fine ladies and gentlemen, making their way to the southern counties for balls and gatherings, it appeared this inn was unused to visitors of such high-standing actually stopping for a drink.
“A toast.” Henry poured two glasses, though his hands were becoming unsteady, sloshing some over the sides. “I promise to respect your sister, the ghoulish waif from my childhood, and I swear to treat her as fairly as I would any sister of a friend.”
Seth raised his glass, and the two clinked together. “Do not make me duel you, Haskett. You are an atrocious shot.”
“Who said I would choose pistols?” Henry laughed, feeling the heat of the brandy on his tongue as he tipped the lot down his throat.
“You are even worse with a saber, my good man.” Seth cackled, the previous tension dispelled by the potent alcohol. “I have seen a monkey at a circus with more dexterity and precision.”
Henry descended into a fit of hysterics. “An army… of monkeys… with sabers! Can you imagine it? That would surely have… the French fleeing… for their lives!” he wheezed, clutching his stomach. “Though the British… would be running too, if you… gave the monkeys… pistols! I doubt they would know… whose side they… were on!”
The two men howled with laughter, drawing the disapproving eyes of the sparsely spread-out clientele of the inn. Even the innkeeper looked alarmed, as though he should not have given them the second bottle. But, in their own world, with the heavy weight of marriage looming on Henry’s horizon, he did not care about anyone’s stares. He would enjoy what was left of his life as a bachelor, for now that he had made a promise to his friend, he could not go back on it.
If it were anyone else, an arrangement could be made. I could live my life. She could live hers. Curse you, Mother, Father! You have well and truly clipped my wings.
Still, what choice did he have but to accept his fate? The very least he could do was attempt to find some common ground with the girl he could only faintly remember, so they would not be forced to live a dismal existence, chained together by insincere vows.
An idea sprang into his mind.
“Do you think there is a haberdashery to be found anywhere nearby?”
Seth grinned at him. “Whatever would you need a haberdashery for? Are you going to wear a pretty ribbon in your hair at tonight’s ball?”
“I am not, but I hope someone will. An olive branch, if you like.” Henry poured out fresh drinks. “But first, it would be rude not to finish this before we must set off again. Nor should we leave that third bottle lonely. It will only gather more dust.”
Seth nodded. “Quite right.” He turned and hailed the innkeeper. “Your last bottle, if you would be so kind?”
The innkeeper hesitated but likely thinking of the good coin these gentlemen were paying, he smeared a dense layer of dust from the bottle with a cloth and brought it over. Besides, they would not be his problem once they were done. They would be the Earl of Chisholm and Society’s problem.
* * *
Inebriated, as only a man who was trying to avoid responsibility could be, Henry stumbled out of the carriage with Seth struggling alongside him. Before them lay the porticoed front terrace that stretched the entire length of the Earl of Chisholm’s manor, nestled in an evening-bronzed landscape of breeze-tousled woodland.
Helping one another up the sandstone steps, Henry pausing to shake the outstretched hand of a Grecian statue, they passed their invitations to the footmen at the door. The poor fellows looked like they wanted to bar entry to the drunken pair, but instead they wished the gentlemen an enjoyable evening and turned their attention to the horrified, gossiping quartet of ladies who were following behind.
