Page 2 of The Lost Lord
“Everyone leaves town in the summer. I know you can’t go away for three months, but surely, we could go away for a week? Shipping slows down in the summer, doesn’t it?”
Richard chose not to correct Lizzie’s misapprehension that shipping slowed in fine weather, when in fact the opposite happened. He pondered the meager funds in his bank account. Quarterly, he received an allowance from his brother, the earl of Briarcliff. Richard wondered why his brother paid it. He wondered what he would do if his brother ever changed his mind about doing so. Upon receiving his stipend, Richard paid his rent ahead, settled any outstanding debts and spent the remainder within weeks. His coffers would be replenished at the end of June and not a moment before.
“Right. There is only the matter of Howard and the imports warehouse,” Richard yawned.
“Which you have precious little to do with on a day-to-day basis. Admit it. If you wanted to get away, all you would have to do is walk over to the warehouse and talk to Howard,” Lizzie cajoled.
“Assuming I could find him, that is.” He did not want to go anywhere with Lizzie, much less publicly. He traded upon his misappropriated title and aura of dissolute nobility to bring Howard new investors. Howard had carved out a profitable niche for himself shipping wares up the Atlantic coast from Southern states. The whispers about his dalliance with Lizzie were bad enough. Confirmation of the rumors could ruin him—and Howard, by proxy.
Well, Howard’s prospects, rather. Richard himself was already as ruined as a man could get. Setting the blaze that had killed his own father and being banished for it…there wasn’t much further to fall.
Upon landing in Boston nearly two years ago, Richard had stumbled—literally—into a partnership with a man named Howard. He remained uncertain as to whether or not Howard was the man’s first or last name. All he knew was that Howard had saved his life, which was more than anyone else had ever done for him. One would never guess from his unshaven cheek and shabby garments barely fit for a stevedore that the man was not, in fact, hard pressed. Richard wasn’t one to ask questions. When he needed money—which was often—Howard let him work in the warehouse. Supposedly, Richard received a share in the profits whenever Howard needed someone respectable to accompany him on meetings with prospective investors, which was how he’d come into Lizzie’s orbit in the first place.
Following a series of connections made by leveraging his family’s illustrious name, Richard had made his way to New York, worming his way into the dining rooms and parlors of wealthy mercantile families like Lizzie’s, and rubbing elbows with newer, self-made industrialists flooding into the city. The first time Howard had tried to pay him for dining and “doing the talking” at a business dinner Richard had laughed it off, telling him to reinvest the proceeds. Though Howard stayed afloat, anyone who could afford it would have dressed better. The notion of taking badly needed money from someone who had saved his life sat uneasily on Richard’s conscience.
A strange thought, considering that he had not been previously aware of possessing any such thing.
“How about in July?” he offered.
Lizzie’s expression turned mulish. “No. It has to be next week.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“That’s it? Because?” Richard eyed her with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance.
“It isn’t as though you have anything to do,” Lizzie pouted, poking him in the pectoral muscles that had developed since his arrival in America. Moving heavy cargo in the warehouse had kept off the softness that nightly drinking with Lizzie might otherwise have packed about his middle.
“Howard lives at the warehouse. I am sure you could find him, dear, darling Richard.” The language of excessively familiar affection was a marker of how little genuine affection either of them felt. Lizzie had never given any indication of possessing a capacity to care about anyone apart from herself.
Dear Richardwas also code forI am calling your bluff, and I win. Shrugging, Richard conceded victory. He always did. What Lizzie wanted, she got, and he saw little point in wasting breath to argue.
“I don’t have money for a long trip,” he began cautiously.
“La, money. You are the son of an earl! Practically a prince. Princes aren’t paupers. Ask your brother for an increase.” Lizzie tripped down the hallway.
Richard had two limits. He did not discuss his family, and he did not discuss money. He let everyone assume whatever they pleased. It was easier than trying to explain why he’d been exiled, not that it was anyone’s business but his own. Lizzie had just breezed past both boundaries in the span of a sentence.
“Leave my family out of this,” he demanded, towering over her petite form.
Lizzie smiled coyly and took his hand between her warm palms. “Darling. You deprive yourself unnecessarily. When is the last time you took a holiday?”
Arguably, Richard had been on holiday for his entire adult life. He had completed all of one year at Cambridge before being tossed out on his ear for failure to attend classes and general misbehavior. He had then spent the better part of the next decade drinking and whoring with London’s fastest set. Then, after the tragedy of his father’s death, he’d been sent into exile by his brother, Edward. The only work Richard had ever performed had been for Howard, who always needed the help. Richard felt a twinge of shame that he only ever helped Howard when he, himself, needed money. Richard quickly swept that feeling into the unexamined corner of his soul where such emotions went to writhe in darkness. For whatever reason, Lizzie wanted a summer vacation, and what Lizzie wanted she usually found a way to get. He could fight her, but that would require effort.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“My aunt will be at her summer house on the New Jersey seashore next week. I could stay with her. There is a boarding house nearby that caters to families of modest means. You might rent lodgings there. Or there’s a cabin on her property that might suit.”
“Why wouldn’t you stay with me at the boarding house?”
“I don’t want to risk a scandal.”
Richard threw back his head and laughed. Lizzie stank of scandal like a woman wearing too much perfume. He had no idea how she got away with it. Later, Richard would curse himself roundly for not having been more suspicious of Lizzie’s motives. By then it would be too late to undo the damage, leaving him to wonder how he had fallen so far and let this slip of a girl bully him into so much trouble.
For now, Richard simply pushed back his chair and padded to his room to dress. With no valet, he wore simple clothes instead of the fine fabrics and elegantly styled formal wear he’d been accustomed to in London. Patched trousers and old linen shirts were comfortable enough for working in a stuffy warehouse.
“Richard,” Lizzie came up behind him on tiptoe and sank sharp teeth a bit too hard into his earlobe. Her hands flattened over his stomach. Pillowy little breasts flattened pleasingly against Richards back. He turned and kissed her.
