Page 8 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
He needed to meet Sarah, clear up her misconceptions about his disappearance and presumed silence, find out if he still wanted the role that had once been his greatest ambition, and convince her to love him again. And all before she chose another husband.
A thought occurred and stopped him short. She had a shortlist.I am not competing against a love match.He stepped out towards his father’s townhouse, a smile spreading as he considered that fact. He’d put the next two weeks to good use, using Libby and her contacts to find out who was courting Lady Sarah, who she favoured, and what they were like.
The clubs, too. He’d buy horses and play cards—whatever it took to be accepted into the conversation men had when women were not around.By the time I see her again, I’ll be armed for the battle ahead.He’d know what she looked for in a husband, and also what was wrong with the suitors she was considering.
* * *
Nate found that Sarah’s interest in finally choosing a husband had attracted attention. It fascinated the bored young men who inhabited the clubs, moved in packs to entertainments in both high and low society, and whiled away their hours by wagering, gossiping, and competing within their set: Corinthians, Dandies, Young Blades, Peep-O-Day Boys.
“The Winderfield Diamond?” said one rakish gentleman, when Nate managed to bring her name into a conversation over brandy. “Nothing there. She looks lovely, I’ll grant you, but not safe. Even before those terrifying cousins arrived, a man ’d risk his future offspring getting too close. Seems very sweet, right up until she freezes you into an ice block.”
“And her sister!” His friend shuddered. “Cut you into little strips with her tongue, that one.”
“Anyway,” Rake One commented, “she’s looking for a groom. Don’t know why this season, when she’s turned down more proposals than any other female on the Marriage Mart. Truth to tell, I only chanced my arm because of that. I usually leave the virgins alone, but I thought she’d decided on spinsterhood.”
“Anyone would have,” his friend commiserated. “Did myself.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t like men.”
“Then why is she getting married?” the first rake asked.
They considered the perplexing conundrum of a woman who did not find their advances appealing while Nate thought about how satisfying it would be to punch them.
Someone sitting nearby interrupted their silence. “Bit of a honey pot all around. Looks, money, connections. A man could do worse. And if she doesn’t warm up in bed, that’s what mistresses are for.”
“Good luck with that,” another opined. “She’s already turned away don’t-know-how-many fortune hunters. The war office should hire her mother and her aunt. Their intelligence gathering is unbelievable.”
The topic drifted and circled, but kept coming back to what gossip had gleaned about Sarah’s intentions and expectations. Nate didn’t have to say a word. He sat and sipped his brandy, and before an hour had passed, he had a list of eight men that, the company agreed, the Winderfield Diamond was considering.
Other conversations added two more, and rounded out a picture of a settled man with interests beyond fashion, gambling, and sports. Of the seven landowners, four were peers and three untitled gentlemen. The three younger sons all had independent incomes from their own successful enterprises, one as a Member of Parliament in Commons, one an architect, and one a barrister. Nine of the ten preferred country to London living. Four were widowers, two with children.
One factor they had in common was that all had a name as philanthropists, in some measure. That was another thing Nate learned about the Winderfield family in general and Sarah and her twin in particular. They not only supported good causes, they actively worked in charitable ventures as diverse as barefoot schools, orphanages, and support for military widows and their children.
Most of the useless fribbles who gossiped in his hearing were contemptuous of such efforts. “Not going to be able to make silk out of that kind of sow’s ear.” The young viscount expressing that opinion was only saying what his fellows thought. “Those who are born in the gutter belong there. Don’t have the brains for anything else, and will rob you soon as look at you.”
Nate kept to his corner and sipped his drink. What would these idiots say if they knew where he was heading tomorrow? Out of curiosity, he had walked past the ragged school that Lady Charlotte not only sponsored but taught in. In an adjoining street, he had seen a medical clinic that offered care to anyone who came. On an impulse, he had gone in, introduced himself, and asked for a tour.
They’d been in the process of politely refusing when several people were carried in from the street in fast succession, bruised, broken and bleeding from an encounter with a runaway dray. “Let me help,” Nate had offered to the harried doctor who came hurrying down from upstairs in his shirtsleeves.
He’d been grilled about his experience and training in between terse commands to hold this, pass that, and tie the other thing. “You know what you’re doing,” the doctor conceded after they’d passed quickly down the line of patients, checking breathing and bleeding and providing immediate emergency care. “Carry on. You take the big man with the broken femur. I’ll sew up the split eyebrow.”
An hour later—the ambulatory on their way home, the remaining two who needed overnight medical supervision in beds in a clean ward upstairs—they finally introduced themselves. “Nate Beauclair,” Nate said. His courtesy title would only get in the way. “Late of Edinburgh University, where I read medicine, and before that, apprentice to a ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy.”
The other doctor grasped the hand Nate offered. “I’m Blythe, the resident physician here. We have others who come in on regular clinic days: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Even the founder, when she is in town. Cup of tea?”
Nate nodded his agreement, and Blythe led the way across the hall that divided the upper floor into two halves. He unlocked a door and showed Nate into a comfortable sitting room. “My apartment—comes with the residency. Are you looking for a job, Beauclair?”
He busied himself with stirring up the fire and moving a kettle close to the flame. “I’ll warn you, mine is the only paid position. Most of our doctors are volunteers.”
Nate passed him the tin of tea that perched on the mantlepiece. “I already have a position, but it is only part time. Do you need another volunteer?”
Blythe measured three spoons of tea into a waiting teapot. “We always need another volunteer. The lines get longer week by week. I’ve been telling the founder that we should add another clinic day, but we don’t have the doctors. If you’re serious, I’ll put in a word.”
Over tea, the conversation turned to their medical training. Blythe had his degree from the University of Oxford, and had finished his study with practical experience at St Bartholomew’s in London. Nate had had the practical experience first, and sat the second-year examinations at Edinburgh based on what he’d learned from his shipboard mentor, Dr Macintosh.
It had been Macintosh who had kept him alive and put him back together when he was first thrown aboard ship, and who had taken him on as loblolly boy once he recovered enough to do a few tasks around the hospital room to show his gratitude.
After several years, Macintosh talked the navy into sending him to university to get his qualifications. Nate had just been reassigned to a ship when his father interfered, and the Admiralty, curse them, accepted the argument that the welfare of the kingdom required the earl to have an heir to his estates and title.
Mind you, had they not, he would not have been here, in London, just in time to seize the chance for a future with Sarah, if there was one.
