Page 27 of The Captain of Betrayal
"Well then, I don't think serving you another pint is any of my concern either," Lawless replied, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at James from across the bar top.
James sighed; he knew that he had been rude, but he could not help his short temper. It had galled him to learn that he was so like the father who had abandoned him and his mother. The ease with which Lord Keyford had recognised him as sharing Ludlow's blood was astonishing. All James had known of his father was that single portrait in the parlour of Lord Livingstone's London town house and the legacy of pain and poverty that he had left James' mother.
"Leave the lad alone, Jack," a voice called from behind James. "He's had a bit of a shock is all. Another pint for him, one for myself and one for you Jack, if you please."
Mr Lawless straightened at the newcomer's greeting and hastily began to pour three pints. James turned and found Lord Keyford standing behind him, the older man's face wearing a look of pity.
"I thought I'd seek you out, for I saw earlier that I'd rather overstepped the line."
"Not at all," James responded with forced nonchalance; had his dismay really been so obvious?
"Enough of that, my boy," Keyford guffawed, taking a seat beside James at the bar. "I'm long enough in the tooth to know when I've said something upsetting. I've been told that I'm really quite good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time."
"You weren't to know," James shrugged, accepting the pint that Lawless proffered toward him. The barman had a look of contrition on his face, and James knew that he was forgiven for his outburst, but only if Lawless could listen in on what was being discussed.
"No, I didn't know." Keyford shook his head, "Horace never told me about you."
"How could he, when he never even knew I was born?"
There was a bitterness in his voice that shocked him; James had been harbouring anger toward his late father for abandoning him, but there was enough resentment within him to be directed at his mother too. She had never written or reached out to the Earl of Ludlow, until it was too late. Who knew what his life might have been, with his father in it?
"May I ask who your mother was?" Keyford ventured tentatively, rapping his knuckles against the rough oak bar top anxiously. His face wore a look of open curiosity and James knew that the Viscount was simply trying to piece together the whole story and was not fishing for gossip.
"Flora Black," James muttered, as Jack turned to serve another customer. No matter his anger, he did not want his mother's name sullied in the local inn of a village she had once visited.
"Goodness, Flora?"
If James had been surprised that Keyford had known his father, he was rendered silent with shock upon realising that he also knew his mother. James had thought that his parent's affair would have been a secretive thing, filled with shame and dishonour, but it appeared he had been wrong.
"You knew her also?" James queried, taking a sip of his pint, for his mouth had suddenly gone dry.
"A little," Keyford nodded thoughtfully. "She and Horace shared an interest in literature, he would attend the saloons in Mrs Barker's with her."
Mrs Barker, the previous proprietress of the boarding house, had been something of a bluestocking. She had held intellectual saloons, hosted noted philosophers and historians, and had welcomed the women of the ton who were more inclined toward egalitarianism than marriage and balls.
"Did you have any idea that they were romantically involved?" James queried, wondering how it was that he had been conceived. Perhaps the Earl of Ludlow had forced himself upon his mother, for the mother that he had known, would have had far too much pride to become a man's mistress.
"I had an inkling," Keyford gave a shrug. "But at the end of Horace's last summer here, he left to visit Penzance and that was the last time he visited St Jarvis, or Cornwall for that matter. I had no idea that he and your mother had..."
James dropped his head into his hands; Keyford had raised far more questions than he had answered. Though perhaps there was one thing he could help James with.
"How did my father die?" he asked, for anytime he had raised the question with Arthur Livingstone, his Uncle had brushed his queries aside.
"It was rather strange," Keyford's face was troubled. "He took a fall from a horse."
"How is that strange?"
"Well, Horace never rode," Keyford explained, glancing at James with eyes that were slightly beseeching. "He hated the beasts. He would walk from Aylesbury to St Jarvis and back again, even though I insisted he had his pick of any animal in my stables. And yet, about five years after he was wed, he fell from a horse whilst out riding. I found it strange, to say the least."
James knew what Keyford was trying to insinuate--that there was something untoward in the manner that his father had died, but there was little he could do to help the man with his suspicions.
"I would ask my Uncle if he knew of anyone who wished to harm Ludlow, but alas we have not spoken in over a decade," James said, swilling deeply on his ale. "Can you think of anyone who might have wished my father dead?"
Lord Keyford looked as if he was going to speak, but seemed to think better of it and merely shook his head sadly.
"Forgive me," he said to James, "It is an old man's suspicion, nothing more. I have sorely missed Horace these past five and twenty years--perhaps I am just seeking someone to blame."
"You were close friends?"
