Lord Hughes had calmly and appreciatively sipped at his wine while the servants exited. When he noticed that he had come under close scrutiny, he gave a broad smile. “Are my motives so suspect, then, Agatha?”
When she said nothing, merely by the lift of her brows indicating her opinion, he sighed and crossed his elegantly shod ankles. “Very well then. Mea culpa and all the rest. I am here for purely selfish reasons.”
“I did not doubt it for a moment,” Lady Pomerancy dryly assured him.
Lord Hughes laughed. He cast her a fond glance. “Ever up to all the rigs. You were the only one whom I could never fleece, in one way or another. I have often wondered, if we had been born closer in age and temperament, whether our relationship might not have been somewhat different.”
“If I take your meaning correctly, you harbor regrets about not being able to use me as you have anyone else who was unfortunate enough to come into your sphere,” said Lady Pomerancy mendaciously.
A flash of temper crossed Lord Hughes’s face, but it was as quickly gone with his returned smile. “That is it exactly. You have not lost the touch of annoying me, Agatha, but pray do not take that admission as a compliment.”
Lady Pomerancy laughed. “No, I shall not.” There was actually a twinkle in her eyes. “You are a rake and a rogue, but a likable fellow for all that.”
Lord Hughes pressed a wide hand vaguely over the region of his heart. “I am touched, dear sister. I never thought to hear such accolades of my poor self pass your prim lips.”
“I have always given you that much, Horace. As for the rest, I prefer never to think on it,” said Lady Pomerancy.
“On the contrary. You have thought on it often and often.”
Lord Hughes’s voice was stripped of its former jocularity. He regarded his sister with shrewdness. “It is why you refused to allow me to take poor Lionel’s brat. It is also why not I, nor any of the rest, were given the opportunity to have any hand at all in the boy’s raising or education. Imagine my astonishment when a handsome young buck approached me at a function a few years back and announced that he was my grandnephew. I was never more taken aback in my life when Peter Hawkins claimed kinship with me.”
“I would not have expected less of my grandson,” said Lady Pomerancy composedly. “He is a gentleman born.”
“He is a gentleman made,” Lord Hughes corrected. He swirled the wine left in his glass. “It is on Peter’s account that I have come.”
He looked up and saw that he had succeeded in startling her at last. He smiled, rather wearily. “I have no designs of corruption in mind, my lady. Those days are past, would you not agree? He is too much settled in his ways to be swayed by anything that I might throw in his way.”
“I must give thanks for that in my evening prayers tonight,” said Lady Pomerancy sharply. “Why
have
you come, Horace? You said before that it was purely for selfish motives, and now you say it is on Peter’s account. Which is it, then?”
“It is one and the same.”
Lord Hughes chuckled at her stiffening expression. “No, I do not mock you. The honest truth of the matter is that I am beginning to feel my own mortality. I am not as impervious to the effects of riotous living as I once was. Your grandson is my only heir and—”
“What, have you no byblows to show for the excessive sowing of your wild seed?” Lady Pomerancy asked sarcastically.
There was a moment’s silence. Lady Pomerancy was surprised by the pained expression that fleeted across her brother’s face.
“None that have survived,” said Lord Hughes evenly. “The last died this two months past.”
Lady Pomerancy was silenced. She turned her head so that she was looking into the fire, her expression shuttered.
Lord Hughes set down his wineglass with exaggerated care. “As I was saying, Peter Hawkins is my only heir. He will inherit the title. I wish to be assured that there will be another after him, and that is why I have come to Bath. I intend to see the boy wed.”
Lady Pomerancy stared at her brother. “You must be mad.”
Wrath kindled in her eyes. “How dare you come here and state your
intention,
as though your wish is all that matters. I take leave to tell you that I find it both insulting and ludicrous that you have taken it upon yourself to attempt such an ordering of my grandson’s life.”
“Why not?” The viscount shrugged. “You have had a free hand in ordering it for more years than I care to count. Now the time has come for someone else to speak up.”
“Your concern is unnecessary and unwarranted, Horace. Peter and I go along very nicely as we are,” said Lady Pomerancy, ruffled.
“Perhaps I have Peter’s future interests closer to heart than yourself, dear sister. I do not hold him still tied to my apron strings.” Lord Hughes spoke with his habitual smile, yet there was a hard look about his eyes and mouth.
Lady Pomerancy shook with reaction. Her hands clawed at the arms of her chair. “I shall not sit still for this tripe! I have done all in my power to give that boy the best of everything. Everything! I will not have you—
you—
cast aspersions upon—” She struggled to rise, and in her clumsy fury she knocked over the decanter table beside her chair.
Lord Hughes scrambled up out of his chair, alarmed by the extent of her rage as well as her helplessness. Nothing could have driven aside his own self-centered interests so effectively. “Agatha! Have a care!”
She would have fallen except that he caught her in his arms.
The commotion brought in the servants. The footman stopped short, but the maid rushed forward. “My lady!”
Lord Hughes looked around as he gently helped Lady Pomerancy back into her chair. The maid clucked with distress and hurried to replace the rug over her ladyship’s knees. “Her ladyship misjudged her strength. But I do not think that she took hurt. Am I mistaken, my lady?”
The footman stared hard at the gentleman, then looked at his mistress. “My lady, are you quite all right?”
“Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I be?” Lady Pomerancy flashed. “Get out, the both of you. Oh, do stop fluttering over me, woman. I shall ring when I wish for anything. You may clean up this mess later.”
The footman had righted the table and had gone down on one knee to begin collecting the tray and pieces of glass from the broken decanter. He looked up. “The stain, my lady—”
“The carpet is undoubtedly already stained so that it can scarcely matter if it is done now or later. Get out, I say.”
The servants left with obvious reluctance. The footman sent a last meaningful glance in Lord Hughes’s direction before closing the door.
Lord Hughes was not amused by the manservant’s obvious mistrust, but he merely commented, “A good man, that. I never could command that sort of loyalty.”
Lady Pomerancy sighed. After ordering out her servants, she had shaded her face with her fingers. But now she dropped her hand. “I apologize, Horace. It is unlike me to flare up in such a fashion.”
“On the contrary. Whenever we have chanced to meet through the years, we have come to cuffs within minutes. You usually end by telling me to go to the devil,” said Lord Hughes.
Lady Pomerancy chuckled faintly. “I had forgotten. Very well, Horace, you have my continued leave to go to the devil.” Her expression turned thoughtful as she met and held his eyes. “Yours is a fickle, self-absorbed character, but on the rare occasion you have actually surprised me. In both instances, it has been in regard to Peter’s future.”
Lord Hughes stirred uncomfortably. “Pray do not make me out some sort of saint, Agatha. Nothing would irritate me more, you know. I told you, I merely wish to satisfy myself that the title will continue to be held by someone with whom I have a vague blood connection.”
“I suppose that is not an unreasonable ambition,” said Lady Pomerancy.
“I, too, could wish that Peter would take a bride. He has grown increasingly restless since his return from the Continent. However, I have good reason to know that he has recognized for himself that it is time to be looking about him for a suitable party.”
Lord Hughes recognized a tacit truce when it was offered him. He smiled. “Then you will have no objection to my broaching the subject to the boy?”
There came an odd smile into Lady Pomerancy’s eyes. “None at all, Horace. Perhaps your advice may even be of some benefit. You may steer Peter clear of all sorts of ill-advised starts through your patent example.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence, dear sister,” said Lord Hughes with fine irony. He levered himself out of the chair. “If you have no objection, I should like to discover which room my possessions have been put into so that I may begin changing for dinner. I assume that you do keep country hours in Bath?”
“We are not so provincial as that, Horace. However, if you should wish it, I shall ask that a tray be carried up to your room so that you may dine early,” said Lady Pomerancy generously.
Lord Hughes laughed. “No, no. I would not think of putting the kitchen out on my account. I shall see you and my grandnephew below at the usual hour.”
“It will be my company only tonight. Peter dines out this evening,” said Lady Pomerancy. She lifted her brows at her brother’s surprised expression. “Surely you did not think that he was kept quite so close by my apron strings as all that, my lord?”
Lord Hughes lifted her hand to his lips. “You are magnificent as always, my lady. And as usual, you have left me with nothing to say.”
“I do not believe it, but courtesy forbids me to put it to the test,” said Lady Pomerancy.
Lord Hughes laughed again. He made a flourishing bow to her before he left the salon.
Lady Pomerancy sat before the fire, reflecting for several moments. Then she rang the bell that she always kept in her possession. Immediately the door opened to admit her maid and the footman. “I wish to go up to my rooms. When my nephew comes in, pray send him up to me whatever the hour.”
“Very good, my lady.”
* * * *
The hour was well advanced when Mr. Hawkins returned. As he handed over his drenched overcoat to the butler, his brow was creased in a frown. His somber expression deepened upon being informed of his grandmother’s summons, but without comment he went upstairs and along to Lady Pomerancy’s private salon.
Lady Pomerancy greeted him civilly and bade him sit down. He declined, preferring instead to stand at the mantel with one arm laid along its length. With an encompassing glance, she said, “I appreciate that you humor me at such a late hour, Peter.”
He smiled at her, somewhat tiredly. “Well do I know that if I did not, I would gravely offend your sensibilities, ma’am.”
“Quite true,” said Lady Pomerancy equitably. She gestured for the maid to leave them, and when the woman had done so, closing the door softly behind her, she said, “I would not ordinarily have left so insistent a message, as you know, but I wished to forewarn you before you went down to breakfast.”
Mr. Hawkins raised a brow. “My attention is thoroughly engaged, my lady. What calamity is to befall me in the morning? Am I to be hauled away for some crime that quite escapes my memory at the moment?”
“Nothing so dire, dear boy, though I suspect that you might wish it to be so simple a matter before all is done and said. Your uncle arrived this afternoon while you were out and expressed to me his intention to see you properly wed-locked. He will undoubtedly importune you at first opportunity,” said Lady Pomerancy.
“Oh Lord,” said Mr. Hawkins ruefully. He passed a hand over his thick hair. “It needed only that.”
Lady Pomerancy regarded her grandson with shrewd eyes. “Am I mistaken in concluding that the advent of Lord Hughes is but an additional annoyance?”
Mr. Hawkins laughed a shade grimly. “That is mildly put, ma’am. I have come away from a solemn half hour with Percy, in which he confided to me his intention to offer for a certain young lady.”
Lady Pomerancy stared up at him. “Surely
not
Miss Dower!”
He laughed at her ladyship’s appalled comprehension, then shrugged. “I fear so. I wish now that I were not so insistent that my cousin unburden himself. Percy was moody all the evening so that even Sir Charles commented upon it. He recommended that I take Percy off after dinner and talk to him. The upshot of it is as I have told you.”
“Will the dratted girl have him?”
Mr. Hawkins frowned. He toed a burning faggot further into the fire. “I would not have thought so, for Miss Dower accords Percy all the friendliness of a sister. I have never detected anything else in her manner toward him. But Percy seems to think that she feels quite otherwise.”
“Percy is a nodcock,” said Lady Pomerancy succinctly. “I have spoken enough with Miss Dower to have gained some insight into her intelligence. Though she had the incomprehensible bad judgment to turn down your offer, she is needlewitted enough to realize that she and Percy would never suit. If what you say is true, I do not think that you need be anxious over Percy’s offer for her.”
“Where Miss Dower is concerned, however, I find that I do not care to wait upon fate to decide the outcome,” said Mr. Hawkins quietly, still staring into the fire.
“Then what will you do?”
Mr. Hawkins looked around. There was a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. “Perhaps Percy himself will provide the answer,” he said.
Lady Pomerancy saw that there was no more to be got out of him, and so she recommended that he go to his bed. She rang her bell. As the maid returned, she said, “You will need your rest to fortify you for your confrontation with your uncle.”
Mr. Hawkins laughed and agreed. He dropped an affectionate kiss upon her head and left her to the ministrations of her maid.
Chapter Sixteen
Lord Hughes rose and went down for a late breakfast, as was his usual custom. As he entered the breakfast room, he was unsurprised to be informed by the butler that his grand-nephew had already gone out. “I shall catch him later, I expect,” he said, at once helping himself to a generous portion of steak and kippers.
“Indeed, my lord. Mr. Hawkins asked me to convey his apologies as well as his intention to return in time to take luncheon with you,” said the butler, pouring his lordship’s coffee.