Lord Hasselthorpe scowled and leaped to his feet, knocking against the carriage roof. “Stop the carriage! Stop the carriage, I say! You’re going in the wrong damned direction.”
The carriage pulled to the side of the road and halted. Hasselthorpe prepared to give the idiot coachman a tongue-lashing. But before he could reach the carriage door, it was jerked open and a familiar face filled the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?” Hasselthorpe roared.
Chapter Sixteen
So Longsword lived with the princess and her father in the royal castle, and his days were filled with ease and joy. The food was rich and abundant, his clothing warm and soft; he didn’t have to battle any imps or demons, and the princess was delightful company. In fact, the more time Longsword spent riding with the princess, dining with her, and strolling the castle gardens, the sweeter his pleasure became, until he longed to spend all his days and nights with her forever.
But he knew he could not. His year on earth was growing to a close, and the Goblin King would soon demand his return….
—from Longsword
Westminster Hall’s stern Gothic architecture gave it a conservative air much admired by the majority of the older members of parliament. A corner of Reynaud’s mouth curled up as he neared the imposing doors. He’d come here often as a young man, accompanying his father when he sat in the House of Lords. It was strange to enter now, knowing that he came to defend a title held by his father—a title that should’ve passed to him without any dispute at all. He squared his shoulders and thrust his chin out as he entered the facade. It occurred to him they were the same movements he used to make right before battle.
This, too, was a battle, but one he must fight with his wits.
Reynaud strode through the great vaulted hall, passing under the watchful eyes of the angels that lined the eaves, and proceeded to a dark back passage. This led down a short flight of stairs and to a series of dark-paneled doors. Outside one was a somberly dressed servant.
The servant bowed to Reynaud. “They’re waiting within, my lord.”
Reynaud nodded. “Thank you.”
The dark little room he entered was sparsely furnished. Four rows of wooden benches sat facing a large wood table. Beside the table was a single tall chair. The room was loud with the voices of men, for the benches were nearly full. There were twenty members of this Select Committee for Privileges, appointed from the House of Lords to decide the matter of his title. As Reynaud found a seat, the chairman of the committee, Lord Travers, got up from where he’d been sitting with Beatrice’s uncle on the front bench. He saw Reynaud, nodded, and went to stand before the tall chair.
“My lords, shall we begin?”
The room gradually quieted, although total silence was not achieved, because several members continued to murmur, and one elderly lord was cracking walnuts in the corner, apparently oblivious to the proceedings around him.
Lord Travers nodded, gave a brief, dry outline of the case before the committee, and then called on Reynaud.
Reynaud took a deep breath, his fingers moving to touch where his knife usually hung by his side before he remembered he’d left it at home. He stood and strode to the front of the room and faced his peers. The faces that looked back at him were mostly old. Would they understand? Did they still have pity?
He took a breath. “My lords, I stand before you and plead for the title my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and his father before him held. I ask you for what is only mine by birth. You have papers attesting to my identity. That, I think, is not at issue.” He paused and looked at the men sitting in judgment of him. Not a one looked particularly sympathetic. “What is at issue is what my opponent intends to claim: that I am mad.”
That caused several lords to frown and put their heads together. Reynaud felt his shoulder blades twitch. The tack he was taking was a risk, but a calculated one.
He let the murmurs die and then lifted his chin. “I am not mad. What I am is an officer of His Majesty’s army, one who has seen perhaps more than his fair share of combat and hardship. If I am mad, then every officer who ever saw battle, who ever came home missing limb or eye, who ever dreamed in the night of blood and war cries, is mad as well. Shame me and you shame every brave man who has fought for this country.”
The voices had grown louder at his assertion, but Reynaud raised his voice to be heard over the murmuring. “Grant me, then, my lords, what is mine and mine alone. The title that belonged to my father. The title that in time will descend to my son. The earldom of Blanchard. My earldom.”
There were frowns and voices raised in argument as he made his way back to his seat. As Reynaud sat down he wondered if he’d just won back his title—or lost it forever.
ALGERNON DOWNEY, THE Duke of Lister, was on the way to the House of Lords, but he paused on the front steps of his town house to give his secretary some additional instructions. “I’ve run out of patience. Tell my aunt that if she cannot keep figures, then she should hire someone literate to do it for her. Until then, I do not intend to give her any further monies this quarter. A few refusals of service from tradesmen may help her to be more frugal with her allowance.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The secretary made a low bow.
Lister turned to descend his steps to the waiting carriage.
Or at least that was what he intended. Instead he stopped so suddenly that he nearly lost his footing. Waiting for him at the bottom was a tiny, beautiful woman in a bright green frock.
Lister frowned. “Madeleine, what are you doing here?”
The woman thrust out her chest, imperiling the fine silk of her bodice. “What am I doing here?”
Behind him, Lister heard a dry cough. He turned to see his secretary goggling at his mistress.
“Go inside and make sure Her Grace doesn’t take a notion to come out the front door,” Lister ordered.
The secretary looked a bit disappointed, but he bowed and went inside.
Lister started down the steps. “You know better than to visit my family residence, Madeleine. If this is some attempt at blackmail—”
“Blackmail! Oh, I like that! I like that indeed,” Madeleine replied somewhat obscurely. “And what about her?”
Lister followed her pointing finger to find… “Demeter? I don’t understand.”
The blond lady thus addressed cocked a magnificent hip and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “And you think I do? I received this letter”—she waved an elegant-looking missive—“saying you need me at once and please come here, of all places, if I had any affection for you at all.”
Lister drew himself up. His ancestors had fought at the Battle of Hastings, he was the fifth-richest man in England, and he was known for his ill temper. Two of his mistresses appearing at one time on his very doorstep was, of course, disconcerting, but a man of his experience, stature, and—
“And what the blazes is this?” Evelyn, the most strident of his mistresses, exclaimed as she came around the corner. Tall, black-haired, and imposing, she looked at him with the same wild passion that usually turned his loins to iron. “If this is your way of giving me my congé, Algernon, you will regret it, mark my words.”
Lister winced. He hated it when Evelyn called him by his Christian name. He opened his mouth and then wasn’t entirely sure what to say, a thing that had never before happened to him in his life. This experience was ominously close to one of those awful dreams even a man of his stature had once in a while. The nightmares in which one stood up to address the House of Lords and looked down to see that one was wearing only one’s smallclothes. Or the nightmare in which all of one’s mistresses somehow managed to be in the same place at the same time—and at his house, no less.
Lister felt sweat slide greasily down his back.
Of course, this wasn’t quite all of his mistresses. If it were, his newest light o’ love would have been here, and she—
A dangerously high phaeton rounded the corner, scandalously driven by a sophisticated woman, a little boy in flamboyant purple and gold livery behind her. Everyone turned to look.
Lister watched the vision approach with the fatality of a man who stands before a firing squad. Francesca drew the horses to a halt with a flourish. Her pretty little rosebud mouth fell open.
“What eez theez?” she cried in an excruciating French accent. “Your Grace, ’r you having zee joke wit’ your poor petite Francesca?”
There was a long and awful pause.
And then Evelyn pivoted and stared dangerously at him. “Why does she have a new phaeton?”
It was at this moment, as the shrill voices of four slighted women rose about him, that the Duke of Lister saw a man across the street tip his hat. The man wore an eye patch.
Lister blinked. Surely it couldn’t be…
But that thought was driven from his mind as the women converged on him. The House of Lords would have to wait.
REYNAUD GLANCED ABOUT the room, trying to judge his standing, but it was near impossible. The lords still talked avidly among themselves, with one or two throwing him curious glances. No one smiled at him.
Reynaud balled his fists on his knees.
The usurper took his spot before the table and cleared his throat. He began speaking, but his voice was so low that several lords shouted for him to speak up. Reginald paused, visibly gulping, and began again in a louder but slightly unsteady voice.
And suddenly Reynaud felt sorry for the man. Reginald was in his sixth decade, a short, stout, red-faced man who wasn’t a good speaker. Reynaud remembered very little of the man. Had he come to Christmas dinner with his wife once when Reynaud was down from Cambridge? He couldn’t remember.
The fact was that Reginald simply hadn’t been important. He’d been a distant relation unlikely to inherit the title, since Reynaud was young and healthy. What a surprise it must’ve been when he received news that he’d become the Earl of Blanchard. Had he celebrated Reynaud’s supposed death? Reynaud wasn’t even sure he could hold that against the man. Becoming the Earl of Blanchard had probably been the high point in his life.
Reginald had stuttered to a halt. He’d really not had that much to say to begin with, his basic plea being that he held the title and was therefore the earl. The chairman nodded, and Beatrice’s uncle resumed his seat with evident relief.
Lord Travers stood and called for a vote.
Reynaud felt the blood rush in his ears, so loud that at first he didn’t hear the verdict. Then he did and a wide grin split his face.
“. . . this committee therefore will recommend to Our Sovereign King, His Majesty George the Third, that Reynaud Michael Paul St. Aubyn be given his rightful title as the Earl of Blanchard.”
The chairman continued with the litany of Reynaud’s other titles, but he no longer listened. Triumph was flooding his chest. The lord sitting beside him clapped him on the back, and the man behind him leaned over the bench saying, “Well done, Blanchard.”
Dear God, it felt good to be addressed by his title finally. The chairman wound down and Reynaud stood. The men about him crowded close, offering congratulations, and Reynaud couldn’t help but feel a bit of cynicism at his sudden popularity. He’d gone from being a madman to one of the most influential men in the kingdom. Beatrice had been right. He had great power now—power he could use to effect good if he wished.
Over the heads of the crowd, he saw Reginald standing by the door. He was alone now, his power gone. Reginald caught his eye and nodded. It was a graceful gesture, an acknowledgment of defeat, and Reynaud wanted to go to him, but he was prevented by the press of bodies. In another moment, Reginald had left the room.
The committee began filing out, and Lord Travers came to offer Reynaud his congratulations. “That’s done, then, what? I’ll have the secretary draw up the official committee recommendation to be sent to His Majesty.”