A Too Convenient Marriage

Justin looked at the liquor on the side table before eschewing the drink. Smelling alcohol on his breath would only give his father another reason to criticise him. ‘I’ll be back.’

He strode down the panelled hallway of the Rathbones’ house which was situated in Bride Lane just off Fleet Street. Across the street, the bells of St Bride’s church began to toll the noon hour. In a matter of days, he’d have his common licence and a date fixed at the church. It amazed him how the green-eyed hellcat had managed to snare him in a matter of minutes, though he’d rather be back with her than preparing to face the man pacing across the Rathbones’ fine sitting-room rug.

Mr Green, the young man Justin paid to reside with his father and keep him out of trouble, sat on a bench near the front door. He jumped up at the sight of Justin. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Connor, I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on coming here to see you.’

‘It’s all right, Mr Green. You do your best.’ Justin waved the young man back on to the bench. It was hard for anyone to deal with his father, much less dissuade him from any course, including ruin.

‘’Bout time you came to me,’ his father grumbled as Justin approached. ‘Thought I was going to have to wait here all day.’

‘And a good afternoon to you, too, Father.’ He should have taken the drink.

‘I waited all morning for you to come and tell Mrs Green to stop shoving those damned tonics on me, but you never showed.’

His father’s housekeeper was a saint for putting up with him, as was her son.

‘I’m sorry I failed to arrive for our appointment. I was meeting with a young lady and her father to finalise the details of our engagement.’ There was no other way to make the announcement except the direct one. His father wasn’t one for polite conversation, though once he’d been charming and suave, able to talk a stranger into buying him a drink as well as putting down the pistol when he and the elder Mr Rathbone had arrived to collect a debt.

‘Finally making that little widow your wife, heh?’

‘No. She’s accepted a proposal from another man. I’m marrying Miss Susanna Lambert, the Duke of Rockland’s illegitimate daughter.’

Shock lengthened the deep lines of his father’s face before he drew them tight into his usual scowl. He marched up to Justin. He was a good head shorter than his son, but it didn’t stop him from waving one thick finger in Justin’s face.

‘So a widow of your own class ain’t enough for you—you want to raise yourself up. Think you’re too important for your station and the life I’ve given you. Well, you aren’t. Reach too high and you’ll fall fast enough.’

‘Your faith in me is astounding.’ Justin laced his fingers behind his back. The insulting man was his father and he’d honour him, but no commandment could make him like him. The most he could do was tolerate him, much as he’d seen Miss Lambert tolerate her father. He’d admired and revered him once, but his father’s acerbic tongue had killed those feelings ages ago.

‘What have you ever done to give me faith in you except drink, lay about with easy widows and squander your money on ridiculous shipping schemes? How much of my blunt did you lose in that harebrained venture of yours?’

‘Not one ha’penny. Now, as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, I must ask you to get to the point. Mr Rathbone and I have business to attend to this afternoon.’

‘Well, la-de-da.’ His father made a mock curtsy, his hands trembling as he held them out. It was lack of alcohol which made them shake, a situation he’d soon remedy. ‘Knew sending you to school was a waste. I’ve come for money, since you think me too great a fool to manage it myself.’

Justin withdrew a few coins from his pocket and handed them to his father. He didn’t bother to point out he was acting in his father’s best interests. The older man wouldn’t understand any more than he understood Justin’s desire to emulate Philip and be more than another man’s assistant.

‘Taught ya’ everything ya’ know and this is how ya’ repay me, handing out a pittance as if I was a child.’ His father scowled as he plucked up the coins and shuffled into the hall. ‘Come along, you,’ he barked at Mr Green. ‘No-good son of mine thinks he’s better than his old father.’

A trail of mumbling curses followed him out the door until Chesterton closed it and brought the noise to an end.

Justin turned his hand over, studying the dark bruises on his knuckles. He wasn’t sure he should subject Miss Lambert to his father, but judging by the brief treatment he’d seen meted out to her by Lord Rockland, she more than anyone might sympathise with the necessity of managing a difficult relative.

‘Is your father gone already?’ Mrs Rathbone stepped into the sitting room, concern for Justin in her caring eyes. Her infant son slept on her shoulder, one small hand curled tight by his tiny mouth.

‘Not even pleasant company with me could keep him from his other errands today,’ Justin said glibly, hating to be pitied. This wasn’t the first spat Mrs Rathbone had witnessed between father and son. They were a regular occurrence.

‘You must recall the better times and ignore his taunts,’ she urged, rubbing the sweet baby’s back.

‘I do.’ He sighed out the lie, barely able to remember his father from before his mother’s death. Afterwards, his father had turned to drink, growing more callous and quarrelsome with each passing year. It’d come to a head last summer when Justin had taken over the management of his father’s finances after the older man had woken up in a ditch in Haymarket with no memory of the night before and a nasty bruise under one eye. His father had been so enamoured of his son’s desire to help him, he’d turned on Justin like a wounded dog.

‘I know he still loves you.’ Mrs Rathbone laid an encouraging hand on his arm. ‘But he has his demons to struggle with.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Justin flashed Mrs Rathbone a wide smile, stamping down on the anger and pain chewing at him.

‘On a happier note, I understand congratulations are in order.’ Mrs Rathbone beamed as her son snored lightly.

‘Indeed they are. I’m about to join you and Mr Rathbone in wedded bliss.’ Although the idea he might not enjoy a union as happy as theirs taunted him. Hopefully, the force to be reckoned with he’d witnessed this morning wouldn’t turn into a haranguing fishwife once they were married. He could only tolerate one person calling him a failure at a time.

Mrs Rathbone tapped a finger to her chin. ‘I understand it was a most peculiar proposal.’

Justin matched her sideways smile with one of his own. ‘It wouldn’t be the first in this house now, would it?’

‘Certainly not.’ Mrs Rathbone laughed, the cheerful sound driving away the curses still ringing in his ears and making the baby let out a small cry before he settled back to sleep. ‘I only hope Jane doesn’t surprise us like that some day.’

‘If our examples are anything to judge by, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.’ Jane, Philip’s fourteen-year-old sister whom he had raised since their mother’s death, was too precocious and sure of herself for her own good, just like her brother.

Philip stepped into the room, dressed in his redingote and carrying his walking stick. ‘Shall we be off?’

‘We shall.’ A vintner had fled back to France to avoid repaying a loan. They were going to seize his stock, the wine which Justin would purchase from Philip and use to establish the business his father and Helena had so callously dismissed.

‘Be careful,’ Mrs Rathbone cautioned, squeezing Philip’s arm.

‘I always am.’ Philip laid a kiss on his son’s little forehead. Then he pressed his lips to his wife’s, in no obligatory peck, but a deep meaningful kiss. Philip, the most rational man Justin knew, had raced headlong into his union and all had been well. Hopefully, Justin would enjoy the same luck in his hastily negotiated engagement.

Chesterton handed Justin his gloves and he tugged them on. He flexed his fingers beneath the supple leather and pushed away the memory of Miss Lambert’s hand in his. She’d transfixed him as much with her ability to bargain as with her presence and the faint catch of her breath when they’d touched. As much as he enjoyed the charms of women, they usually didn’t have such power to sway him. If they had, he’d have failed to seize half the collateral from Philip’s clients. Yet with a few glances from beneath her dark eyelashes, and a walk to mesmerise him, she’d wrangled him into one of the most binding contracts he’d ever entered into. He looked forward to discovering more of her hidden charms.

He tapped the pistol in the leather holster beneath his coat, the agitation biting at him fuelled by more than the task facing him and Philip. He didn’t usually relish the physical aspects of his position as Philip’s assistant, but today he wouldn’t mind if a man took a swing at him and he could swing back. It would take a row, or an hour at his pugilist club, to work off the frustration from his encounter with his father, and the more pleasant tension roused by Miss Lambert.

He followed Philip to the waiting carriage, ready to be done with business and enjoy his drive with Miss Lambert. He wished to discuss with her tonight the vintner’s inventory and his plans for it. She’d wrestled a duke for his support of Justin’s venture while his own father and previous paramour had dismissed it. If nothing else, it was a positive omen for what their future life together might entail. She’d share his success and he would succeed, despite what anyone else believed.

* * *

‘I think French silk would be beautiful for the dress,’ Mrs Fairley, the young modiste, suggested as she draped a sample of the fine cream-coloured fabric over Susanna’s shoulder.

‘English silk will do,’ Lady Rockland barked from her place on the sofa where she watched the fitting. Lady Rockland had grudgingly summoned the modiste at Lord Rockland’s command to discuss Susanna’s wedding dress and a suitable costume for the masked ball. If only he’d ordered her to be pleasant. ‘The future wife of a merchant won’t need such an expensive gown.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Mrs Fairley folded the sample and laid it with the others in her case. Lady Rockland hired Mrs Fairley to dress Susanna while she and Edwina patronised a much more fashionable and expensive French modiste.

Susanna exchanged an awkward glance with the comely Mrs Fairley, who blushed on her behalf. It wasn’t the first time the kind young woman had witnessed this sort of conversation, but it would be the last. Even if Susanna’s desire for freedom had made her misjudge Mr Connor, surely the life of a merchant’s wife must be better than a duke’s unwanted bastard daughter.

‘I don’t see why you’re buying her a new dress for her marriage when one of her old ones will do for a wine merchant.’ Edwina, Susanna’s half-sister, selected another sweet from the box on her lap and popped it into her round mouth.

‘He won’t even be a merchant until he’s received your father’s money,’ Lady Rockland was kind enough to point out, looking down her nose at a man she hadn’t even met who probably had more honour in his right hand than she possessed in her entire stick-thin body.

‘Then why are they coming to the masque?’ Edwina whined, her exasperation as annoying as the way she chewed her sweet. ‘We’ve invited no other common people.’

‘It doesn’t matter if they come. Everyone will be wearing masks—no one will recognise them anyway,’ Lady Rockland explained, as though Susanna were not standing in her suddenly too-tight stays and chemise right in front of them.

‘I hear Cynthia Colchester is going to have the finest French silk gown and a ceremony in St George’s in Hanover Square.’ Edwina licked the tips of her fingers with a smacking noise before smiling smugly at Susanna.