of hooves. Just as they rounded the corner to head back to the blue drawing room and Mirabelle, Nathaniel stopped dead in his tracks. For there, not two feet in front of them, in imminent danger of being mown down by Nathaniel and his small passenger, stood the Earl of Porchester and Viscount Farleigh. Both heads swivelled round to view the intruders, the old man’s face haughty with censure, the younger’s gaping with shock.
‘Charles?’ Henry managed to utter, as he regained a grip on himself. His countenance resumed its normal staid facade and he raised his eyebrows in enquiry to his brother.
The earl said nothing, only looked briefly at Nathaniel with sharp brown eyes. His cool, unwelcoming expression altered as his gaze shifted to his grandson, and although it could hardly be described as a smile, there was a definite thawing in its glacial manner.
‘Papa!’ Charlie’s sticky hands reached out towards his father.
Nathaniel shifted the child round and handed the small squat body to his brother. ‘Mirabelle and the children have just arrived. She wanted it to be something of a surprise for you. I left her in the blue drawing room.’
‘Quite.’ There was no disputing the disapproving tone in the earl’s voice. He did not look at Nathaniel.
‘We had better take you to find your mother, young man.’ Henry tried unsuccessfully to disengage his son’s arms from around his neck. ‘Be careful of Papa’s neckcloth, Charles.’
Charlie completely ignored the caution and pressed a slobbery kiss to his father’s cheek.
Henry sighed, but Nathaniel could see the pride and affection in his brother’s eyes as he turned and headed off to meet his wife.
The two men stood facing one another, an uneasy silence between them. Up until this point they had managed to avoid any close meeting.
‘You’ll be leaving tomorrow?’ the earl said sourly.
Nathaniel inclined his head. ‘Yes, sir. My ship sails in one week and there’s much to be prepared.’ He looked into the old man’s face, so very like his own, knowing as he did before every voyage that this might be the last time he looked upon it. ‘I’d like to speak to you, sir, before I leave Collingborne, if that’s agreeable to you.’
‘Agreeable is hardly a word I’d use to describe how I feel, but—’ he waved his gaunt hand in a nonchalant gesture ‘—I’m prepared to listen. Get on and say what you must, boy.’
‘Perhaps the library would be a more suitable surrounding?’ Nathaniel indicated the door close by.
The earl grunted noncommittally, but walked towards the door anyway.
Once within the library, Porchester lowered himself into one of the large winged chairs and lounged comfortably back. He eyed his son with disdain. ‘Well? What is it that you want to say?’
Nathaniel still stood, not having been invited to sit. He knew his father was cantankerous with him at the best of times. He moved towards the fireplace and eyed the blackened grate before facing his father once more. ‘Will you take a drink?’
The old face broke into a cynical smile. ‘Is what you have to say really that bad?’ When Nathaniel did not reply, he continued, ‘Why not? A port might help make your words a trifle more palatable.’
Nathaniel reached for the decanter, poured two glasses and handed one to his father. ‘Your good health, sir.’ He raised his glass.
The earl pointedly ignored him and proceeded to sip his port.
Despite his father’s blatantly hostile manner, Nathaniel knew he had to try. The ill feeling between them had festered unchecked for too long, and was spilling over to affect the rest of the family. He knew that it had hurt his mother and that was something he bitterly regretted. But with her death it was too late for recriminations on that score. Her going had taken its toll on the earl. Porchester had aged in the last years. For the first time Nathaniel saw in him a frailty, a weak old man where before there was only strength and vitality. And it shocked him. They had always argued, his mother blaming it on the similarity in their temperaments. Nathaniel thought otherwise. The matter with Kitty Wakefield had only brought things to a head. He could not go away to sea without at least one more attempt at a reconciliation.
‘Is it money you’re after or do you find that you need my influence with the Admiralty after all?’ Porchester’s insult was cutting in the extreme.
The corner of Nathaniel’s mouth twitched and the colour drained from beneath his tanned cheeks. He controlled his response with commendable restraint. ‘Neither. I wish to have an end to this disagreement. The…incident…with Kitty Wakefield happened a long time ago and she’s since married. I’m sorry that it has led us to where we’re at now.’
The earl looked at him, a hard gleam in his eyes. ‘You weren’t sorry then, as I recall, seducing a young innocent girl and then refusing to marry her!’
‘Kitty Wakefield was no innocent, whatever her father led you to believe. She engineered the situation to her own ends, thinking to force a marriage.’
The earl gave a cynical snort and took a large gulp of port. ‘So you claim. Where’s your sense of honour? If you didn’t want to wed the girl, you should have controlled your appetite.’
The glass stem slowly rotated within his fingers and he let out a gentle expulsion of breath. ‘If you won’t forgive me on my own account, won’t you at least agree to some kind of reconciliation for my mother’s sake?’
The Earl of Porchester became suddenly animated. His previously slouched body straightened and he leaned forward in his chair. ‘Don’t dare to utter her name. It was the scandal associated with your debauchery and gambling that drove her to the grave!’ He shouted the words, then collapsed back against the chair. His voice became barely more than a whisper. ‘You broke her heart, lad, and that is something for which I’ll never forgive you.’
The muscle twitched again in Nathaniel’s jaw and his eyes hardened. ‘That’s unworthy of you, sir.’
‘Unworthy!’ the old man roared. He struggled upright, leaning heavily upon the ebony stick beneath his white-knuckled fingers. ‘That’s a word descriptive of yourself, boy! How dare you? Get out and don’t come back here until you’ve changed your ways. You’d do well to take a leaf out of Henry’s book. He’s not out chasing women, drinking and gambling. Thank God that at least one of my sons can face up to responsibility. He knows his duty, has settled down and is filling his nursery. It’s about time you grew up enough to do the same.’
The accusation was unfair. The earl’s estimation of his character was sadly misinformed, but Nathaniel knew that any protestations would fall on deaf ears. The discussion was at an end and he had succeeded only in making the matter worse. He should have let the words go unanswered, but he could not. Such was the hurt that he stuffed it away and hid it beneath a veneer of irony. ‘There’s hardly a proliferation of suitable ladies available to court upon the high seas, and, as that’s where I’ll be spending most of my time, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to meet with your suggestion. I’m sorry to disappoint you yet again.’
‘It’s nothing other than I’ve come to expect,’ came the reply.
They finished their drinks in silence before Nathaniel took his leave.
Chapter Three
Georgiana urged the mare to a canter and looked around for her groom. The news that Lady Farleigh had gone to Collingborne and was not due to return for at least two months had come as a severe disappointment. It felt as if yet another door had slammed firmly shut in Georgiana’s face, for if there was anyone who could help her out of her present predicament it was Mirabelle Farleigh.
The interview with her stepfather the previous day had left her shocked and disillusioned. The faint nausea of betrayal lingered with her still. Never could she have entertained the notion that he would have used her so, even