Chapter One
Spring, 1821
Alexander Whitcomb fisted a pillow and crammed it over his head to shut out the repeated knocking.Squinting one eye open, he registered the angle of the sun.
Who was making such a racket so early in the day?And didn’t they know he worked at a pub and often drank with his customers?This was the worst part of living upstairs from one’s workplace.
Xander’s brother Bruce had managed this pub for years and had recently purchased it.Of course, since their mother had married the Earl of Northumberland, who owned it, he got it for a song.Bruce promptly made Xander the closing manager, so he could sleep elsewhere and not be disturbed by early morning deliveries.But none had been scheduled for today, so this infernal banging had to stop.
He let out a sigh into the bedding where he lay diagonally across the too-small bed, facedown.Pushing up, he heaved himself off the bed, ignoring the sawdust in his mouth from that sixth whisky the night before, and scooped up his trousers he’d worn for work to throw on.
Pounding down the stairs barefoot, he shouted, “Hold your knickers, I’m coming.”
Opening the door, he blinked in surprise at the stranger standing there.Which, upon reflection, was silly.Any local would have been more respectful of his sleeping hours, as they valued his hostship in the pub.The man was closer to his mother’s age than his own, and his black suit was more formal than anyone in Old Shoreston wore, even for church.
“Yes?”
“Mr.Whitcomb?”
“One of ’em,” he mumbled.
The stranger frowned.“There is more than one?”
“Long story.Also, not your business.”He was not the easiest going at the best of times.Being woken after only five hours of sleep after eight days straight of work and more whisky than normal, he was downright grumpy.
“I’m afraid it may be,” the stranger said.Gesturing behind him, he added, “Perhaps I might buy you tea?”
Xander’s gaze slid past him to the tea shop diagonally across the road.But then he’d have to trot back upstairs to don shoes, stockings, and a shirt.The stranger was lucky he’d grabbed trousers.
“Nah.You’d better come in.”He begrudgingly opened the door wider, closing it and locking it behind them and leading the man through the pub to the small kitchen behind the bar.
“Mr.Jacob Lancaster at your service, Mr.Whitcomb,” the man said, sweeping off his hat in a shallow bow.“Solicitor to the Duke of Rutland.”
“A duke’s solicitor come to Northumberland.And asking for Whitcombs?You sure you don’t want the earl or his son, the Lynwoods?”Xander gestured northwest to where his stepfather’s stone fortress-slash-home sat on a hill overlooking the wild North Sea.
“Quite.”
“I suppose you want tea,” Xander grumbled again.At the solicitor’s nod, he filled the kettle and set it on the hob.He didn’t mean to sound annoyed, but he was.
There was a vague recollection that calling hours began at two in the afternoon in London.Now that was a good rule, as much as he disliked most of London.The city was dirty and far too crowded for his tastes.
He’d spent time down there helping his stepbrother Luke, the younger Lynwood, get Free Your Spirits off the ground.Free Your Spirits was a facility to help men clean themselves up after too much drinking or gambling or whatever other vices Londoners found to waste their lives away.Luke had an unending amount of patience for the spoiled overgrown children of the ton who couldn’t manage their lives without liquor.However, Xander did not.They’d been condescending, petulant, and outright rude to him, and he had quickly lost any compassion.
In between moving furniture into rooms, Xander had had to deal with the drunks, many of whom were belligerent.He’d been vomited on, pissed on, punched, and called derogatory names.They waffled between ordering him around like a servant, snubbing him, and begging him to get them just one drink.
After that, Xander was done.He’d gone there as a favor to Luke and his new wife.And their private back garden and plenty of quiet rooms was an oasis in the filth and noise of London.But drunken nobs’ attitudes toward hardworking people trying to help them made him want to knock their heads together.
He’d returned to Bruce’s establishment, content to manage a pub frequented by working men.Sure, they overindulged and grew surly, but they apologized when they sobered up.
“Would you be willing to indulge me for a moment and explain the multiple Mr.Whitcombs phenomenon, please?I promise I have a good reason.”
“’Tain’t a secret, so I suppose I could.”He shrugged.The man could ask almost anyone in town if he wanted to know badly enough.So as much as he disliked anyone associated with the aristocracy aside from his new family members, Xander answered, “Bruce, my older brother, owns this pub.I work here.”
“Er, perhaps you could elaborate a bit more?We only have the record of one son born to James Whitcomb.”
Xander retracted his head in shock at Lancaster’s use of “we.”
Narrowing his gaze, he said, “James, my da, only had one son born—me.He took Bruce in when he married our ma, a year before I came along.Doesn’t make him less my brother.”
