Robert placed his hand flat on the letter, tamping back his temper. He had to make her understand. “Yes, but despite raids like Cato Street, the magistrates often send nobles caught in the molly houses home with a fine and a stern warning, which they promptly ignore. But not even the most lenient magistrate will look past such abuse of a child.”
“But heisa child!”
“In our eyes, maybe. But he is past the age of consent, and he can box, gamble, or pay for a doxy, all of his own free will. And he is with his friends. Most likely, he will be home by noon to face the wrath of them all with a sore head and an empty purse. And even if we knew with certainty he had been lured or taken—I cannot make inroads into that... community. I cannot. They are secretive and wary, and they all know who Robbie Green is. They know Campion’s does not allow that kind of... activity... in our establishments. I cannot ask after a random boy without raising suspicions of an entirely different kind. It would destroy confidences I have in every other arena. You must see that.”
Rose snatched the note off the table and stood. “I see that you used to have more courage. That you used to care more about other people than you own reputation!” She turned and stalked back through the servant’s door.
As it closed, Robert’s shoulders drooped. “I was always like this,” he muttered. “I just never let you see it. Why the devil do you think I’m marrying Lydia Rowbotham?”
Robert pushed to his feet, his restlessness now compounded by a twinge of guilt and a modicum of frustration. Plodding up two flights of stairs, he headed for his mother’s bedchamber. Two young housemaids emerged from the room, one carrying a bundle of cloth, the other a tea tray laden with dirty dishes. They both gave a quick curtsey at him.
“Martha, I take it my mother is feeling better?” he asked the older one.
“Yes, my lord,” she replied. Martha had been a maid in the household for the past ten years. She had first come on as a tweenie, and her thick Cockney accent had been Robert’s inspiration for the one he used as Robbie Green. “His Grace helped her to eat, what perked her up some.”
“I’m sure it did.” He nodded at them as they left, then entered the bedchamber. Philip Ashton sat by his wife’s bed, petting her left hand. When Emalyn spotted Robert, she motioned at him with her right, and he moved in beside his father.
“How are you feeling?”
She shook her finger at him, her eyes bright, and made a noise much akin to that of a pig at trough.
Confused, Robert squinted as he looked from his mother to his father, who grinned, an expression in odd contrast to eyes sunken by exhaustion and a face lined with shadows. His unshaven cheeks added to the look of pure fatigue. “Is she mad at me?”
Philip’s grin became a chuckle. “Yes.”
“What have I done now? Since last night I have barely moved from one room to another.”
Emalyn hit the bed with her right hand. “’All!”
Robert knew there must have been a consonant at the beginning of that, but he could not discern it. “Well, you are certainly more coherent than you were when you were unconscious, but not by much.”
Philip could barely control his amusement. “My weak and pitiful wife became an Amazon when Beth told her you were not going to the Marsden Ball tonight. Watch out for that right hand.”
Emalyn pointed at her husband, which Robert took to be a signal in the affirmative. Robert sat down on the edge of the bed. “Mother, I do not want to leave you. What if—”
She smacked his arm with her right hand, then looked at Philip, who gave off a long sigh. “If I am interpreting everything that went back and forth between my wife and my youngest child, if you do not go, then Beth will have no chaperone, soshecannot go. And she is at a crucial point in the suit with the Marquess of Aldermaston. She needs to prove to him she will be his perfect marchioness. Being elegant and perfect—and above all proper—at these Society events is part of that.”
Another affirmative point.
“But—”
“Obviously, I cannot go. Thomas and Rose should not go.”
“Michael?”
“Beth is still teaching him to dance. Progress has not been... favorable.”
“Ah.” Robert peered at his father a little closer. “You are enjoying my discomfort a little too much.”
“Most likely. But I have had too much tea and not enough sleep, and the angrier my beloved becomes, the more relieved I am, perverse devil I may be. The angrier she is at you means less aimed at me.”
“I have, um, already informed Lady Lydia I would not be there.”
“Then your presence would be a pleasant surprise.”
“A surprise, most definitely.” Robert looked back to his mother. The left side of her face and body remained immobile, even a bit droopy, but her eyes had cleared and shone dark and bright in her face. What the left side of her lacked, she made up with animation on the right. She reached for him again, this time tugging on his sleeve. “’Ou ’ust.”
“I must?”
