Darien had reason to suspect he wasn’t the only candidate who could claim paternity of Celeste’s babe. But the news was unlikely to sway his father or stem the tide of gossip. Darien had been the one associated with her, and public knowledge of her several affairs would hurt Celeste more than it would hurt him.
The marquess swept the papers to the floor. “All those innocents pointing their fingers—how can you have ruined somanyof them? And not care for a single one? Your mother would hang her head in shame.”
His father leaned against the hard back of his chair and rested his elbows on the carved arms. This time, his gaze went to an older oil portrait of a beautiful woman clad in vaguely Roman dress. A sheer veil floated around powdered gray hair, and a knowing smile curved her poppy-red lips. Giuseppina had been the sprig of an Italian royal family with only nominal claims to its ancient seat, but quite a prize for the sober Cassius Bales, then Earl of Aldthorpe. Everyone who knew her had loved her and called her Princess Pip.
Darien had no more than hazy memories of a soft woman who laughed uproariously, smelled of strawberries, and always had a book in her pocket. Princess Pip had not lived long enough for her hair to go white.
Darien groped for a chair beside the fireplace and sat down. His father wouldn’t forgive his reputation even if he knew the truth behind it. It was status that mattered to the marquess, the respect due his title and name. It wasn’t the lives of his sons hecared about, or he would show the slightest interest in Darien’s designs. He would turn over heaven and earth to find Lucien.
Instead, he’d decided to move on to the next available son, the third and least, the disappointment. The marquessate and all its lesser titles, all the houses and estates, were entailed upon heirs male. The lot of it, including the mines and canals, the annuities, and the pensions and duties and debts would devolve upon Darien if his brother were declared dead in absentia.
It was not the responsibility that terrified him.
“Horace, gone.” His father dropped his head again, his voice muffled. “Lucretius, gone. And God alone knows where Lucien is. If you don’t marry and bear a son, everything goes to Rathbone. And you won’t be received now. My line will die out. They’ll lock up their daughters against you.”
“They never have before.” Darien’s voice sounded hollow to his ears.
For all his reckless acts, real or fabricated, the marquess had never suggested Darien had sullied the name. The accusation shook him to the core. Whatever else he was or did not want to be, he was a Bales, one of the Langford Bales. The Saxon manor of Langeforde had been given to Jehan de Bailles at the Conquest, and by luck and cunning, the estate and the lineage had survived intact for the next seven hundred years.
Darien made his voice steady. “I’ll still be received. You’ll see. It will take more than ruining a duke’s daughter to shut doors to a Bales.”
The marquess shook his head. “The Queen won’t have you at court, and George thinks you’re worse than his sons.”
“No one is worse than George’s sons,” Darien said, shocked. “Prinny has bastards all over the place, not to mention a certain Mrs. Fitzherbert.”
“He is the Prince of Wales,” the marquess said. “You are not.”
“There’s a levee this afternoon, some stuffy function,” Darien said. “I’ll go. Queen Charlotte will acknowledge me—I’ll wager you anything.”
His father’s sad smile pained him more than anything else that had transpired in the last hour. “Not a betting man, you know. Too much bad luck.”
Darien was glad he was sitting or he would have buckled at this glimpse into his father’s grief. His own losses were still too much to bear. First had been their beloved Princess Pip, taken by tuberculosis while Darien was up at school. Then Lucien abandoned him, trading their childish tricks for war. Horace, gone in an instant. Lucretius, lingering in agony.
The 4th Marquess of Langford had borne the losses nobly. Darien, regrettably, had not.
“I shamed you, and Celeste’s family as well.” Darien drew to his feet, back straight, hands at his sides. “I ask your forgiveness for that. But I beg you, sir.” He took a deep breath and met his father’s gaze. “Do not bring this suit. Lucien will come back.”
A light of calculation entered his father’s eye. The marquess plucked the wig from his desk and placed it on his head, as if the attire of judges, court goers, and the Lords assembled in the House made theirs an official transaction.
“Very well. If you will see fit to keep this house and my name out of further scandals, I will refrain from bringing a suit this year. You can play about with your drawings and your hey-go-mad friends, and Ratty—Rathbone can continue at Bellamy Hall. But you have till the end of this session of Parliament, no later,” the marquess said. “Be received. Become respectable. Better yet, find some well-bred woman to wed and bed. I won’t consider any of your foolish improvement projects, but I will give you time to come to a sense of your duty.”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “And pray every night, as I do, that Lucien will come back to us, wherever in God’s name he is.”
“I already do.” Darien bowed.
“A rich bride,” his father called as he left the room. “Good family, fertile stock. Stop this business of ruining good girls for other men.”
“Enough that you’ve ordered my reform, sir,” Darien said with a grimace. “Don’t press me into the parson’s mousetrap as well.”
“No more scandals,” the marquess repeated, “or I won’t wait till next Season. I’ll bring my suit before the King’s Bench this year, and you’ll have to hope your wretched cousin hasn’t reduced Bellamy to sticks and dirt.”
Darien decidedto walk to his house in Jermyn Street and tossed ha’pennies to the sweepers who cleared the streets for him. He wished it were as easy to clear his head. The conversation with his father had left him gutted.
The marquess thought it another insult that Darien didn’t live at Langford House, but the family townhouse held too many memories. Winters in town while his father took his seat in Lords. Romping with his brothers about various pranks while their mother attended to her meetings and projects. Later, when Horace brought down his family for the Season, the house echoed with new laughter as Lucretius and Darien bowled in the ballroom or, playing pirates, tied Horatia to the grand stair.
Darien didn’t dare sleep under the same roof as those ghosts. He’d bought premises of his own from a friend he bailed out of the River Tick and filled the place with his own things, books and drawings, odds and ends from his travels, assorted friends who were as reckless and unattached as he.
Voices drifted from his library, but there were fewer old friends calling since he’d returned from his last trip abroad. Some had married; some could not keep up with Lord Daring’s lifestyle. It was possible a good many shared his father’s belief that his latest scandal had put him beyond the pale.
