Page 2 of Betrothal Between Enemies

Alistair gave a cynical chuckle. ‘Is Hayes to be my bear-leader? My chaperon?’ Grand Tours were for young men fresh out of university. ‘We’re the same age. I’m too old for a Grand Tour.’

He regretted the words immediately. His father met them with a gaze that conveyed agreement that he was indeed too old for a lot of things, many of which he still engaged in with regularity anyway. ‘Raking around London is also a pastime for young men, Alistair. There are unflattering names for older men who persist in such behaviour.’ Alistair knew those words. Roué. Lecher. Philanderer. Debauchee.

‘I’m not old,’ Alistair protested. But neither was he truly young anymore. It might surprise his father to know he was acutely aware of that with each passing year.

‘You are old enough to know better.’ His father sighed, and Alistair felt his own sense of disappointment surge. He was failing his father, a man he respected and loved, yet again. This time, he was failing on two fronts. He and his cousin might be the same age in years, they might have done Eton together, but since then, Hayes had been to war and had led men willing to die for him. He was a respected son of his house, always doing his duty. What had Alistair done with his own skills and privileges? He had no such accomplishment to match those of Hayes. Any success he might claim had come as a member of his father’s ventures, a follower of other men. He had nothing on his own.

Who cared? It didn’t matter. Alistair’s conscience made the argument with its customary fierceness. What had all that effort gotten Hayes? He’d never be duke. Hayes’s older brother had a son now. All of Hayes’s upstanding behaviour as an exceptional spare, all of that rule-following had been for what?

His father set aside his glass and rose, walking to the polished desk to retrieve a leather folder from a drawer, his tone conciliatory, his trajectory firm. ‘Italy is beautiful this time of year. Hayes is looking into a vino santo vineyard for your uncle. As I said, he will accompany you as far as Florence. Feel free to stay there a while before going on to Naples. Perhaps take time to help him get established. The two of you used to be close despite having quite opposite personalities growing up. Perhaps you might be close again.’ He paused. ‘This is a good opportunity, Alistair.’

Alistair knew what that meant: this was an opportunity—a mandatory opportunity—to make something of himself. To put his persuasive skills and his acuity with numbers and ideas to use beyond the frivolity of gaming tables and ballrooms. He knew it galled his father that the son who so closely resembled him in looks and in talents did not resemble him in ambition.

But not even for his father could Alistair resign himself to life as a country gentleman running an estate, a life of ledgers and crops. Perhaps that was part of the desperation eating at him. Deep down, he knew he was made for more, yet he didn’t know what that more was. He’d spent years since the cream cartel hopping from idea to idea, but nothing held his attention long enough to see them through, perhaps because he couldn’t bear to fail again. Just when a plan was approaching fruition, he was off to something else. Now he was running out of time. He was thirty-two, the age at which his father had married his mother and promptly sired a son. He was nowhere close to considering marriage let alone fatherhood, and the sands were slipping through his hourglass.

His father’s remark about age tonight had hit the target. Behind his bravado, Alistair was scared that life was passing him by, that he’d somehow missed a critical turn in the road, a path not taken. He wasn’t the only one who was desperate. There’d been distress in his father’s words, This is a good opportunity. This time it had to work out, although Alistair didn’t see how it would. How would he find his future in a place he knew nothing about when he hadn’t been able to discover it in a place he’d known all his life?

Alistair nodded warily towards the leather folder. ‘What’s in there?’ Just how long had his father been planning to send him to Naples? Since the autumn? Since the summer?

‘Your documents, travel papers, letters of finance and introduction, an itinerary.’ His earlier suspicions were confirmed. Such things took time to organise. Spontaneity wasn’t his father’s style. Meticulous attention to detail was.

‘Is that all?’ His father had yet to tell him what he was expected to do in Naples. Alistair did not think for a moment this was meant to be a holiday.

‘Ah, yes. Your commission, as it were. There is a sealed letter for Thomas Rose that I need delivered,’ his father added smoothly. Did his father hope he wouldn’t notice the admission? But he did notice, and the alarm was raised.

Sir Thomas Rose. His father’s best friend, scholar of the realm, knighted for his outstanding contributions to British knowledge of the ancient world, and father to the hellion, Ismay Rose, who’d haunted the footsteps of his childhood. ‘Exactly how is Thomas Rose involved?’ This was getting worse by the moment. It was bad enough his father wanted to send him to Italy and cause him to miss the whole Season, the one time of the year he looked forward to, but it was an absolute agony to give up the Season for the Roses, all of whom who were their own brand of eccentric. Too eccentric for England, despite Sir Thomas’s knighthood. Alistair secretly thought that was why they’d left for other, more tolerant, climes.

‘My old friend and I have an arrangement that needs looking after.’ That was a fairly cryptic response for his practical father.

Alistair made no attempt to stifle a groan—a much louder groan than the one that had announced his distaste for travelling with Hayes. The Roses, the Burke-Prices and the Wintertons had spent several summers together, all of the children running wild together—some of them wilder than others, particularly Rose’s daughter, Ismay. She was…annoying, to put it mildly, always wanting to tag along with the boys instead of playing with Ravenswick’s five daughters and Alistair’s sister. Ismay Rose preferred trees to tea parties, fishing to fashion, and she absolutely loved jumping her pony over hedges while wearing breeches. She’d once worn his breeches, leaving him to stroll home from the swimming hole without them.

She’d been very much afflicted with a strong case of anything-he-could-do-she-could-do-better, which had not endeared her to his younger self. He was the master of pranks, not a mere slip of a girl. Pranks and dares were his one claim to fame among the cousins. But Ismay Rose had thought she could best him. He’d not been sorry when the Roses had moved abroad.

‘It’s all there in that letter, which had better arrive sealed and unread,’ his father instructed in all seriousness. ‘That’s Thomas Rose’s business and no one else’s.’ But Alistair had a feeling that statement wasn’t quite true. He was the one carrying the message, and that, by extension, made it his business. If he went at all. He’d not said he would. Going to Italy on an amorphous mission to see a family he didn’t particularly like and travelling with a cousin who was as rigid as a bare stick in winter was not his idea of a good time.

He needed to bring this conversation to an end. Alistair approached the desk and slid the leather folder back towards his father. ‘No. I don’t think I will go. It’s unnecessary. The letter can be sent by post. There’s no need to upend my Season and put yourself out of the travel expenses.’

‘The post?’ His father nodded as if considering the argument before pushing the folder towards Alistair once more. ‘No, I’m afraid the letter is too sensitive. I need someone I can trust to act as a courier.’ Alistair knew he was supposed to be flattered by that endorsement, perhaps even distracted.

He met his father’s gaze and matched the considering nod with one of his own, sliding the folder across the desk. It had become a shuttlecock between them in this verbal battledore. ‘If it’s about trust, have Hayes do it. He can extend his trip. It can’t be that urgent if you’re encouraging me to linger in Florence.’

‘Information can still be sensitive even if time is of only moderate concern,’ his father countered, the folder coming Alistair’s direction with a new firmness. ‘The Roses will expect you in September. By then, Hayes will be too busy with his own endeavours to make the trip. Even so, the Roses have always been more our friends than the Wintertons. Thomas has asked this of me, not your uncle.’ His father’s tone was steely, a sure sign that he was entrenching. The time for politely making a case was past for them both. This would be settled one way or the other before they left this room. Foreboding filled Alistair as to how that might play out.

‘Thomas Rose is your friend. Perhaps you should be the one to go instead of pawning this off on me.’ Alistair knew he was approaching insolence now. His father asked so little of him, which made his lack of performance in life all the more disappointing to them both. But how could anything he did compare to his father’s accomplishments? The cream cartel had proven it. And people would compare. People would expect any effort he made to measure up to his father. They had in the past.

His father smiled. ‘That is one solution, but then you would lose your allowance, and I would not be here to oversee planting and harvesting at Sessile Oaks.’ Ah, so that was the stick his father would wield when the carrot of travel to Naples failed to inspire. It had been neatly done. His father never threatened. He just stated facts. If his father said he’d pull the allowance, he would. His father wouldn’t budge; he was not a compromiser. It was something else they had in common—an unfortunate familial characteristic to share in this situation.

‘So you will force me by leaving me no choice?’ Alistair bristled, matching his father hard blue stare for hard blue stare.

‘I’d rather not. I’d rather you simply do as I have asked.’ There was frustration in his father’s words. No doubt, Hayes had not put up any resistance. He was an obedient son and an officer. He knew how to follow orders.

‘I expect you’d rather have me do quite a few things.’ They had reached their impasse now. Or perhaps it was just him. He couldn’t stay without funds, and he had no desire to go, but he had no leverage to counter his father with.

‘I would settle for having you do one thing, Alistair, anything. You haven’t tried anything since the cream cartel, or at least not seen anything through.’ There was a crack in his father’s coolness as emotion seeped through. For the first time, Alistair saw the tiredness in the older man’s eyes. Guilt pricked. The exhaustion was there because of him. It was his fault. Sixty-four was not young, although it was hard to remember that when his father seemed to exude vitality.

‘By the saints, Alistair, you are thirty-two years old. You are blessed with so many talents, and you don’t apply them to anything of merit. You’ve let one failed venture define you.’ The words carried exasperation, not condemnation, with them. Alistair would have preferred the latter. Then he could have felt justified in defending himself.

‘Nothing I do will ever be good enough. I will never live up to your achievements. People will say—’ Alistair began.