Page 37 of Again, Scoundrel

“It’s tempting,” Violet said, and her fingers twitched at the idea of being able to practice nursing again. “But you’ve no idea who the man is.”

Catherine’s blue eyes twinkled. “I don’t. But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

Alistair Crawford awoke worse for wear. He’d stayed up far too late, pacing and seething in his study. Then, once he’d finally moved abed in the early morning hours, he found he could not sleep. So, he stayed awake all night, staring at the ceiling and counting the ways he turned everything he touched into a disaster.

When morning finally came, he dressed in a hurry and made his way out of his rented townhouse on foot to his family’s residence, hoping the chill in the morning air would help settle his mind. He didn’t know why his father had summoned him, which made him anxious, as did his other business that morning: to convince his father to invest in his trading company.

He glanced longingly in the direction of the Thames as he walked to Timsbury House. He wanted to be back on the water and away from town, his family, and his failures that were stacking up like piles of smelly seaweed on the shore.

But he couldn’t leave. Not yet.

You’re not fifteen anymore, he reminded himself.

He couldn’t just flee whenever something went wrong. He was twenty-five now, and it was time to carve out a life for himself. One that he wanted; one that he built.

He still remembered how it had felt, packing his bags and sneaking out of Rosehips to join the Navy. He’d been aboard a ship that very evening, on his way to the Baltic Sea. In just a few hours, his entire life had changed, and he was no longer the second son of the Marquess of Timsbury. No longer the young man whose father reminded him at every turn how ill-suited he was to be the spare. He’d become someone else in the blink of an eye. He’d become a sailor.

If anyone had asked him three months before that day if he would consider joining the Navy, he would have told them they ought to take a visit to Bedlam. The change that drove him to it had been no less surprising to him than it had been to anyone else.

Three months before, he’d been soundly asleep in his bed at Eton. Darius, four years his elder, had already been at Rosehips, preparing for further study at Cambridge. And his parents, as far as he knew, were enjoying life as some of the highest-ranking peers in the beaumonde.

Darius had always been the golden child: a fencing master who earned the highest of marks, congenial and handsome, with blonde hair to Alistair’s brown, and the same deep-colored, so brown they were almost black eyes. His brother was every inch the picture of an heir, and Alistair had always been keenly aware of their differences.

Alistair was more prone to dreaming of adventure and partaking in illicit midnight swims than he was to studying or fencing. He enjoyed nothing more than a good laugh with his mates and a flirt with a barmaid at the local tavern. He’d never been the reserved, blandly congenial kind of son that Darius was.

Perhaps it was true he’d always been slightly on the periphery of the family—his parents were devoted to each other and to his brother as the heir to the Marquessate—but he’d never thought of himself as wrong or unwanted. Until the night the Marquess arrived unannounced at Eton and showed him otherwise.

Alistair brushed away those memories as he walked the streets of London. That summer of hell was a long time ago. He was a man who could look after himself now, not some startled and frightened boy.

He had to pull himself together, convince his father to invest, and introduce Violet to McGann. All that was standing between him and his plans for the future was a little capital.

Which future might that be? asked an insistent voice from somewhere deep in his gut that he shoved away.

The future, he thought firmly, where I run a shipping and trading company with McGann, and I’m back on the water where I belong.

It was the only future he could see.

Alistair entered the morning room of Timsbury House to find his family already gathered for breakfast. His mood soured even further at the site of the trio. It was as it had always been—the Marquess, who was so cold and distant with him, was smiling benevolently at his mother, and his brother Darius was piling his plate high at the buffet table. It was only Alistair who did not belong.

Darius was the first to greet him. “Brother,” he said jovially. “Good of you to come. Now that you’re back in town, you must join us to break the fast more often.”

Alistair grunted noncommittally and took up his own plate to fill with eggs, toast, and kippers.

“Alistair, dear,” his mother said, “are you feeling alright? Your coloring is off.”

“Fine, Mother,” he muttered and looked around at his family.

They were still the picture of aristocratic health and good looks. His elder brother was as close to perfect as an heir could get, full of decorum and good if serious cheer. His mother was a charming, respectable matron. And still so beautiful. Alistair had noticed how often his father sent adoring looks her way when her attention was elsewhere.

And his father, of course—the feared, stoic, Marquess of Timsbury. A man who ran his estates and his family with a relentless precision yet was still adored by his close friends, his wife, and his eldest son. All of them the platonic ideal of the ton. Except for him.

Alistair glowered as he sat and shoveled his breakfast into his mouth. His head hurt and his cravat was too tight. He was quite sure he was sweating out the last month’s excesses beneath it.

Damn Williams, who had insisted on practically choking him with the thing in the name of propriety.

He wondered if he should broach the subject of the investment now and get it over with. The sooner it was had, the sooner he could leave. Or should wait to get his father alone first?

“So, brother,” Darius said, taking a sip of his coffee. “How is life in London treating you?”