Page 4 of Atone, Adonis

“Not yet. Please, Tom. Not yet. We’ll speak once you’ve seen the doctor. A better one.”

“We don’t have the coin for that. And even if we did, I cannot imagine you’d want to visit Weymouth again.”

“Thomas, stop it.”

It had been on that sole visit to Weymouth when the doctor had diagnosed Thomas with influenza. But not even Julianna could convince herself her brother still had influenza four years later.

“I’ll give you one more month,” Thomas said. “But not a moment more. This will be resolved, whether you like it or not.”

Chapter

2

London

March 16, 1860

The mare was too narrow in the chest. The stallion had a weak hindquarter. And the gelding, don’t even get him started on the gelding. The animal was well-tempered enough he supposed, but so skittish he wondered if its parental lineage included a frightened bunny rabbit instead of the storied breeding stock he’d been promised.

Christ, what a waste of time.

Frederick Sedgewick, the Ninth Earl of Chester, stood at the edge of the ring at Tattersalls with his gloves tucked under one arm and the usual look of utter annoyance on his face. He wore it so often it was close to becoming permanent.

His golden hair curled slightly beneath the brim of his hat, and the cut of his coat was perfect. He’d given exacting instructions on Savile Row to make it so. A sixteenth of an inch on the hem did make a difference, no matter the mouth noises uttered by his tailor at that request.

Somewhere off to his right, a young woman laughed too loudly. He didn’t turn toward her, although he knew she was there. Just as he knew her chaperone was conspicuously absent, wandering off far more often than she should.

And then the chit drifted closer. Close enough that her cloying perfume clung egregiously to the back of his throat, and let her gloved fingers brush, ever so lightly, the sleeve of his coat.

His whole body went rigid. Not outwardly—he was not so gauche as that—but inside, as if some invisible wire had been yanked taut beneath his skin. Irritation flared where she’d touched him, biting and wrong, and with it the familiar, ugly sense of being observed. Assessed. Taken apart for parts.

He did not look at her. That was the trick. If he looked, he would have to see her—see the expectation blooming on her face along with all that hungry hope. And he’d rather swallow broken glass than feed that kind of asinine delusion. The game he thought of as “capture an earl” was on, but Frederick didn’t play. He never did; he had less interest in marriage than he did in that sway-backed mare the groom had just retired from his sight.

Fred had been back in London for seven years, having returned from the Continent to unexpectedly inherit an earldom from a relative he’d never thought to succeed. At the time, he’d foolishly hoped his long absence would mean the scandal sheets had forgotten him.

They hadn’t.

And since he had few friends and now rarely left Chester House except to ride, buy, or race horses, the papers took it upon themselves to invent more scandalous ways he might be spending his days. Certainly far more wicked companions than he’d ever considered for his nights.

If only, he thought sometimes, they knew the truth. But Chaste Chester, he supposed, didn’t have the same ring to it as the Darling of Dorset or the Local Adonis. The Local Adonis remained so much in use he considered rather more often than he should setting the printing house of The Poisoned Quill on fire.

He’d never do it, probably, but he relished the thought.

A footman cleared his throat politely at his elbow. “Shall I have the gelding brought round again, my lord?”

Fred turned his scowl upon the unfortunate man. “Only if I had an interest in purchasing a half-lame lawn ornament. Which, I assure you, I do not.”

The footman bowed and retreated. He probably blanched too, but that wasn’t Fred’s concern. The gelding indeed. As if the price they were asking for that pile of bones wasn’t practically highway robbery. Maybe he should set Tattersalls afire too.

At the very least some hot flames licking at the heels of that simpering girl beside him would rid him of her presence. When he hadn’t spared her a single glance, she’d taken to laughing too loudly and saying, “Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”

He did not agree. He didn’t even know what she’d said. Instead of inquiring, he turned on his heel to call for his carriage. His stomach was rumbling and he’d found nothing of what he’d come looking for. He hardly ever did.

And it was better to leave before she tried again or worse, became incensed at his refusal to even look in her direction. Even the most missish of young misses could turn angry when ignored and then there would be more character assassinations, more rumors, more posts in the scandal rags.

No, best to return home to Chester House and eat his dinner in silence, just as he preferred it. Roast beef, buttered turnips, and oysters, with a decanter of claret standing sentry by his elbow. Fred had always been a man of prodigious appetites, and the cook, who had been serving just his widowed aunt and cousin Catherine, before he arrived to claim the Earldom, had had quite a time adjusting her expectations to the amount of food required by a single man of his size and athletic ability. Even if said man dined alone every evening.

Tonight’s meal would suffice, if just barely. He reached for his wine and considered what more he could possibly say to the chef to make the woman increase his dinner portions.