AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 4
Blake spent the rest of the morning closed behind the doors of his study, going over estate details with his secretary. He didn’t know how to even start wooing his wife back, but at least he’d won himself some time to try. In the meantime, there were plenty of other issues for him to address. For example, the issue of his earldom, which he had neglected from the moment he came into the title.
Before leaving their household, Townsend had offered his help, and Blake would gladly take him up on it, but he wanted to look at the books by himself first. Blake noticed the estates hadn’t suffered in his absence. On the contrary, they’d only prospered. Townsend had invested in some risky ventures, but they’d paid off, and his accounts had soared.
In fact, according to the ledgers, Townsend had nearly tripled his income. In one blasted year. How did the man do that?
Granted, Blake had never paid much attention to his lands. He was a gentleman of leisure. His father taught him only the necessities and bare minimum of what was needed to keep up the good income of the estates. He’d condemned people who invested in business and technology, calling them heathens and saying that it would only harm farming in the long run. He also didn’t believe that spending all his time behind books or meandering over his estates was what gentlemen of leisure did.
Lords of the peerage,he used to say,have a responsibility in Parliament: to make sure the working class remains working and aristocrats remain enjoying their benefits accorded them at birth.
What a pile of horseshit, Blake thought now. How he could have admired his father and aspired to emulate everything he did was beyond him. He was a complete fool a little over a year ago. The fact that he’d managed to woo Annalise at all was a miracle. Probably attributed to her youth and inexperience. Well, at least he’d done something right in his six and twenty summers of useless existence. Though he’d almost managed to ruin that as well.
The bitter pill to swallow, however, was the fact that his estates had prospered without him; Annalise was happy without him. Everything was better in his absence. He should have stayed gone.
A knock sounded at the door, and Blake called his butler to enter.
“Lord St. John for you, my lord,” Crane said with an inscrutable face.
“Good. Let him in.” Blake turned to his secretary then. “We are done for today. Thank you. Please, report back to me on the morrow at the same time.”
Just as the secretary bowed out, Blake’s best friend, Jarvis, Viscount St. John, slunk into the room.
“Blake!” he exclaimed from the doorstep before stalking farther into the room with purposeful strides. “I thought I’d see you sprawled on the bed, sick as a dog, yet here you are.”
He extended his hand, and Blake jumped up to shake it.
“Glad to see you,” he said jubilantly. “It’s been too long.”
Jarvis grinned at him. “Maybe for you. I just saw you last night. Quite a dramatic entrance, if you ask me.”
Blake laughed. He’d missed his friend. Jarvis was always good-natured and ready with a jest. He indicated for his friend to sit and walked toward the sideboard. “Would you like something to drink? Brandy?”
“Brandy’s good. Now tell me. Where the devil have you been hiding for the past year? If not for Annalise’s betrothal, would you even be here?”
Blake studied Jarvis from the corner of his eye. Did he really think Blake had been intentionally hiding all this time, or was it another one of his jests? He decided to take him at face value. “A total coincidence, I assure you. Or a providence of God if you’d like to believe that instead.”
He took both glasses of amber liquid, extended one to Jarvis, and sat back behind his desk. He swirled the brandy in his hand. He poured it out of habit, but wasn’t about to drink it. However, having it by his side soothed his mind. “I was seized and kept prisoner against my will.”
“By whom?” Jarvis didn’t look surprised.
In fact, he seemed completely unperturbed. Perhaps it was because that’s what everybody already suspected.
“I don’t know,” Blake said dryly and placed his glass on the desk.
Jarvis frowned and took a sip of his own drink. When he put it down, he looked Blake over. “You’ve changed. I almost didn’t recognize you. What have you been doing? Where were they holding you? Judging by the tone of your skin, it wasn’t in a dungeon.”
“It’s a long story.” Blake made a dismissive gesture with a wave of his hand. However, he should have suspected this wouldn’t deter his friend.
Jarvis settled comfortably in his chair with a great show. “I am not in a hurry,” he said and raised his eyebrow in defiance.
Blake closed his eyes and swallowed against the horrifying memories. “There’s not much I can tell you. I was seized after I left Hades gambling hell that night. Surely, you remember. I’d had a fight with Annalise earlier and was in a dark mood.” Blake remembered the events of that night vividly. He’d played them out thousands of times in his head. “I was tired, but you didn’t want to leave yet. You said to take your carriage and instruct it to return for you because you wanted to stay a few more hours.”
Blake looked down at his drink. Somehow, staring into the depths of a glass of brandy made it easier to talk than looking at his friend’s face.
“I don’t think I ever reached your carriage,” he continued with a sigh. “I think I was hit over the head because I lost consciousness for a while. In fact, I still don’t remember exactly where they grabbed me and how. The last thing I remember is exiting the hell.”
“You didn’t.” Jarvis’s voice penetrated his thoughts, and Blake was forced to raise his eyes again. “Reach the carriage, that is. I didn’t know that at the time, but you never reached the carriage.” He heaved a sigh. “When I came out of the hell, it was several hours after you walked out. I found my carriage where I left it, but I assumed the driver took you back home and returned for me, per your instruction. It wasn’t until a day later when I came to call on you that Annalise said you’d never returned from our previous outing. She wasn’t worried. In fact, she was preparing to leave on a journey, I believe, although I do not remember where. She said it wasn’t the first time you were away for several nights at a time.”
