Chapter 32

CHAPTER32

“Where the devil is she?” Adam paced back and forth across the parlor of his London townhouse, sipping mouthful after mouthful of brandy as he went to the window, found no carriage waiting, and stalked back to the chair of his writing desk, where he would promptly rise and begin the circuit again.

Harry, who was lounging on the settee, shrugged. “Clearly, she is hiding from you.”

“I know that!” Adam snapped. “But she cannot ignore the last note I delivered to her lodgings. She simply cannot.”

Harry thumbed toward the window. “It seems she is.”

“Are you just going to lie there and continue to point out the bitterly bloody obvious?” Adam snarled, his patience gossamer thin.

Harry pulled a face. “Apologies, my good man. I am just trying to amuse you in this dismal moment of your life.” He patted the vacant spot beside him. “Come and sit and drink with me and forget all your woes. They will be waiting for you tomorrow, and there is little else you can do tonight.”

“But I demanded an audience with her tonight,” Adam shot back, swaying slightly as he began his thousandth lap of the parlor. “If she has not appeared by midnight, I shall ride to her mother’s house and see if that will inspire her to crawl out of whatever hole she is hiding in.”

Harry shook his head. “I would not do that. It will only confirm her lies if you are seen knocking on her mother’s door.”

“Why are you so calm?” Adam grumbled, settling in his armchair, though he itched to be up on his feet again. “Why are you not as livid as I am at this… this… this gross injustice?”

Harry groaned. “Of course, I am furious on your behalf, but I do not see the use in worrying. It will be resolved easily enough with a sum of money and a promise to have the child educated if it is a boy and married well if it is a girl.” He paused, raising an eyebrow. “Unless it is your wife you are worried about? Do you think she will denounce you if she hears about it?”

Adam squeezed his eyes shut, his heart aching at the very thought. “I hope not, but I do not know if I have earned enough of her trust to be believed.”

“Did you really not enjoy her?”

Adam cracked an eye open. “Who?”

“Miss Eastleigh, of course.” Harry’s eyes widened. “Unless… Have you?”

Adam closed his eyes again. “That is no one’s business but my own. I am certainly not going to discuss it with you while you are indifferent to my misfortune.”

“I am not indifferent,” Harry protested. “But I do not understand why youare so concerned. You and Nancy were to part ways at the end of the month, anyway. I am certain she will remain at Stapleton Court for the remaining time, to keep up appearances, but then you will be free again. Should we not be rejoicing?”

“Rejoicing?” Adam had to grip the armrests to stop himself from exploding out of the chair. “This is the very last thing I want!”

Harry sat up, furrowing his brow. “I thought marriage was the very last thing you wanted.”

“My desires have changed,” Adam replied.

Harry snorted. “Balderdash! You will tire of her, as you tire of them all. The only difference is, you will be stuck with her as a wife, funding whatever exploits she chooses to partake in.” He grinned. “And Society ladies are less inclined to indulge in a temptation with a married gentleman, for theywant to feel like the only lady in your life, for however long it may last, so I imagine you shall suffer doubly.”

“You are enjoying this,” Adam said. It was not a question.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I am not, but you are beginning to bore me.” He got up and walked to the decanter of brandy on the side table, pouring two hearty measures. “Here, drink this, and remember the sort of gentleman you used to be—someone who did not cower over the words of a pitiful woman. Miss Eastleigh will arrive when she is ready to, and your demands will not change that. All you can do is wait, so you might as well wait with a belly full of brandy.”

Adam eyed his friend suspiciously as he took the proffered glass and sipped. Something had changed in Harry, but he could not figure out what it was.

Harry smiled and laughed and jested the same as he always had, and let nothing perturb him as always, breezing through life with a devil-may-care attitude, but the nature of him irritated Adam in a way it had not done before.

I cannot have changed so much that I no longer hold affection for my oldest friend. That is not possible.

Adam wondered if it was just a passing annoyance, fueled by the unfortunate business with Miss Eastleigh. Indeed, perhaps he just wanted his friend to be serious, for once.

“Remember, you were the one who told me to marry her, so you are the one to blame for me falling in love with her,” Adam said, taking a larger gulp of his drink.

He needed the courage, for he had just said it aloud for the first time, and sadly not to the person he wished he could say it to.

Harry’s eyelids flickered. “You love her?”

“I am falling in love with her,” Adam repeated, his heart heavy.

Harry sniffed. “Well, stop it.”

“Pardon?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Stop falling in love with her. None of it is real. You are merely trying to make the situation easier for yourself, convincing yourself of love when, in truth, you are not capable of it.”

“What is the matter with you?” Adam stared at his friend, evermore certain that something was amiss. It was akin to a word puzzle, the answer on the tip of his tongue.

Harry sank back into the settee. “You were supposed to be miserable. You were supposed to make one another miserable,” he said darkly. “For at least a month, I knew I would not have to compete with you for the attention of ladies. And even when you were freed from your marital prison, you would not be able to compete with me. Ladies would be certain to avoid you, your charm faded, until you were the one scraping the barrel or taking second place. That is what was supposed to happen. But you had to go and… like her. You had to start having feelings for her. You have ruined everything, Adam, not Miss Eastleigh. She is merely trying to protect herself.”

“Did you… orchestrate this?”

Adam felt the figurative word puzzle shifting into the right order, before his very eyes.

“We have already established that,” Harry replied, waving a dismissive hand. “I told you to marry that girl for my own benefit. In truth, I never expected you to actually do it, but you have always had a weakness for the vulnerable. So, I encouraged it because I saw how my own luck would change while yours floundered. But it did not, did it?”

Adam blinked, his eyes becoming blurry. “Are you jealous of me?”

“Not of your marriage, if that is your meaning,” Harry scoffed. “I intend to remain a bachelor for the rest of my days. I had hoped you would join me in that lifelong endeavor, even with a wife, but you have betrayed me. I should have known you would. You have only ever served yourself.”

It was Adam’s turn to scoff. “Are you quite serious? If it were not for me, you would be destitute at best, dead by the hand of some lady’s husband at worst. I have defended you, I have protected you, I have vouched for you, and I have paid every penny of your chosen way of living. You would not get past the door of the gentlemen’s clubs if it were not for me, nor would you have a single coin to buy the affections of a harlot. You would not have enough to even buy yourself a cup of ale to numb your misery.”

“Tell me, would you continue to pay, now that you have fallen in love with your wife?” Harry shot back. “Now that you have changed your ways, were you still intending to be my benefactor?”

The word puzzle finally revealed itself. Greed.

“You did orchestrate this,” Adam growled. “Miss Eastleigh’s letter—that was your idea, was it not? Did you hope it might encourage my wife to hate me? Did you think she would leave me, thus ‘freeing’ me to return to our former debauchery?”

Harry grinned. “I had to find a way to keep the stream of coin flowing.” He shrugged. “A hearty sum. Part for the child, part for me. Everyone would benefit.”

“Everyone but me,” Adam replied, wondering who this stranger was, sitting in his townhouse, drinking his brandy, behaving as if it was all his already. “Wait. There is a child?”

Harry groaned. “You really are quite dense for an educated gentleman, Adam. Of course, there is a child, and of course, it is not yours. Even I know a baby cannot grow that fast, especially when there has been no act to create said baby. But when I suggested it to Miss Eastleigh as I comforted her through her loneliness, after Mr. Kingston so cruelly dismissed her, she leaped at the prospect. You see, Mr. Kingston was supposed to be the cuckold, but he was cleverer than anticipated. He knew the signs of her pregnancy and put two and two together.”

“The cuckold for whom?” Adam felt another answer dancing on the tip of his tongue, hiding in Harry’s sly smile.

“Me, of course.” Harry’s wolfish grin twisted into a grimace. “For once, I was not the second choice, but the first. Then, the fickle wretch pushed measide in favor of you. Why do you think I warned you not to act on her invitation to meet in Lord Bainton’s gardens? She was mine, Adam, and you would have taken her from me had it not been for your extraordinary mishap.”

Adam shook his head, his mind fogging. “Do you love Miss Eastleigh?”

“Behave yourself.” Harry stuck his nose in the air. “Love is for weak men, Adam. But, nevertheless, she was mine.”

Adam blinked at his transformed friend, his vision muddled as if someone had smeared butter over his eyes. His throat felt strangely itchy, his limbs leaden, his head so heavy that he did not think his neck could hold it up. Indeed, there was something very wrong afoot, his tongue feeling two sizes too big in his mouth.

“What… have you done?” he wheezed, the blur in his eyes beginning to darken.

“Insurance, my good man,” Harry said, though it sounded as if he was speaking through deep water. “My dear friend Mr. White at the Tattler is eager to capture the scene of a weeping, desperate Miss Eastleigh being welcomed into your London townhouse, delivered here in your own personal carriage. He is even more eager to witness the tryst between you, spied through the drapes of your rear parlor. I gave him the key to the back gate.”

Adam tried to shake his head, but his neck would not cooperate.

“As I said,” Harry added, “Miss Eastleigh will arrive when she is ready. It should not be long now. Perhaps you ought to rest and conserve your strength, for your future is about to change considerably.”

Adam willed himself to stand, urged himself to do something to get himself out of the chair, out of the townhouse, away from Harry, but it was like his body belonged to someone else. It would not listen. He could not even blink to prevent his eyelids from closing as he slumped into the armchair, the darkness descending like a black fog over his eyes and everything he had hoped for.