“Oh, I had a bit more enjoyment than I’d planned,” Finn groaned as he adjusted himself in the chair.
Ashley sat behind his desk and steepled his hands in front of him, waiting for the man to tell him what the matter was. It didn’t take as long as he thought for his brother to unburden himself.
“Do you remember the chit I set up in Mayfair?”
“Vaguely.” If Ashley remembered correctly, there was nothing truly remarkable about the girl.
“She’s up and left me.”
“And?” Certainly, worse things could happen to a man. Like being shunned for killing one’s wife.
“And she started a bit of a rumor.”
“About?”
“My lack of physical attributes and attention to her needs,” Finn mumbled.
Ashley tried to hide his chuckle behind a cough into his closed fist.
“It’s not amusing,” Finn pointed out.
“Certainly, it is,” Ashley said, laughing a bit louder.
“How do you deal with it? The whispers behind your back? The constant judgment from your peers?”
Ashley shrugged. “One becomes accustomed to it with time.” He’d had seven years to learn to accept his lot in life. The only time it rankled was when he met a lady like Miss Thorne. Then he wished he was anyone but himself.
Finn reached for the whiskey bottle again. Ashley intercepted it and moved it out of his brother’s reach. “Drinking any more will be a waste, because you’ll not remember the taste of it when you wake up.”
Ashley stood and called for Wilkins. The man appeared within moments. “Let’s find a room for Lord Phineas and help him to it, shall we?” he asked of the butler.
Wilkins nodded his head and called for footmen to assist. “If I may be so bold, Your Grace, the rest of London should know what a good man you can be,” Wilkins said.
“I prefer to let them think the worst.” Ashley sighed. “They’ve no expectations of me that way.”
Ashley returned to his study and began to open his correspondence. Despite his sordid past, he was a bit too well connected to be ousted completely from society. For the first two or three years following his wife’s death, he’d been avoided as though he had a communicable disease, as though the propensity to murder was contagious.
Then the few friends he had, namely his brother Finn, Matthew Lanford, and Jonathon Roberts, whom he’d met at Eton many years before, had rallied around him and forced him to resume his place in the House of Lords and step back into society. They all believed him innocent of any wrongdoing. It was unfortunate that they were all incorrect.
The clip of quickly moving slippers in the corridor made him groan and hang his head. Within seconds, the Duchess of Robinsworth flung open his door and burst inside his sanctuary, without even the good graces to knock.
“Mother,” was his only response as he looked down at the note before him. “What brings you to my home?”
“You really should replace that butler,” she scolded.
“And why should I do that?” he asked as he closed his ledger. She obviously had a purpose for visiting. And would most likely get to it as soon as she got over whatever slight Wilkins had given her. He would curse the man, but the butler seemed to be one of the only people who could keep his mother in line.
“He’s impertinent. And rude.”
Said the pot about the kettle.
“He blocked my entrance to the old library. The one in the west wing. He stood right there in the doorway and refused to let me pass. Of all the nerve.” She harrumphed and dropped into a chair.
That wing of the old house had been closed for longer than Ashley could remember. Since before his father had died when he was a boy. “And what purpose did you have for visiting the west wing, Mother?” he asked as he poured himself a liberal dose of the whiskey Finn had left behind.
“It’s awfully early to be drinking, dear,” she scolded.
“It’s awfully early for you to be visiting, Mother,” he returned. His mother never rose from bed before the luncheon hour. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping off the excesses of the night’s activities?”