Page 53 of Dick Stone, Regency Stud
Edward had completed his inspection of the chair and shifted his gaze back to his brother, who had turned the color of freshly sliced beetroot. Good. He deserved to rage himself into an apoplexy, given that he no doubt had a hand in the cancellation of Edward’s allowance, necessitating the breeding business.
Horatio scooped a handful of small coins and flung them at Edward. One struck his cheek, narrowly avoiding an eye. Edward stood, ready to end this farce. The options he was envisioning right now mostly involved blood or a cesspit drowning.
“Now you’re listening,” sneered Horatio. “I should have known that coin would get your attention.”
Edward’s vision grew dark at the edges, but he maintained his placid expression. He needed to pretend the whole thing was fun, akin to putting prize butterfly specimens in tea sandwiches and observing as visiting ladies screamed when encountering a crunch.
“Lovely chat, brother, but I must get back to sticking my cock in other men’s wives,” said Edward, rising to go.
“I’ve got a wife.”
This couldn’t be happening. He wanted to march right out of that study and skip back to his lodging house like a horse suddenly free of its bridle, but some part of him longed to know what had truly inspired this encounter after so many years of stony silence from his family.
“My congratulations on convincing an aristocrat’s daughter to accept your suit. Now, I must be on my way.”
“Wait!”
That pause was delicious. It was the exhortation of a man grappling with debasing himself before someone he believed to be lower than the Roman foundations of the city. If Edward squirmed with relish like a Thames eel with a scrap of bread within its sights, could anyone blame him?
Edward looked back, turning only halfway to show that he was mentally already out the door.
“You know that I have no heir, I am sure.”
Edward thought back to the announcements of births in the gazettes, two daughters after a marriage of five years. Horatio had no son, but he had an heir: Edward himself. Until his marriage produced a boy, the rumored traitor Dick Stone loomed large over the Chasterly marquessate.
“Having bred many babies myself, I’d be happy to offer some advice on swiving your wife,” said Edward, now determined to enjoy this encounter.
“You always were a right bastard,” said Horatio.
“You say that knowing I was, in fact, safely born within the confines of our parents’ marriage. Which currently makes meyour heir. Meanwhile, you’ve no doubt scattered your seed like a drunken tenant farmer all about the kingdom.”
“As have you.”
“Yes, but you see, my children are all someone else’s legitimate issue.”
Netherwallop took a larger-than-advisable pinch of snuff this time and coughed when it proved too much for his pinched nostril.
“Careful now, wouldn’t want to have a fit and cause your younger brother to inherit,” said Edward.
“My babies have all been girls,” ground out Horatio.
“Yes, we established that. Two girls. Felicitations.”
“No, what I mean,” said Horatio, mopping his forehead, “is thatallof my children have been girls. Legitimate and illegitimate issue alike.”
Well, that was most interesting. “Then you should come up with a lucky hand any day now,” said Edward, turning to go. “Just make sure you’re fucking your wife then, perhaps.”
Horatio seethed. “I can pay.”
“You can pay enough for me to fuck against my own interests?” asked Edward. Any boy he might put in his sister-in-law would supplant him in the line of succession and prevent him from ever having a chance in hell of returning to the well-cushioned life to which he’d been born. Preposterous!
“Should the child turn out to be a boy, I’ll guarantee an allowance for you. You’d live in style for the rest of your days, with none of the pesky demands of the marquessate. No balls, no standing up in Lords, no hearing tenant disputes.”
Edward mulled the offer over. Funny that his brother thought him averse to such tasks when actually working to eat had proved many times more tiresome than merely being rich and powerful. How the years since his return from the Continent had changed him.
“And I’ll pay for the servicing. No matter if I get my boy or not.”
Technically, the child would be Horatio’s because of the presumption of paternity under the common law. But he’d always know that his brother sired the lad. It would likely grate on him for the rest of his life. This proposal was becoming increasingly enticing.
