Page 89 of Dick Stone, Regency Stud
“I know you are innocent of those charges,” said his father.
Well, scrape him off the floor! Was that an exceedingly rare vote of confidence from the great villain of his life?
“Then why did you suspend my allowance?” asked Edward, furious that he’d spent years in London subsisting on eel pies, fetching his own water, and breeding other men’s wives for money when he should have been living like every other lordling.
“Gossip may as well have ended you in Portugal,” bit out hispater, spittle collecting at the corner of his mouth. “They all believed it, and you’ve done nothing to correct the perception of guilt.”
“How was I supposed to do that when publicly abandoned by my family?”
“The truth is always a superior hand. You folded immediately.”
“And how was I to play with no one to stake me in the game?” asked Edward, thoroughly bewildered.
“Oh, you’ve planted your stake in any number of other men’s wives, haven’t you? But this matter affecting your family honor has gone unchallenged.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Clear your name, as you should have done before,” said the marquess.
Edward sank into a chair in front of that grand desk, befuddled and still feeling the effects of carrying Tabby across much of London last night. He struggled to remember the facts of the case himself.
Back behind the desk, his father coughed delicately into a handkerchief, no doubt to remind Edward that Tencendor’s life hung in the balance.
“You seem to know a good deal about this matter,” said Edward, his eyes narrowing as he recalled many past tricks his father had played. “Do you already have the evidence of my innocence in your possession?”
The withered old codger cackled, then hacked more earnestly. “I’ve not been able to penetrate the inner sanctums of the key players. You’re the expert in penetration these days.”
Edward groaned, wishing the man had discoveredsomesort of paternal feeling in their time apart.
“I am not without my sources,” said the man at last. “The Chasterly name still counts for something, despite your best efforts.” He lifted a few sheets of brown paper and tossed them forward.
Edward collected the pages, half of them from the floor, and quickly reviewed the scratched notes. Eyes roving too fast to truly read the words, his mind moved like the wheels on a carriage traveling at a good clip.
“Be off with you,” said the marquess, waving his gray handkerchief to signal he should show himself out.
Edward wasn’t so taken by the documents as not to notice the dots of blood on the cloth.
Chapter 3
“Hold still.”
”Iamstill!”
Edward sighed as Tabby wiggled before him, turning this way and that to evade his lice comb.
“You’re wilier than these here lice!”
“You would be too if someone was ripping yer hairs out!”
He kicked the leg of the chair, which proved surprisingly stable. At least one aspect of his life was improving.
Upon returning to Mrs. Chaffinch’s, he discovered Tabby had packed up his few belongings, as he’d requested. After gettingher outfitted in his older clothes, they set off from the lodging house, heading to rooms he’d found in the last weeks, when he’d sorted out the problem of how to keep his friend with him once he got her back.
The rooms he let were more spacious and furnished with the basics: bed, rugs, washstand, screen, and desk.
“How are you going to pay for all this?” Tabby had asked, looking around in wonder as if he’d brought her to St. James’s Palace.
It was then that he’d explained who had Tencendor. With the cost of the horse set in something other than blunt, he could use some of the sale price to cover rent on the new lodgings.
