Like No Other

Chapter 13: A Revealed Vulnerability

                                                   
                         

      Recovering from a momentary stupefaction, the Viscount cleared his throat, and begged pardon for the impertinence of barging in without the slightest ceremony. This apologetic admission, expressed with a very fetching smile, was enough to curb a reproving tongue, and the Countess, a lady with no straitlaced inclinations, returned the smile and blithely proffered an elegant hand for the Viscount to kiss. 

     “Lady Stokeford,” he murmured, and remarked afterwards, “Why, ma’am, you’re a rare and refreshing sight to behold! The town’s overgrown of stale beauties these days, you know. May I ask what brings you here all of a sudden?” His fine gray eyes swept across the room and fleetingly countered the Earl’s blazing ones. Lord, he thought, Stefan is rankled to the bone!

         Lady Stokeford gracefully laughed over the compliment. “Always the charmer, are you not, Robert?” she responded with her well-modulated voice. Rendering yet another bow as an answer, Lord March deposited himself on the chair across the settee. “Although,” the Countess added with a pointed glance towards his son, who had moved to the fireplace and broodingly turned his back to them, “I could not say the same thing about my dear son, could I?” 

        “Alas, ma’am! I’m afraid Stefan’s a hopeless case,” Lord March chuckled, but found the remark a little provoking. Lady Stokeford might be impervious to the reaction of his son, but the Viscount was certain he saw that stiff shoulders vaguely flinched. Unflappable he might appear to be, but Lord Robert March acknowledged the tension that pervaded the atmosphere, and it inwardly put him in fidgets. What with the Countess bent on stirring the coals, and Stefan ready to spit fire at the first opportunity, a mighty awkward position he would be in, to be sure.

        Hardly ignorant of the complexities with which the lives Beaumonts were involved, the Viscount knew exactly the strain brought by Stefan’s tempestuous relationship with his mother. It certainly had a very long history, and Robert  had not been a confidant in the past decade without being constantly told of every intrigue and issue.

     As a juvenile, he’d spent a fair amount of summer holidays at his friend’s residence in Gloucestershire. Those glorious days were filled with unbridled delight and youthful pursuits—clandestine swimmings in a creek, or fishing, or reckless races through the fields — any larks a pair of fifteen year-old striplings could conceive to while the day away. Young Robert had been the perky, outspoken one, always game for anything, while the young and taciturn Stefan had never divulged much beyond his interests, and told a little of what he thought about certain things. 

        Their friendship hadn’t been formed out of easy circumstances. Young Stefan had been difficult to deal with, hostile and wary, and would only answer a question as scantly as possible, although this did not deter Robert from reaching him out. He’d proved to be tenacious and gradually got on Stefan’s nerves, and had tried so far as to poke his prying nose in the matters that Stefan would’ve preferred to deal with alone. This meddling had been finally put to an end when the considerably enraged Stefan had decided to give Robert a facer. It had been unpleasant, but surprisingly enough he’d relented and begged pardon, and took the other lad’s hand. And for the next days to come, a newly-formed friendship had started to grow between them.

        It had been yet another Herculean task for Robert to persuade his friend to let him stay over the entire summer in his family’s country seat. Stefan had been so set against the idea and protested that Robert would never liked it there, because it was as dull as backwater. ‘Oh, fudge!’ he’d replied. ‘We can always contrive to do something! Stop being a bloody spoilsport and say yes, Stefan!’ In the end the exasperated Stefan, acknowledging that he would never get another week of peaceful nights without Robert nagging him to consent to his plan, had been moved to agree.