Haughton kept himself to his study for the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon. He'd quickly found that just because he'd left London several weeks before, it didn't mean that his business remained in town as well. There was the running of the estate to manage, along with all of his other properties—aside from Haughton House in London, and Denton Castle, there was also a small bit of land up in Scotland which had been favored by previous generations for hunting, and also another pile of stones in Kent that was in dire need of refurbishment—and the countless investments his father had begun and Haughton was desperate not to see fail under his watch.
And, of course, there was David. It was a bit like having a servant on the payroll, one who continually pilfered from the family coffers and ran up bills that always managed to find their way into Haughton's hands.
Their last confrontation had ended in a shouting match. No, that wasn't precisely true. David had shouted, and kicked things, and thrown various breakable objects across the room. And all because Haughton had made the suggestion that he use what allowance he had to settle his debts with tradesmen—tailors, hostlers, bootmakers, and the like—before worrying about any of his supposed 'debts of honor', which were all gambling debts and money owed to friends and fellow members of the aristocracy.
David had thrown a fit, behaving no better than a child, as he'd shouted that no one would allow him into any of the clubs, that he'd never be able to show his face at any decent fighting hall. To which Haughton had responded it would do him well to avoid those places anyway.
And then David had stormed out, probably to lose a few more hundred pounds on a game of cards, and Haughton had begun preparations to set out for Derbyshire the very next day.
He leaned back in his chair, pushed his hands through his already tousled hair, and tugged at the knot in his neckcloth. He would need to go upstairs and change for dinner soon. As much work as he had before him, he knew that Bess would not forgive him if he attempted to excuse himself from the meal over mere paperwork, as she termed it.
The prospect of another meal with Mrs. Brixton did not excite him. He found himself becoming increasingly frustrated in her presence, and then this morning, when she'd told him she'd rather he continue to be an offensive boor than to make any attempt at fooling her...
So, those hadn't been her exact words, but the point was clear enough.
She disliked him. Intensely. And yet she had accepted his invitation to come here, to travel hundreds of miles beyond the boundaries of a town she called home, and all because...
He couldn't figure her out. Did she merely wish to create some sort of connection between the infant, George, and the rest of his family? After their brief acquaintance in Stantreath, he couldn't have imagined her ever wanting to set eyes on him again. But the letter containing her acceptance of his invitation had been swiftly received.
She claimed to distrust his sudden change of heart in the matter of what to do with the child. But should he have any reason to distrust her?
As he retired to his rooms to dress for the evening, he resolved to speak to Mrs. Brixton after dinner. Before she spent another night beneath his roof, he would lay out his plan for George's care and upbringing before her. And if she refused it?
No, she would not refuse. Not this time. Though she seemed willing to fight him every step of the way, there would have to be a point when she would step back and see what was best for the child. She loved the boy. He knew that. And he had to hope that she loved him enough to do the make the wisest choice for him.
He washed and shaved and dressed with care, his valet fussing about him as if he were about to attend one of the greatest ton balls of the season, rather than a quiet dinner with his sister and a guest from the country.
As he walked downstairs, a frisson of something swept through him. Unease, perhaps. But, no. That wasn't precisely correct. It was different than that. Whatever it was, it almost had a tinge of excitement to it. But he could not imagine how a small dinner with two other women would affect him in such a way, unless it was merely all of the business matters he'd buried himself in over the last few months making him look forward to even a few moments of distraction.
Dinner would be in the dining room this evening, Bess had informed him before he'd gone upstairs to dress. But he went to the drawing room first, where he knew the ladies would be gathered before going in to the meal. They were both there, his sister clad in a stylish gown of deep red silk that suited her status as a widow while still adhering to the most current fashions, and Mrs. Brixton stood there, too, her own gown of blue muslin as plain and simple as something he would expect the servants to wear while making their rounds in the morning to light the fires.
But still, his gaze lingered on her. Her hair gleamed in the golden light from both the candles and the fire, and her skin...
Freckles were not fashionable. He knew this, and yet his eyes always seemed to seek them out, first the dusting of them across her nose and her cheeks, and then the ones that decorated the extraordinarily fair skin of her arms and chest. And his attention dipped for a moment as she drew in a deep breath upon his entering the drawing room, towards that slight swell of her bosom, towards that shadow between her breasts...
He cleared his throat as he dragged his gaze back to his sister. "Bess," he said, and cleared his throat a second time. "Mrs. Brixton."
They both greeted him in turn, Bess with her never-ending smile and Mrs. Brixton with a tightness at the corners of her mouth and a flicker of defiance in her eyes.
He wanted to continue to look at her eyes, to determine what color they had chosen to be tonight, but his sister began to speak and he was forced to turn away.
"I was beginning to doubt you would join us," Bess said, her tone carrying a slight reprimand as she reached up and tugged at a fold of his neckcloth, as if she were his mother and not his younger sister by nearly a decade. "Sometimes I wonder what it is that you do in that study of yours all day. Should you not have a secretary of some sort, someone to take care of the more tedious bits of business and allow you more time for yourself?"
He had employed a secretary at one time, a weedy young man who had done his job tolerably well, but Haughton had spent so much of his time checking and double-checking the man's work that in the end, the secretary had quit and taken himself off to Chester to work for his uncle. Haughton had always thought about seeking out another person for the position, but he had always preferred to take care of things himself, to make sure they were done exactly as he wanted. That, and the less people in his employ, the less to know of all the various deeds and misdeeds of David that inevitably needed to be swept beneath the rug.
"I'll look into it in the summer," he said, hoping to placate her despite the vagueness of his reply. "And might I ask how you and our guest amused yourself for the duration of the day?"
Bess's smile brightened. "Well, I daresay that Sophia now has as great a knowledge of the house and its history as my own, if not better. I declare, her memory is sharper than I believe any person I've ever met—even yours, Finn!—and I would definitely not wish to find myself against her in any game of wit."
Haughton watched a slight blush as it spread across Mrs. Brixton's cheeks, before she lowered her eyes to the floor, her head shaking slightly as she did so.
"And Mrs. Brixton," he said, her name on his lips drawing her gaze upwards again. She looked at him through thick lashes, brown tinged with the slightest hint of red. If she had been attempting to act the coquettish miss, the angle of her face and her eyes meant to charm him and entice him, she could not have been more accomplished. But everything about her was completely and utterly artless, and before he could experience that same tightening in his abdomen as had afflicted him when he'd descended from his room, the old glint of fire and steel returned to her gaze, the warmth of his sister's compliment giving way to her evident aversion towards him. "What did you think of the house?"
She seemed to study him for a moment, and then she tipped her head to one side, though her gaze never left his. "I found it to be a beautiful building, and possessed of a tremendous amount of character. I liked it very much."
Her approval should not have mattered to him. She was the daughter of a gentleman, yes. But she had also fallen from that meagre position both upon the death of her parents and because of her sister's indiscretions. The entirety of her current home could fit snugly into the gallery of Denton Castle, and with room to spare.
In both dress and manner, she should've paled in comparison to his sister, who had been one of the most celebrated beauties of her first—and only—season before her marriage to Mr. Finchley. And yet he found himself continually seeking her out with his gaze, a behavior that had afflicted him even all those weeks ago while he'd been in her kitchen in Stantreath. Except that now, he recognized what it was about her that drew his eye.
He wanted her.
He had fought it, he realized, for quite some time. Perhaps even since he'd first found himself in her presence, since she'd spit fire at him and nearly escorted him from her home by his ear, he had been attracted to her.
And now she was a guest in his home. She and their illegitimate nephew.
Their conversation remained on banal topics until the call for dinner. He escorted both women into the dining room, one on each arm, and took the seat at the head of the table while Bess and Mrs. Brixton placed themselves across from one another. And still, they continued to converse on matters that irritated Haughton, though he acquitted himself well over discussions of a new canal to be constructed near the edge of their property.
As the meal drew to a close and Bess suggested they all retire to the drawing room for the remainder of the evening, Haughton snatched at a moment to step up beside Mrs. Brixton and whisper a few words in her ear.
"I wonder," he began, his hand touching her arm above her glove. "If you would share a private word with me, in my study?"
She pulled away from him enough to turn and regard him. Her gaze scanned his face, and then something in her own expression changed, as if she understood that the discussions about George's future were due to begin again.
She nodded once, and said nothing more. Haughton told his sister that they would join her shortly, and then again placed his hand on Mrs. Brixton's arm, his grip more firm this time as he escorted her to the other side of the gallery and into his study.
The servants had kept the fire built up during his absence, no doubt because they believed he would return after the meal to continue with his work. Mrs. Brixton paused for a moment in the doorway, then took herself to a large, leather armchair quite near to the fire. Haughton followed her, but chose to remain standing several feet away from her.
She sat straight and tall, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. In the light of the fire, her own hair seemed to be the color of flame, flames that had been expertly braided and curled around her head. She watched him, waiting for him to speak. All of a sudden, he felt uncharacteristically self-conscious, being given the first word. And then his gaze strayed to her mouth, where the pink edge of her tongue slipped out to moisten her bottom lip.
She is beautiful...
He pushed the thought out of his head almost as soon as it had appeared. He did not need this, to suddenly discover that he harbored an attraction for a woman with whom he was about to discuss such a serious matter. Why his feelings had decided to make himself known on this evening of all evenings, he could not begin to comprehend. But here he stood, gazing down at her, and suddenly hating himself for what he was about to say.
"I am not, of course, going to make any repetition of the offer I made to you in Stantreath. You made it very clear that you found it most distasteful and insulting, and so I consider that particular matter to be ended. However," he continued, and resisted the urge to clear his throat again for a third time that evening. "It is imperative that something is done to ensure the child's future care and education. Should anything happen to you, or your sister, or even myself or his father..."
Mrs. Brixton squeezed her hands together once before placing them on her thighs, palms down, her fingers spread apart and visibly tense. "You would make sure that he is secure, unlike what my parents did for my sister and I."
Haughton nodded. He hoped this would be easier than he feared. "As George is illegitimate, he has no claims on any title or fortune. But I do not wish to see him struggle simply because my brother cannot exercise either common sense or restraint."
"So what do you propose?" she asked. She drew in a breath, but appeared unable to release it again until she heard his reply.
"My sister, as you know, was left a widow two years ago, and childless. She expresses no wish to marry again or have children, but I believe she would enjoy the presence of a young child in the house."
He was about to continue, but he saw Mrs. Brixton's eyes narrow as she regarded him keenly.
"Do you mean this house?"
He glanced away, only for a moment, but he could not stay as resilient as he wished beneath her fierce gaze. "I think it would be best for the child to be brought up here. He would be given all the best advantages, the best nurses, tutors, everything. He would learn to ride and to hunt and to dress as if he were indeed legitimate. This would be his home, where his ancestors lived before him."
Again, she licked her lips. His eyes flicked down to her mouth and then back up again. "And where would I be, during this grand tutelage?"
"Of course, you could return to Stantreath, to your own home, if you wished."
He spoke too quickly. It was the wrong answer, and he realized it before even the final word had cleared his lips.
"I see," she said. She shifted forward in her chair and stood up. Easily, gracefully, without any of the country clumsiness he had wanted to apply to her since their first meeting. Because no matter her circumstances, no matter the state of her gowns, or the shabbiness of her tiny cottage buffeted by the winds coming off the ocean, she was born and bred as a gentleman's daughter, and he had been a fool to ever treat her as anything less than such.
"So your sister will take over the care of George while I, the poor relation, will be sent back to my hovel to mend my linens for the dozenth time and wait for the occasional letter enlightening me as to my nephew's progress, is that correct?"
As beautiful a figure as she made in her simple blue gown, lit both by the fire and by some passionate anger that seemed to glow from within her, Haughton had not ceased to find her completely infuriating. If she would simply allow him to finish...
"I would never attempt to keep you from the child, if that is what you mean. I am not a monster."
"No, you are a man too aware of his own importance, and that is much worse." She gave him one last look, imbued with a healthy amount of venom, before she took to pacing the length of the study, taking care, he noticed, not to pass too near to him. "But I should be solaced by the fact that George would be reared by the finest caregivers available for purchase, his character molded in the same manner as his father before him."
He grit his teeth at the way she spoke the word "father". She would refer to David, of course. And he could not find it within himself to blame her. But he also knew that many of the deficits in his brother's character were from mistakes made by himself, his sister, and the previous Lord Haughton.
"You make it seem like you would no longer have any influence over the boy," he said, but she spun on her heel to face him, her eyes flashing fire and her nostrils flaring as she inhaled sharply.
"What do you expect? You would relegate me to the level of mere visitor, and compared to you and your sister and..." She faltered then, her hands flailing at her sides as she tried to draw all of the house around her into that futile gesture. "I would be nothing more than some simple, poor aunt to him. And I do not think I could bear that."
Behind him, a log split and tumbled into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks that flooded the room with a moment of brilliant illumination. The light was enough to show him her expression, the pain etched in her face, and the gleam of moisture that pricked the corners of her eyes.
"What if you lived here? You and the child both? Then you would lose no measure of influence over him. You would—"
But she held up her hand to silence him. "No," she said, her head already shaking from side to side. "To live here, under your rule?"
He blew out a breath, exasperated. "I will have you know I spend most of my time in London."
"But this is your home," she explained. "Not my own. My tiny little cottage may not seem like... like anything to you, but it is mine, a gift from Lady Rutledge. And I have lost so much these last few years, I cannot..." She closed her eyes and turned her face towards the floor, away from him. "I'm sorry, I cannot accept your offer. I will not give George over to you to be raised by strangers, and neither will I live here, to exist off your charity until George is grown and you've no further need to placate me."
She stood in the shadows of the room, the color of her gown making her almost seem like a shadow herself. But for her hair and her eyes, he realized. Those continued to glow, despite the shades of grey that seemed to have descended over her face.
"I beg you to make my apologies to your sister," she said, drawing herself up again, her brief moment of exhaustion disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. "I find I have a headache, and I have no wish to spend any time in the drawing room chatting and laughing and..." She swallowed. "Goodnight, my lord."
She turned and walked towards the door. There was no hesitation from her, no pause or look back before she passed through the doorway and into the corridor beyond.
Haughton still stood in his same place before the fire, one hand on the mantelpiece while he beat his other fist against his thigh.
He was a fool. He was a damned fool, and yet he could not bring himself to go after her. He would speak to her in the morning, most likely over an awkward breakfast with his sister straining to hear the words that passed between them.
But at that moment, he realized the damage caused by merely copying his late father's behavior. Since the death of the former Lord Haughton, he had continued to do everything within his power to hide any and all of his brother's misdeeds, in some misguided and outdated attempt to not allow a single speck of scandal besmirch the family name.
Well, he'd already offered to allow his brother's bastard son to be raised in the family home, and made a belated offer to the child's aunt to reside here as well.
And now he found himself no better off than where he'd been before he'd even learned of the child's existence. Except that he'd managed to offend a beautiful woman two times over the course of a single season.
He stalked over towards a large tray of glasses and decanters, their stoppers untouched enough to have sported a layer of dust if it had not been for the myriad household servants attending to their duties. He picked up a rather heavy decanter of scotch and held it up towards the light. It had been his father's favorite drink, but Haughton had never harboured much of a taste for the stuff.
He poured himself a large glass, returned to the armchair that Mrs. Brixton had so recently vacated, and sat down. He took one sip of the scotch, swished it around in his mouth, and nearly choked as it burnt a trail of fire down his throat. But as it settled in his stomach, he understood why his father and others of his ilk took to drinking so much of it in the evening hours.
Another sip, and then another, and he began to feel a pleasant sensation spreading out from his abdomen towards the tips of his fingers and his head. One more sip, and he wondered how much he would have to imbibe in order to forget everything that had transpired between him and Mrs. Brixton only moments ago.
*************************************************************
Dear Readers,
Thank you for continuing to read.
And remember that all comments are appreciated. I'm about to begin the dreaded Red Pen Edit on this particular story, in hopes of banishing all typos and inconsistencies (along with tightening up some of the prose) to the bin.
And only ten more chapters to go!
Quenby Olson
ETA: You can now check out my latest Regency romance, The Bride Price, currently in-progress here on Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/65174398