Slowly he got up from the chair and poured himself another glass. Without consciously meaning to, he walked over to his only remaining possessions of any value, the books lining the walls of the room. Despite all of his other attempts to strip the house over the years, the marquis was unwilling to part with his books. Books, as well as drinking brandy from a glass, were the only remnants of a gentleman’s life that he had allowed himself to keep. He didn’t even own a horse anymore.
Tiredly his eyes sought a place of rest among the busy shelves, and so he began browsing through the titles. Poetry he mentally shrugged off without even pausing to absorb the titles. Shakespeare flickered into the corner of his vision and then immediately skittered out again. And then he was there. Among the great literary titles he saw a small collection of books. His eyes absorbed fairy-tale titles and, without meaning to, Traverston began to reflect on his childhood.
No one could have called his early days happy, but before his mother died, there had been some good times. His fingers wandered over the leather book covers, stopping on the gold stamped title of Robinson Crusoe. Just for a moment, Traverston could feel the gentle touch of his mother’s hand on his brow and he closed his eyes, lingering over the remembered sensation. Frowning, concentrating, he cast his mind back…and—ah! It was there—her soft, delicate voice, reading to him by the last light of sunset.
Physically shaking his head clear of such thoughts, the marquis dragged his limbs back to the decanter and poured himself another drink. Hoping to break his suddenly maudlin mood, he walked over to one of the long windows and pulled back its dusty drape, the tattered soft material long since faded from its original forest green. The action scattered a few spiderwebs and created a dust cloud, but the marquis stood his ground. He felt desperately in need of some sunlight.
Staring through the filthy panes, Traverston felt numbed by the sight of the mansion’s grounds. For some reason he didn’t understand, the grass outside the window was waist high and the garden overgrown with weeds. Directly outside the window, a rosebush seemed determined to choke out all available sunlight defiantly filtering through the leaves.
With another shake of his head, Traverston’s memory came back. Of course. He himself had neglected these grounds for years. Why was the sight of them now such a shock?
As he stared down into his brandy glass, he wondered how he had let himself come to such a pass. He had been bent on self-destruction, it was true. But was this sorry state really what he had planned so many years ago?
With a sudden movement so quick it surprised him, Traverston pulled back his arm and threw his glass across the room. The glass exploded into a thousand shards in the fireplace. No! In his mind the thought was so loud, so sudden, it was almost as if someone had shouted the word.
A few seconds later, Traverston realized that he had indeed spoken aloud. No. This was no answer. Killing himself and destroying his family’s estate and heritage had seemed the perfect solution to his problems five years ago, but now Traverston knew he couldn’t finish what he had started. Who could in light of this second chance at life?
The marquis laughed aloud, the bitter sound ceasing on a curse. “Damn you, you bastard!” he shouted to the empty room. “Why couldn’t you have left me alone?”
Gateland Manor, as the house was optimistically called by its occupants, was a shambling estate that marched alongside the Marquis of Traverston’s own home, Norwood Park. Locally the saying went that the two houses were like two generations of humanity—parent and child—where the fruit had fallen not far from the tree. Norwood Park was the run-down father, while Gateland Manor was the shabby, good-for-nothing offspring.
Riding up on a borrowed nag to the front door of the smaller house now, Traverston was pleased to note that the rumors were true. Gateland Manor appeared to be in no better condition than his own estate. Peeling white paint decorated the once pristine columns on the Queen Anne-styled home. The red brick walls, while engaging from a distance with their aged and mellow beauty, were covered almost completely with ivy, and where the bricks could be seen at all, they were crumbling and falling apart.
Traverston smiled to himself. The state of the house’s interior, if it were anything at all like the exterior, would bode well for him. The marquis needed Gateland Manor’s owner to be in dire need of funds if he was going to win his objective this day.
The door of the manor was answered by an old man so bent over with arthritis that he could hardly look up into the face of the visitor. The ancient’s appearance was neat but threadbare, his black and gold livery was antiquated. But even so, the servant appeared to take great pride in the uniform.
When no greeting seemed to be forthcoming from this relic of humanity, Traverston took it upon himself to take the initiative. “If you would be so kind, my good man,” he commanded, adjusting his tone to a shout, “please inform Mr. Wentworth that the Marquis of Traverston would like an interview with him.”
It was a few moments before the man replied. When he did, the sound was so much like a groan, Traverston didn’t have a clue as to his reply. It was only when he saw the old man shuffle away, leaving the door open behind him, that he decided it would be best to follow.
After what seemed to Traverston an interminable amount of time, the butler finally led him to a huge pair of double doors. It was another few moments before the marquis realized that he was expected to open the doors, the servant not having the required strength to do so.
As it turned out, the doors led into the manor’s library. This surprised Traverston as he had thought he would be shown into a parlor to await his host. Then realizing that, like Norwood Park, the library was probably the best room in the house, the marquis made his way over to the fireplace, silently gloating over the fact that Mr. Wentworth’s penury was indeed as bad as his own.
The library doors closed with a loud boom, alerting Traverston to the fact that he had been left alone. Using this opportunity to thoroughly study his surroundings, the marquis looked over his host’s library. What he saw there only confirmed his earlier suspicion that Wentworth was operating on a constrained budget.
The room, while large, was almost devoid of furniture. A few battered-looking but comfortable armchairs adorned the room, along with three tables and one sofa. Books were scattered throughout the many shelves on the walls, and the marquis noted with mild interest that Wentworth owned almost as many of them as he did. Apparently the man had some scholarly inclinations.
The one clear advantage Gateland Manor did have over Norwood Park, however, was its relative cleanliness. Here, unlike in his ancestral home, there were no cobwebs of astronomical dimensions hanging from the ceiling, nor was there a blanket of dust coating everything within sight. In addition, there was a small but cheery fire roaring away in the tidy fireplace at one end of the room.
Resisting the urge to grind his teeth at the unfavorable comparison his own home made with the manor house, Traverston was just about to stride to the fire to warm his chilled bones when the doors opened behind him to admit his host. Mr. Wentworth, a middle-aged man of somewhat portly dimensions, hesitated only slightly before stepping into the room. He took his time closing the doors behind him, much as if he were collecting his thoughts. When he turned to face the marquis, his countenance was unexpectedly grim.
Wentworth studied Traverston as he hesitated again. Finally he walked over to the peer with his hand stretched out before him. “My lord, this is a surprise.” He shook the marquis’s hand gravely before continuing. “It has been a. long time since this house has been honored by your presence.”
The meaning of the slight stress Wentworth put on the word honor was not lost on Traverston. He had no doubt that a neighbor as close as Wentworth would have heard of his less than honorable escapades over the past several years. But the marquis decided to ignore the slight, at least to all outward appearances. He smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes and replied with passing civility, “A long time indeed.”
Wentworth studied his guest carefully, weighing the advisability of