‘My lord, his Grace is waiting for you in the salon.’ The butler in Fanworth’s London town house announced the visitor with the barest trace of sympathy, for he knew of the strained relations between peer and heir. Stephen had hoped that his visit to the city to get a special licence would pass unnoticed. Obviously, this was not the case.
Usually, he made it a point to avoid any city where Larchmont was staying. The duke remained in London long past the point when fashionable people had quit it for summer. So of course, Stephen spent early summer in Bath. By the time Larchmont arrived to take the water and bathe his gout, Stephen would be on his way to Derbyshire again. If the duke came home for Christmas, Stephen went to London. So passed the year.
Because of his impending marriage, a temporary intersection of their schedules was inevitable. But Stephen had hoped that it would be postponed until after the ceremony when there was less the duke could do to influence matters. Still, if it occurred now, his bride might be spared the meeting with her father-in-law until the man had grown used to the idea. ‘Thank, you,’ he answered to the butler. Then he braced himself for battle as the servant opened the door to the receiving room.
Larchmont had aged. But who had not? It had been nearly five years since their last meeting. His hair was more grey than brown and the lines on his face had deepened. Five years ago, the ebony walking stick he always carried had been little more than a vanity. But as the door opened, he was using it for support. When he realised he had been caught in a show of weakness, the duke straightened and twirled it in his hand as if to prove that it had been nothing more than momentary fatigue.
Stephen did not bother with a greeting. He had learned long ago that to speak was to open himself to ridicule. As a child, he’d had no choice in the matter. But now that he was a grown man, he did not have to put up with it in his own house. He stood before the duke and offered a respectful, but silent bow.
His father dispensed with cordiality as well and went immediately to the matter at hand. ‘I suppose you know why I am here.’
‘No idea,’ Stephen replied, with an insolent shrug.
‘The word is all over London that you have gone to Doctors’ Commons for a special licence. You mean to be married. To some shop girl in Bath.’
The temptation was there to offer correction about Margot’s position. Shopkeeper would have been a more accurate term. Since it would not have changed his father’s opinion, Stephen held his tongue.
‘I forbid it.’
‘I am of age,’ Stephen said, without raising his tone.
‘It does not matter. You should act in regard to my wishes, since you continue to spend the money I send you.’
How like his father, to bring up the stipend he was awarded each month. The money was largely symbolic. He had long ago learned to invest his inheritance in such a way that a supplement was not needed. ‘I will manage without,’ he said.
‘Do you mean to give back the house as well? You live quite comfortably on my estate in Derbyshire. Perhaps it would be better if I put it up for rent.’
It would be dashed inconvenient. Stephen had grown quite fond of that house and the properties around it. Though the income generated went into his father’s pocket, he had been acting as landlord since his majority and considered it almost his own.
But he would relinquish it if he must. He chose the counter-attack most likely to madden his pater familias. ‘Then I shall have to live off my wife’s money. She owns her shop. It is quite successful.’
His father gave a growl, part-frustration, and part-anguish. ‘No Standish has ever needed to marry for money.’
As far as Stephen could tell, none had married for love either. ‘I shall be the first,’ he said, answering both conditions.
‘You bring shame upon our good name,’ his father said, in disgust,
‘So you always tell me,’ Stephen replied.
‘I should have drowned you like a puppy, the minute I realised you were foolish. Instead, I endured years of your squalling and yammering and stuh-stuh-stuttering. When I think of the heir I could have had...’
Which meant Arthur, he supposed. He was the son that Larchmont deserved: drunken, dishonest and disrespectful. But at least he had a silver tongue to talk his way out of the trouble he caused. ‘It was not my request to be spawned by you. Nor to be first. Though I share your regret, I cannot change it.’
‘But you could modify your behaviour,’ the duke suggested. ‘As you did your abominable penmanship.’
If he was not careful to wear gloves in summer, the sun still brought out the white scar across his knuckles that marked the reason Stephen had finally learned to use his right hand to make his letters. God knew what his father intended to break to improve his taste in women. ‘I am satisfied with the way things are,’ he said, with a calm that was sure to annoy Larchmont.
‘Because you are an idiot. And like all idiots, you cannot control your lust. Tear up the licence, give this girl a bank draft and send her away. Then, perhaps we can find someone from a decent family who is thick-witted enough to have you.’
Stephen could think of a myriad of responses to this, involving his marks at Oxford, the shrewdness of his investments and the circumspection he employed when navigating the slew of marriage-minded young ladies who were more than willing to overlook his speech impediment for a chance to be the next Duchess of Larchmont. And then, of course, there was the genuine feeling he had for the woman his father wished him to cast off.
But as it always did, after a few minutes arguing with his father he could feel his tongue tiring. It was ready to slur or stick on even the simplest words, as it had done when he was a child. So he remained silent.
His father held a hand to his ear. ‘What’s that, boy? I did not hear your answer.’
So he gave the only one necessary. ‘No.’
The old man glared at him in shock. ‘I beg your pardon? I do not get your meaning.’
At this, Stephen laughed. ‘And you call me idiot. Even I understand a word of one syllable.’ It would feel good to say it again, so he did. ‘No.’
‘You seriously mean to defy me in this?’ his father said, as always surprised that the world did not turn at his pleasure.
‘Yes.’ The fight was grinding to a halt, as it always did, when he had run out of words. Though the duke sometimes made up for the silence with one last, protracted rant, Stephen was down to monosyllables and weighty silence. He stared at the old man, barely blinking, with the same look of disdain he used on the rest of England. It was an expression that said that the person before him had nothing more of interest to contribute. The unfortunate presence would be borne with as little patience as was necessary, until the interloper withdrew.
The look was one of the least painful lessons he had received from his father. He had been on the receiving end of it since he’d said his first, malformed words. He had learned to ignore it. While a glare might frighten, it did not hurt nearly as much as a stout cane across the knuckles. But he had learned to use it as well. Now, he was every bit as skilled at hauteur as his father.
The duke was not impressed. ‘Do not think to turn stubborn on me now. Call off this wedding or I will see that you and your bride are banned from society.’
What hardship would that be? he wondered. He had no use for society and Margot had not yet been introduced to the people who might snub her. ‘As you will.’ Then he continued to fix his father with the direct stare that informed him that the conversation was at an end.
The duke stared back at him, in a silent battle of wills.
This was a new tactic. It was doomed to failure, Stephen was sure. Silence was his oldest friend. He could remain wrapped in it indefinitely, quiet as a rock, still as an open grave. But Larchmont was an orator, an arguer, a speechifier. He