Afternoon, April 28th, 1814
Benedict lay on a sagging couch and stared up at the watermarks on the plaster ceiling. The brown stain above the couch looked like a cow if you stared at it from one angle and a bear if you saw it from the other side. When he left Bridgerton House, this was the last place he expected anyone to look for him. It was not the sort of establishment a Bridgerton would ever come to, which made it perfect in his eyes.
The innkeeper promised he would like this room with a private 'sitting room' that just happened to be available. The 'sitting room' was a gross exaggeration, consisting of a couch with tears in the fabric older than he was and a chair whose original color was obscured by stains of questionable origin. Benedict's bag sat by the door where he left it, packed with whatever came to hand when he fled Bridgerton House. A man couldn't have a single thought without being interrupted there.
The bottle of whiskey he liberated from his brother's study on his way out was too fine to be swilled like cheap ale, but it did numb the pain his mind kept inflicting. Over and over he heard Granville's voice explaining how much better his son's life would be without Benedict in it.
Benedict pulled the miniature from his breast pocket, really examining it for the first time. It was Granville's work, he recognized the style in the brush strokes. It was hard to tell much from a miniature, but the painted infant did look something like the boys in the miniatures his father once treasured. Especially Gregory. Flipping the miniature over, he found it was painted only a week before. How old was the baby? When was he born? Benedict didn't even know what his son's name was, let alone his birthdate. He fumbled for the nearly empty bottle and poured the last of the whiskey into the glass.
A fist hammering on the door broke through the dark thoughts repeating themselves in his mind. Benedict tried to sit up to shout at whoever it was and after three attempts he gave up and let the knocker figure out he wasn't going to open the door.
The thud of a heavy object slamming into the cheap wooden door made him jump, the whiskey in his glass sloshing onto his waistcoat. Cursing under his breath, Benedict sat up in time to see Anthony burst through the flimsy door, stumbling as it gave way under his shoulder. Looking like a regal house cat whose fur got a little mussed, Anthony brushed imaginary dirt from his lapels, "Ah, good. I hoped you were alone in here and I wasn't interrupting anything."
"What part of 'I want to be left alone' was so hard for the family to understand?" He grabbed the first thing that came to hand, an embroidered pillow that looked like it survived two wars and a pack of bored hunting hounds, and hurled it at Anthony.
His brother watched the pillow fall far short of him with a grimace, "At least I knock before forcing my way into your room...is this the best you could do? It smells like something died in here."
Benedict lay back on the couch, hooking a booted leg over the back since the upholstery couldn't look any worse than it already did. "What do you want?"
"I was hoping to finish some paperwork I was behind on, but our loving family decided this is where I wanted to be." Anthony's footsteps on the wooden floors came further into the room and he paused at the table by Benedict's head. He looked up and saw Anthony looking furiously at the bottle of whiskey lying empty on the table "I was saving that for a special occasion."
"I am celebrating." Benedict knew where his brother hid the good stuff. Before the duel the year before, Anthony took some time showing him where he kept important papers, account books, and his small collection of fine liquors.
"What are you celebrating, exactly?" Anthony hooked his foot around the leg of a chair and dragged it closer to the couch. "This feels more like a funeral."
