Lady in Rags

Chapter Eighteen: Fair Weather

The newlyweds were still in France, and finally, blissfully, enjoying their honeymoon, when Lord Landon, Richard Armiger, oldest son of the Earl of Albroke, learned his younger brother had remarried.

He did not seek out the knowledge. He did not know it was there to seek out. As far as Richard knew, Neil was still in Italy, playing the part of the prodigal son. So the knowledge had to come to him, and it came in the form of lace, and silk, and scent, and smiles, one sunny April morning.

He was reading a book in the library when his butler entered and announced the visitor.

"Mrs Walthrope to see you."

He put the book flat on its face on his desk, and looked at the butler over the rims of his ugly little round reading glasses. The butler returned his gaze.

"Have you told her I am not at home?"

"She says, my lord, that she will wait in your drawing room until you return."

Richard Armiger stared off into the distance for a moment. His eyes came to rest on the oversized portrait of his great-uncle on the opposite wall. Blurred by his reading glasses, he found the view rather improved.

If it was a question of stubbornness, of waiting, he knew that she undoubtedly would win it. He would see her, whether he liked to or not. But he was not without his own resources of character. He returned his gaze to his book.

"Very well. I will ring for you when I am at home."

Three hours later and two cups of tea later, the book was finished. He laid it closed on the desk in front of him and stared absently, once more, at the portrait of his great-uncle. He had to digest the novel, and it made for poor digestion. It had been prudish and condescending. He thought the heroine stupid, found the hero irritating, and admired only the villain, who met with his just desserts in the form of swift death – but not so swift that he could not first be overcome with remorse, beg and be granted forgiveness, and, so the author hinted, be sent to heaven. A muscle below Richard's left eye twitched in distaste. He would never have finished the novel if it were not for his desire to keep Mrs Walthrope waiting. Pettishly, he blamed her for the book. With a savage twist of the rope that hung by the desk, he rang for the butler.

"Has Mrs Walthrope left?" he demanded, when the butler came hurrying in.

"She is still in the drawing room, My Lord."

"Then bring her in to me."

He unhooked his cane from the back of his chair, stood, and limped in circles the room while he waited for her. Both Neil and Richard suffered from the same hereditary bone deformity, but Richard's affliction was much greater. It had robbed him of his fair height, leaving him fully and imperfectly grown at sixty-five inches, if he stood on his right leg, and sixty-one if he stood on his left. The disparity of those four vital inches had caused an uncomfortable limp and a physical clumsiness in childhood. That same clumsiness had resulted in an accident, in which he had broken his knee. From then on, his right leg had never bent properly, and the limp had grown from uncomfortable to painful.

Extremely painful when he had been sitting down for three hours straight. He winced, and eased his stubborn, unyielding joints to the task of moving his body. The grimace of pain was still on his face when Jane entered.

"Richard." Her own expression melted from one of irritation to sympathy on seeing him. "Sit down. Do sit down."

"No." He glared at her, and continued his pacing of the room, the stick thumping every second step. "What do you want, Jane?"

Her lips pursed, Jane sank down onto a couch without asking. For a moment, she watched him pace, looking troubled.

"What do you want?" he repeated.