Page 17 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Eight
A sore head, Andrew had found, distracted one from other concerns even more effectively than the brandy, wine, and—he shuddered, and rubbed at his temples—sherry, of all the abominable things, that he had consumed in sequence the night before.
Rum never caused him such misery, and when it did, sea air cleared it away well enough.
Perhaps the life of an absurdly wealthy gentleman of leisure was overrated. Andrew could never remember feeling like this before he inherited his uncle’s estate. Odd to think that he would long for the days of being a middy, since he’d hated it enough at the time.
But on the other hand, even attempting to think of—anyone, proved quite impossible, with this pounding ache in his brain. His hand shook a little as he lifted the coffee to his lips, almost missing his mark. He swiped a drop of it off his chin with a napkin already crumpled from having mopped up a spill that nearly dripped into his lap.
The past three weeks, since Hewlett had so thoroughly rejected his apology, had been a nearly sleepless round of dinners, and routs, and what any more respectable person might call orgies. Even by Andrew’s standards, they amounted to such. Indiscriminate orgies, at that. Andrew made a point of tumbling women as often as he did men to distract his companions from his more unusual pleasures. As a rake who indulged in any vice, common or otherwise, he was admired by his dissolute, drunken acquaintances. As an invert only, he would have been an object of mockery.
Andrew cared little for mockery. He cared a great deal more for the risk of exposure and arrest that could arise from his companions’ loss of respect.
The night before, he was fairly certain at least one woman, possibly two, and at least one other man, had all spent some part of the night in the bedchamber he used when he had company. Andrew had a vague recollection of Samuel assisting him in chivvying them out the front door sometime before dawn. The high-stickler neighbors who had been his uncle’s friends would no doubt be scandalized, and the back gate might have been a more discreet choice. But establishing a reputation as a man who regularly had lightskirts departing in a state of partial undress would protect him should any accusations of sodomy ever be made.
Andrew eyed the coffeepot with some hostility. It had defeated him the last time he attempted to pour from it. Perhaps it would be better to simply lay his head on the table and die.
The breakfast-parlor door opened to admit Peter, holding a letter and smiling as always. “This came for you only a moment ago, sir!”
Andrew winced. Peter sounded as cheerful as he looked, and his voice scraped the inside of Andrew’s skull like a rusty spoon.
It took him a moment to wrangle the letter open and focus his eyes enough to read the first page: a few lines from Robinson, informing him that he had found information on Mr. Hewlett, and that the details were enclosed.
His chest tightened a little, as it tended to do at any mention of Hewlett’s name. But the prospect of solving some part of the mystery surrounding the man acted to clear his head as no coffee could have done, and he waved Peter off, eager to be alone.
Andrew first read Robinson’s explanation. He had written to a gentleman whose services he had used before, a London fellow who in his turn employed clever young men to sift through the archives of all the London papers, listen to coffee-house gossip, befriend serving-maids, and generally learn anything there was to know about anyone.
As usual, this gentleman had delivered. It seemed that some three years before, a fabulously wealthy merchant had persuaded some score of his clients, acquaintances, and business associates to invest heavily in a shipping company bringing spices from the East Indies. Quite a few men put their entire fortunes in his hands; after all, his past speculations had been so wildly successful that who could doubt his acumen?
Not one of the ships returned to England. For months, the merchant put off the investors, assuring them that adverse weather, delays in loading the cargo, or simple navigational errors could have accounted for it.
And then came the accusations of improper handling of funds and of outright fraud. Suits were filed, and the sums in question totaled more than the merchant’s own fortune, of which he had wisely kept back the larger part—ironically, a proof of his acumen that only made him appear the more guilty.
Five months after the ships should have reached port, Philip Hewlett penned a short note proclaiming his innocence, sat down before his drawing-room fireplace, and blew out his brains. His only child, Christopher, then a student at Oxford, was left alone to bear the scandal and ruin that resulted.
Andrew dropped the letter to the table as if it had burned his fingers and fell back into his chair. Bloody, buggering hell, what a disaster. Hewlett had said he was four and twenty. He must have been only one or two and twenty when his father killed himself and abandoned him to bankruptcy, shame, and the end of all his hopes. The son of a disgraced suicide would have no friends willing to own him, no money, and no prospects. No one would employ him. An academic career, if such he had intended to have, was impossible.
Hewlett had a gentleman’s education, and reading between the lines, a gentleman’s upbringing. More so than Andrew, even, who though a gentleman born had left school and gone to sea at fifteen when his widowed mother remarried, and had never darkened the door of any university. And unlike Andrew, he had been raised to expect the responsibility for the management of a large fortune, something Andrew had never anticipated, given that his uncle and mother had not spoken to one another in years at the time of Mr. Allenby’s death. Hewlett understood far better how to undertake Andrew’s responsibilities than Andrew did himself.
Robinson no doubt meant the facts of the matter to be a warning. Andrew took them as a recommendation.
Hewlett had courage, and strength of will, and the fortitude to carry on despite losing everything. He had the abilities Andrew lacked, and sufficient honor to use them on Andrew’s behalf despite having no interest other than his salary, and no inducement but the promise he’d made to do his duty.
Andrew had desired Hewlett. He’d respected him. Now, headmiredthe man, and that—well, it was a bloody disaster, was what it was.
He reached for the coffeepot again, this time determined to conquer both it and his headache. He had a great deal of brooding to do, and a secretary to either avoid or follow about like a puppy, he wasn’t yet sure which.
Hell and damnation, but it would be a long few months until he could sail again.
The clock in the hall began to strike, and Kit looked up sharply, startled out of his concentration. He counted; eight o’clock already. He’d worked through dinner, only stopping to light the candles when the sun went down—already some four hours ago.
His stomach gave a discontented grumble, as if it had been waiting until Kit paid attention to make its concerns known. Turner had gone out again this evening, which meant the kitchen would offer Kit little besides bread and meat and perhaps an apple and cheese after. Kit had temporarily resigned himself to the household’s limitations, although each day he chafed slightly more at the haphazard manner in which it functioned.
On the other hand, when Turner was out the house remained blessedly silent. In the three weeks since the ill-fated dinner, large parties had frequently invaded the house in the later part of the evening, typically after Kit had retired for the night, drinking, cursing, and roaming about half-dressed and shouting with vulgar laughter until the wee hours of the morning. Kit slept with a pillow crushed down over his head and a chair wedged firmly beneath the locked knob of his door to keep out any drunkards looking for a place to paw at one another or to sleep it off, and still he woke annoyed at every sound in the corridor.
Kit had always been a light sleeper, and cold meat and apples were a small price to pay for quiet.
Not to mention, such a dismal prospect for supper made it easier to settle back to work for another half hour. Turner’s solicitor Mr. Robinson had sent over a sheaf of contracts to be read the previous morning, and one of the prospective investments appeared to be…off. The language surrounding the time at which the investment would bear fruit wasn’t specific enough, and Kit suspected the mill in question had financial troubles that hadn’t been fully disclosed.
