Page 5 of A Victim, A Viscount, And Miss Mifford
"I don't recall you asking me to do that, my lord," Allen replied, his face impassive.
Lord Crab furrowed his brow into a frown, which he directed at poor Allen. The two men were of a similar age, both sporting thinning tufts of white hair and age-spots upon their sagging cheeks.
"I am certain that I told you, Allen," Lord Crabb huffed, "I wanted to make a change to my will—as you well know. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you forgot deliberately so as to slight me."
"Not at all, my lord," to Allen's credit his expression did not change one iota in the face of his master's dressing down, "I shall send one of the footmen with a message to say that you wish him to return in the morning."
"You do that," Lord Crabb pursed his lips, "And have a bottle of brandy sent to the drawing room; I should like to have a toast with Sir Charles."
"Yes, my lord."
Allen shuffled away at a painfully slow pace and once he had disappeared from sight, Lord Crabb frowned again.
"Insufferable fool," he muttered, more to himself than to Ivo, "He thinks that I am losing my mind, when it is he who is losing his."
Ivo offered no comment, instead he silently followed Lord Crabb to the drawing room where Sir Charles awaited them. Internally, however, he was inclined to agree with the butler that the viscount's memory was failing somewhat. Ivo had returned to England, after a decade at sea, a few months prior. He had written to Lord Crabb to inform him that he had taken up residence in Grosvenor Square—in a townhouse he had rented for the season—but had not had a reply until last week, when the viscount had written to invite him to attend his wedding to Miss Hughes. Unfortunately, by the time Ivo had arrived at Plumpton Hall, the viscount had forgotten that he had written at all—hence Miss Hughes' fervent belief that Ivo was there merely to put a stop to the marriage so that he would inherit.
Even though Ivo had produced the letter of invitation—which Lord Crabb had confusedly agreed looked exactly like his own hand—a seed of doubt had been sewn in Miss Hughes' mind, and Ivo knew instinctively that she would never forgive him his supposed sin.
Which was a pity, for Lord Crabb was Ivo's only living relative—albeit a very distant one—and Ivo had hoped that forging a relationship with the viscount might help to ease his entrance into society, having been absent from England for so long.
Inside the draughty drawing room, Sir Charles greeted them both with a cheery smile. He did not seem in any way inconvenienced by the chill air, protected as he was from the cold by his significant girth. Ivo shivered a little, for the room was as cold as it was outside, but his host did not notice and did not instruct the footman, who soon arrived with a bottle of brandy, to light the fire.
"A celebration," Lord Crabb said, as the footman passed around three glasses, "To a new beginning."
"And a fruitful union," Sir Charles added, no doubt thinking of the enormous payment his daughter would receive should she birth the viscount a son.
"May your union be bountiful," Ivo echoed, with as straight a face as he could muster.
The three men threw back their glasses of brandy—which warmed Ivo up nicely—and allowed the footman to pour another.
"Now," Sir Charles turned to Ivo with a smile upon his florid face, "Do tell me more about your adventures at sea, Mr Bonville. I recall reading in The Times that you sailed with the East India Company at one stage in your career?"
Unlike his daughter, Sir Charles was a prolific reader of the newspapers—especially the gossip sheets—and had been well informed about Ivo—and the wealth he had amassed—before he had even set foot in Plumpton.
Ivo sat back in the stiff settee, which smelt musty and felt damp, and happily obliged Sir Charles with a few censored tales of his time at sea. Ivo did not detail that the extent of his wealth had been earned during the naval blockade of Britain by France, when Ivo had overseen the smuggling of goods out of and into England.
"Fascinating," Sir Charles boomed, as Ivo finished sharing a much redacted account of his seafaring career, "I myself always fancied a life at sea, alas, the duties of my estate forbade it."
"Of course," Ivo assured him, "One must think of one's duty before all else."
"You didn't think of yours," Lord Crabb interrupted, with a glare, "When you sold out of the navy and hightailed it to the Orient."
Ivo bit back a sigh; his desire to sail the world had been a bone of contention between he and Lord Crabb for many years. True, when Lord Crabb had informed Ivo that he was to be his heir—some twenty years prior—he had seen to it that he had been provided with an education fitting for a future viscount. Unfortunately for Lord Crabb, the education provided to Ivo—first at Eton, then at Oxford-had provided him with a sound sense of reasoning. When Ivo had left Oxford, he had keenly understood that it would be perilous to trust his fate into the hands of a cantankerous old aristocrat, who might decide to marry at the drop of a hat, thus leaving Ivo without a penny to his name. Ivo had been determined to forge his own way in the world, to make his own fortune—and he had. And, Lord Crabb had proved him right by deciding, at the last hurdle of life, to marry Miss Hughes and beget an heir.
"I am a great believer that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," Sir Charles interrupted, cheerfully, "Where would Mr Bonville be now, Lord Crabb, if he had rested on his laurels and assumed that a fortune would be handed to him?"
Lord Crabb grunted in response, his scowl evidence that he was not at all pleased with Sir Charles jumping to Ivo's defence.
"Let us not dwell on what might have been," Ivo soothed, as he fixed a smile to his face, "Let us focus on the present, and toast to the future."
"Capital idea," Sir Charles beamed, holding out his glass for Ivo to refill.
The three men offered a toast to Lord Crabb's future union, then another to Ivo's visit to Plumpton, and finally another to Sir Charles' Arab hot-blood, which was due to run at Cocklebarrow the next week. By the time they had exhausted things to which they could toast, they had also exhausted the bottle of brandy and Lord Crabb did not seem inclined to call for another.
"I suppose I had best get Prunella back home," Sir Charles said, his eyes lingering longingly on the empty bottle of brandy, "There is much to be done before the wedding."
Lord Crabb and Ivo stood as Sir Charles bid them goodbye. He was rather unsteady on his feet as he wobbled his way out of the drawing room, Ivo noted with a smile.
