Page 16 of Scandalous Heiress
“Indeed,” the duke gave a sharp laugh.“You serve yourself.The little boy who wanted to stand up in the green and address the townsfolk about unfair pay to coal miners.”
“That little boy has seen so much of the world now to know he was naive.”
“He’s not any longer, is he?”
No.When he attended school, he believed in endless growth and possibilities.When married at the tender age of twenty-two, he believed in love at first sight, happily ever after, marriages filled with love, an honest wife.He believed in armies that fought for viable reason, men that conducted business based on honesty and ethics, where graft did not exist, hatred did not bring more malice and people could live in peace.
But when he discovered his wife had taken lovers, many of them since the time she was sixteen, when he learned that his man of business was one of her amours, when he found that the man had cheated him not only of his wife but also of ten percent of his income, Victor had fought with his demons not to murder his wife and her latest lover.
His father had saved him.Talked sense to him.Given him seed money to leave England, travel far to the ends of the earth.Encouraged him to take his faithless wife with him and squire her away from the society that had nurtured her vain adultery.His father had truly saved him.
And as time passed, he had saved himself.
Why should he return here?
His father considered him gravely.“That last reason is the best one.The most important one.”
Victor didn’t wish to hear him say it.
“From the age of ten, you wanted to sit in Parliament.Debate rules and ethics.Vote on budgets.Make laws you could be proud of.You wanted to sit in Parliament, Victor, and now at last, here is your opportunity.”
“Why now?There will be no general election soon.”But his father most likely understood current political issues better than he.The duke had friends.Dear god.Legions of them who would feed him news, gossip, trends.
“You can use the time.So begin.Build a group of friends, supporters.Your day will come.The current prime minister makes grave mistakes, especially in regard to colonies.”
“I know it.When I stopped in Naples, John Drummond told me Gladstone has sent ships to Egypt.”
His father scoffed.“Yet he says he’s not enlarging the empire.”
“But he is.”Tempted to accept his father’s offer, he ached with the pain of wanting what he was once denied by the taint of an unfaithful wife.Outraged that he’d given up his fondest ambition for circumstances not of his own doing, he glimpsed a new horizon and yearned to walk it.But he’d built his company in Shanghai, made a small fortune and the benefit from it he would not toss easily aside.“I must think on it.”
“There’ll be no finer chance than this, Victor.Take it.”
