Mary Brendan - A Kind And Decent Man

Juggling his lapful of letters and ledgers, Jacob finally freed an index finger, stabbed it onto the card and slid it closer. Once he’d read it, he wondered what it was about a distant cousin’s funeral, notified to him by the man’s widow, that could possibly give the Viscount cause to smile in that unpleasant way. ‘Sad business…’ he volunteered, hoping to find out.

His sympathy was ignored. David Hardinge leafed impatiently through a lengthy document. ‘Have this delivered back to Mainwaring by hand this afternoon with a note stating that if he alters terms and conditions again the deal is off. The contract of sale I issued last month is the only one I will sign.’ Piercing blue eyes fixed on the clerk as David realised the man had noted nothing down but was apparently fascinated by the notification of Daniel Hart’s demise. ‘Have you got that dictation?’ he enquired silkily past the cigar clamped at one corner of his thin mouth.

‘Sad business…’ Jacob persisted, meaningfully pointing his sharp nose at the card on the desk.

‘Is it?’ David Hardinge asked, feigned concern spuriously softening his tone. The cigar was jerked from his teeth and he studied its glowing tip.

‘Oh, yes…’ Jacob opined, pulling his lips into a sorrowful droop. ‘Poor Mrs Hart. Not married more than seven years, I’ll warrant. Widowed so young. I met her just the once, you know, at your brother’s funeral. So charming a young lady, I recall.’ He shook his greying head, reflectively sucking his teeth. ‘Of course you were fighting alongside Wellington at the time, were you not, and missed laying your brother to rest, so perhaps you wouldn’t know her. It’s hard to believe that young master Michael’s been gone these five years and that I’ve worked man and boy for the Viscounts Courtenay for more than twenty-five years and—’

‘And there’s no real need for it to continue beyond today,’ David mildly threatened, while long fingers ground out his cigar so thoroughly that he singed them, shook them, swore audibly and scowled at Jacob’s censorious look.

Oh, he knew charming young Mrs Hart, and she could damn well go to hell alongside her husband for all he cared. But he didn’t, he reminded himself. He hadn’t cared for seven years or more, not since her father had unceremoniously tossed his marriage proposal back at him and sneered in his face for his effrontery. David had known his youthful hell-raising was a minor consideration; it was his lack of money and status that was the genuine stumbling-block. Vice in bridegrooms was customarily overlooked so long as the prospects were right.

But, in fairness to the man, all of Charles Lorrimer’s objections had been quite valid. And, in his own defence, in the six months he had gently courted eighteen-year-old Victoria Lorrimer, his behaviour and morals had been impeccable. Those of his parents, however, had continued to swill around in the gutter, to the vicious amusement of the haut ton. Paul Hardinge and the courtesan, Maria Poole, he had scandalously married by then had no further affluence or influence to buy acceptability.

In the distant days of childhood, he had been fiercely loyal to his parents, believing them to be the butt of malicious gossip. But the craving for reciprocal love and attention had slowly eroded, finally extinguishing in his mid-teens when he’d abruptly had to accept that his mother was an unreformed whore and his father a drunken sybarite who had gambled away practically every asset the Courtenays had amassed over two centuries. Henceforth David had unswervingly believed what he was often maliciously told—that his destiny must be tainted and shaped by theirs—and had lived his life accordingly.

Until he’d seen Victoria Lorrimer. For six months he’d believed in salvation. He’d lived in daylight hours and serenity.

Within a month of his proposal the only woman he had ever believed himself capable of loving had married Squire Hart of Ashdowne in Hertfordshire, who, with typical bitter irony, happened to be some distant relation of the Hardinges. His father’s great-aunt had married into the Hart clan in 1680, as he recalled.

Daniel Hart had a comfortable estate and wealth, and, at fifty-two, was some thirty-four years Victoria’s senior and a mere fifteen years younger than her own dear papa.

His own dear papa had been dead of syphilis within six months and his older brother Michael had inherited the viscountcy and the escalating debts bequeathed by their wastrel father. When Michael had succumbed to smallpox two years into his birthright, after a valiant but unsuccessful battle to repair the Courtenay fortune and standing, David had gained nothing other than a title he didn’t want and continuing ignominy. But he had risen to the challenge. If there was one thing David Hardinge had learned by the age of twenty-five, as he then was, it was how to survive, need no one, and decimate adversity through cunning and doggedness. He was grateful to Paul Hardinge for one solitary thing: his traditionally thorough education. His honed intellect was applied to his business affairs with the diligence of any trained banker. With the same typical irony, now he no longer cared, he found he had the respect and admiration of his peers, who ruminated enviously on how astonishingly he had turned about the Courtenay fortunes.

And now that David had money enough, he liked to enjoy the fruits of his interminable labour. He even allowed others to enjoy at his expense. He knew he had a reputation for being a generous man and was thus persistently targeted by women who, through necessity or choice, kept company with gentlemen. In short, he had a thoroughly pleasurable, if licentious lifestyle, and no intention of moderating any of it…ever again.

The devastation that had ripped into him on learning Victoria Lorrimer had married was now simply a hazy memory. Since then he was sure he had barely spared her an idle thought. He reluctantly conceded that odd; after all, thinking of her had for six months monopolised every waking hour and kept him hot, frustrated and celibate the night through. But then, at just twenty-three and still surprisingly reluctant to fully relinquish youthful idealism, despite the sewer in which he was reared, courting a beautiful, enchanting virgin to marry and play house with had seemed so appealing. A wry choke of laughter escaped him at the fairy-tale quality of it, causing Jacob to launch a quelling look his way and sniff, ‘I don’t see any humour in funerals myself.’

‘Jacob,’ David gently threatened, ‘if we don’t get through this correspondence in the time I have allocated to it, which is—’ he consulted his gold fob-watch ‘—five minutes more, you’ll be unamused to find yourself seeking alternative employment without a character.’ Abruptly swinging his long legs off the desktop, he shoved back his chair and stood up. He stretched and flexed his powerful shoulders before wandering idly to the large casement window. A hand eased a niggling cramp at his nape as he gazed down onto the quiet elegance of Beauchamp Place. Cream-stuccoed Palladian splendour soothed his restless gaze before blue eyes met a scene that elicited a smile of genuine amusement.

Richard Du Quesne, splendidly attired in a striking burgundy greatcoat trimmed with luxurious gold frogging, was sauntering towards his residence as though he hadn’t a care in the world. This despite the fact that clutching at the man’s arm was the mistress he had been trying to offload. Dickie Du Quesne was his closest friend—a true companion of similar taste and habits who shared a good deal of David’s history, time and vices.

Sensing eyes on him, Dickie glanced up at the study window and grimaced his bored disdain for his friend.

A shrug of exaggerated sympathy met this. David drew a long finger leisurely across his immaculate silk cravat before closing his hand and explicitly indicating with his thumb along the street. She might be a countess, the wife of an impecunious, much cuckolded earl, but he had no intention of enduring her presence in his house this morning. Roberta Stewart knew her relationship with Dickie was in its death throes and had been casting about for an equally wealthy replacement. David knew himself as prime target. Since he had finished with her some months before Dickie had taken her on, her constant pathetic attempts at seduction aroused disgust rather than lust.