Seducing Mr. Heywood by Jo Manning Page B

witling Brent had suggested they stay at Limmer’s Hotel, favored by the sporting crowd. A bad choice! Crowded and dirty, it did not meet the earl’s high standards. Only the excellent gin punch raised it to halfway tolerable. They would have to look for other lodgings. Brent’s father, a stiff-rumped marquess, had declared that his prodigal son and his friend were not welcome at his Mayfair townhouse. Bad luck; they must consult the newspapers or obtain a reference from someone at Limmer’s. They would run out of blunt too fast staying at hotels.
    Or, they could hie themselves to Yorkshire. Why not avail themselves of Sophia’s hospitality? The use of a bed, nourishment for his belly…was that so much to ask? Surely the chit owed him that much—he was her father!
    And he was eager to introduce her to his new companion. Brent was easy to manipulate; Dunhaven had no doubt the fellow could be coerced into considering marriage to Sophia. The way Brent was piling up gambling debts, he needed a rich wife, and a husband controlled his wife’s fortune. When Sophia’s wealth passed directly into Brent’s hands, it would be the shortest of trips into the earl’s own pockets.
    Lewis Alcott leaned back at the vicar’s bountiful Sunday afternoon table, stretching his burly arms wide. The vicar’s capable housekeeper, Mrs. Chipcheese, saw to it that Charles and his guests ate heartily. The remains of a roast capon shared the table’s honors with a half-empty plate of grilled trout, mashed potatoes, a salad of young greens with juicy tomatoes, and a rhubarb pie. Lewis scooped some clotted cream from a blue and white striped pottery bowl to garnish a hearty slice of that pie. Fresh-poured coffee was at his elbow.
    It had been a long week, punctuated with lancing Farmer White’s boils and seeing the Willett children through a frightening bout of the croup. It had ended with a frantic call from Mrs. Watkins, the midwife, when the Abbott baby, a breech birth, had showed signs of distress shortly after delivery. Thank God all his patients had improved. Lewis had faith in his medical skills, but he also believed in divine intercession.
    “Sometimes I envy the quiet, the calm, of your calling, Charles, after such a week as I have had,” he remarked. “But then, when I think of your volatile relationship with the beauteous widow at Rowley Hall, I welcome all the putrid fevers and abscessed wounds that come my way.” He flicked a crumb of bread in his friend’s direction.
    “No playing with your food, Lewis! I am surprised your good mother did not teach you better.” Charles refused to be baited. He was determined to ignore the doctor’s customary teasing. The sermon had been well received that morning. It was one he’d delivered before, but the congregation seemed to enjoy it as much as they had previously. Charles eschewed hellfire-and-damnation lectures, preferring to dwell on goodness and charity and the positive aspects of life. His parishioners left feeling happier than when they arrived, and that always brought them back the next Sunday.
    “Ah, that brings up another issue.” Lewis would not be quelled; his exuberant nature was too much a part of his personality.
    “And that issue is—?” Charles asked.
    “Motherhood. Maternal feelings and the instincts thereof. Are you collaborating with Lady Sophia to revive those long-dormant emotions?” Lewis’s lips quirked with amusement.
    Charles shook his head. “You misjudge that lady, Lewis. You misjudge her badly.”
    “Oh?” Lewis leaned forward, elbows on the table, all ears.
    “She and I have been collaborating to plan the boys’ activities this summer. She has been eager to participate and is looking forward to seeing them again.”
    “No doubt,” Lewis commented wryly. “And how does she propose to explain the reason she has been absent from their lives most of this past decade?”
    Charles grew sober. “I don’t know, Lewis. Frankly—” He sighed.