Fortune's Son (22 page)

When she refused Philip's offer of marriage and accepted the bribe from the earl, Lady Susannah Messingham had fled London in fear and desperation. Although wanting to send a word of explanation to Philip, she knew she couldn't. He would never understand nor forgive her for what he would surely consider a betrayal of the highest order.

Except for the unintentional pain she had inflicted upon him, she really couldn't regret her actions. Having lived so long without love, without passion, even in retrospect she would not have done differently. She had loved Philip, truly loved for the first time, but believing herself more emotionally invested in their relationship than he, she had opted for a clean break. When opportunity presented, she had left, regardless of the personal cost, consoling herself frequently with the reminder that a relationship begun in deceit was doomed to failure.

Avowing to start fresh and leave her old life behind, she departed London leaving no forwarding address. After clearing all of her debts with Lord Hastings's bank draught, she had wisely invested the remainder, knowing the supplement to her jointure would be enough to sustain her in modest comfort. With every intention of quietly living out her days, she retired to the anonymity of a simple thatched cottage in rural Cambridgeshire with only her few servants as company.

For the first few months, she spent the bulk of her time in self-imposed isolation. Her routine consisted of intermittent bouts of melancholia, characterized by lonely walks on the chalk downs, and other periods dedicated to intellectual improvement, with long hours immersed in the works of Dean Swift, Alexander Pope, and Daniel Defoe, thinking wryly she had much in common with Defoe's Crusoe.

She might have joined a cloister for the lonely life she'd chosen, but her extended periods of introspection and reflection on her many mistakes in life taught her wisdom, and over time afforded her a sense of peace and contentment previously unknown.

As to Philip, although she thought of him more often, and more wistfully, than she wished, it was three years before she learned of his fate. He, like she, had renounced a life of gaming, vice, false friends, and decadent indulgence; she, by retiring to the country, and he, by joining the King's Horse. She pictured him cutting a dashing figure in full dress uniform astride a magnificent charger.

She wondered if he had found fulfillment, wondered with a stab of jealousy if he had found another. She thought of him often with such wistfulness, but the deep-rooted ache dulled with time.

It was only in returning to London years later that she learned the full scope of the salacious old scandal and her own notoriety as the object of the duel which purportedly unmanned the Marquess of Weston.

She was at first shocked, but then with the full knowledge of events came the reopening of old wounds and the full pangs of remorse. Only now did she understand that Philip's pride had kept him from declaring his feelings, but his actions had spoken louder than any words.

The loss of him was her own doing, she realized with stark and bitter dismay. She had loved him and lost him because fear of rejection and heartbreak had held her back. If only she had known, she would have done differently.

Now, unable to make amends, guilt gnawed at her conscience and ate pieces from her heart. Cursing herself for a fool, she grieved his loss more deeply than she ever could have imagined.

Newmarket, April 1751

Arriving at the starting post, Shakespeare danced in edgy irritation. His rider struggled to hold him back, but the stallion snorted his impatience, touting his eagerness to put down the pretentious usurper.

Shakespeare's owner, Philip, Earl of Hastings, cast an appreciative gaze over his sleek and elegant chestnut that embodied the quintessential English thoroughbred. This race would be nothing short of a mockery. However, given his financial straits, how could he have passed up such a wager?

Most of his acquaintance, the most avid turf men in the kingdom, would have accepted the challenge purely for the sport, but his reasons were far more pecuniary. Twenty thousand pounds could change everything. He might at last reclaim his estate from the moneylenders, as well as salvaging his self-respect.

In his efforts to redeem his place in aristocratic society and relieve his ancestral home from decades of neglect, Philip Drake had dug himself into a financial pit from which, he had begun to fear, there was no escape. That was, until the rash colonial Daniel Roberts had proposed this outrageous racing wager.

His contender, from the colony of Virginia, stood barely fourteen-and-a-half hands. With hindquarters half-again as densely muscled as the lean chestnut, he more closely resembled a cart pony than a reputed racing champion.

Yes. This victory would allow him to repay the thousands in loans he had needed to repair the roofs of his tenants and fertilize thousands of acres of fallow fields. His estate was worthless until it could once more provide grazing lands for cattle and grow something besides the turnips upon which his near-starving tenant-farmers subsisted. The starter's signal abruptly ended Lord Hastings's introspection.

Upon the signal, the two horses exploded from the post like water from a bursting dam. Shakespeare surged forth, his long legs slicing the air, but the English champion hadn't a prayer against the explosive breaking force of his adversary, who had launched as though from a catapult in a blur of kinetic power. Setting a lightning stride in his own frenetic style, the roan, aptly named Retribution, dropped his nose, dug in, and tore up the track. By the first furlong, he had already gained three lengths.

The Earl of Hastings rose from his seat in unbridled horror. “His jockey's a fool! The horse cannot possibly sustain that pace. He'll be used up by the first mile.” He spoke as if to convince himself, his heart already pounding so hard in his throat it threatened to choke him.

Shakespeare feverishly scrambled, his rider flattened to the withers, urgently cajoling, wildly spurring, and flailing the whip as stride by stride Retribution ate up yards of turf.

Lord Hastings's jockey pushed, drove, and pleaded. The game chestnut gave his all in response, but in the end it just wasn't… enough.

The Earl of Hastings stood frozen on the dais and vainly blinked, as if to dispel the vision before his disbelieving eyes. It was impossible. Shakespeare had lost the bloody race! The champion of the Hastings's racing stud was completely annihilated on his own turf by an unknown, half-breed pony from Virginia.

In his supreme confidence, or better-said extreme arrogance, Philip had broken every rule that he'd lived by in all his years of gaming. He had recklessly wagered twenty thousand pounds without even the first thought of defeat.

Now, in a single day Philip, the fourth Earl of Hastings, had accomplished what no prior supercilious and self-indulgent ancestor had ever achieved in a lifetime: the total and complete ruination of an earldom.

The surrounding voices roared in his ears, yet he was deaf to the words. He nodded dumbly to those around him. Smile, Philip. They are all watching you. The result was more a grimace. Outwardly, he struggled to concede defeat with grace, but inside he reeled.

Regaining a modicum of control over his impaired faculties, Philip employed all of his strength to compel his body away from the throng. He wove mechanically through the crowd until, reaching the relative privacy of his own stable block, he entered the first empty stall, clutched the wall, and heaved.

***

After his agonizing defeat, Lord Hastings had spent the evening and well into the morning hours wallowing in self-disgust and drinking himself senseless. At age two-and-thirty, he had already put behind him a ten-year military career, brilliantly begun but ingloriously ended. His estates were heavily leveraged, his prospects of recovery dismal. In sum, he had not a bloody thing to show for his life but the racing stables—Charlotte's racing stables.

He had long ago begun drinking to excess, simply to obliterate the reality that he was half a man living half a life. He had a title without the fortune, a wife that was no lover, and a lover, the only light in his darkened existence, who could never be his wife; thus, he drank.

He had been an arrogant sot when he'd accepted the racing challenge from a man and horse he'd known nothing about, but drink and despair had made him reckless and rash. Sunk in self-denigration, the cycle began anew.

The truth rankled beyond endurance. Outside of his military career, now forever marred by the infamy of Culloden, he had achieved little. When he had sold his commission to take up the mantle of an earldom, he had forsworn the cards and dice that had sustained him during his troubled youth and early military career.

Over the ensuing half dozen years, he had busted his arse to right his estate and gain the respect of his peers, but to his lasting chagrin the racing stables were Lord Hastings's only profitable venture. The truth of the matter was almost too painful to admit. Lady Hastings was the reason for its success; and her achievements, not his, had paid the interest on the loans that kept them afloat—a fact that damnably stung his pride. Now he'd gambled all, and he'd lost.

Beyond his wife's hysterical tirade and a smashed bottle of his finest brandy, he had little recollection. At least the harridan had then left him in peace. Regardless of her entreaties, he had no choice but to sell what he could. If she weren't so bloody high-minded and obstinate, he would long have been cock of the dung heap, sitting on a fortune of fifty thousand with no reason to take such a gamble.

If only he could access the bloody trust! The untouchable fortune was his only means of meeting his obligations, and though the money was rightfully his, his father's will barred him from drawing a single groat until he produced an heir. This now brought the matter of the wager and the stud full circle.

If the stud were now lost, it was her own bloody doing, he reflected in mounting resentment. He would liquidate it all without compunction to save his name and his estate, but even complete dispersal would not be enough! Not only was he indebted to Roberts for the sum of twenty thousand, once word of his racing debacle reached his other creditors' ears they would descend upon him like a pack of ravaging hyenas.

He was once more gripped by the full repercussions of his recklessness. In a sodden stupor, he had accepted the wager that had broken every cardinal rule he'd endeavored to live by. Now, in one fell swoop, his entire future was gone, every blessed farthing, and all he had hoped for.

Though reaching for oblivion, he had only achieved piss-faced when Lady Hastings had arrived after the race. The inevitable row had ensued, and then the world had retracted into blessed blackness.

***

Midafternoon saw a summons to Palace House, a speedy reply to Lord Hastings's earlier missive to the Duke of Cumberland.

“Hastings!” the duke exclaimed upon Philip's arrival, his face already aflush with port.

“Your Grace.” Lord Hastings sketched his bow to the Duke of Cumberland.

“What do I hear of you losing this wager with the colonial?”

Careful to maintain a dispassionate demeanor, Philip answered in measure tones, “'Twas a most unanticipated and equally unfortunate outcome.”

“Unfortunate! Understated indeed! Your jockey should be whipped at the cart's tail! I dare say you've already sacked him for the disgrace. But then again, I perceive from your dispatch that your loss on the Rowley Mile might very well be my gain. Madeira or claret?” the duke asked. An almost imperceptible wave of his fingers brought a footman scurrying to the earl's side with both bottles.

“Claret will serve,” Hastings answered with little enthusiasm at the thought of drink.

“Now what is this about the mares?” Cumberland inquired succinctly, his eyes gleaming with unconcealed avarice.

“You waste no time, your grace,” Philip remarked, knowing he would fare far better by offering a private treaty to the duke than suffering the indignity of a public auction. His Grace, the Duke of Cumberland, would jump at the chance to add the entire lot of mares to his burgeoning stud and without begrudging a farthing of the premium.

“As you know, Hastings, I am not a man to shilly-shally,” the duke said. “Many a golden opportunity is lost in vacillation. Thus, I come directly to the point. What do you want for the mares? Name your price.”

Philip considered his answer carefully. Cumberland had long coveted the Hastings's broodmares, all descended from the three kings of the desert, or from the royal mares of Charles II. He knew they were arguably the finest equine harem in the land.

“Two thousand guineas.”

“Two thousand?” the duke echoed flatly. “Indeed a princely sum.”

“For twenty blood mares by the finest sires that ever ran, and who have never failed to produce a runner amongst them? I would call it a veritable bargain.”

Philip waited. The duke knew full well their worth, and as he customarily ventured thousands of guineas on the races, he would have arrived at Newmarket with the full purchase price already lining his pockets.

Cumberland thoughtfully swirled the ruby liquid, then raised his glass to plump, wine-stained lips. He emptied the remainder in one draught, and then set his glass down decisively.

“Done.”

“The Countess of Hastings to see you, my lady.” The maid bobbed to her mistress.

“Lady Hastings, you say? How extraordinary.” Sukey's brows pulled together at the unexpectedness of her quondam friend's arrival. “Pray show her in.”

Although once close, she and Charlotte had over the past few years done little more than nod to one another in passing, their respective relationships to the Earl of Hastings presenting an insurmountable social barrier.

The servant returned, escorting a woman who, though nearing thirty, maintained the figure and fresh appearance of youth. She was dressed simply in a light wool traveling gown, styled much akin to the riding habits she had adopted years ago as her trademark. Though frequently remarked upon for her self-possession, the countess approached tentatively, as if unsure of her welcome. “Sukey?”

Without hesitation, Lady Messingham rushed to enfold the younger woman in her arms. “Charlotte, dearest. You are in good health? All is well, I trust?”

“I don't remember when I have been better.” The countess's eyes sparkled with excitement and she spoke with a breathless quality.

Sukey breathed her relief. “I am so very glad. I had the worst premonition when you arrived. I feared… Philip…”

“No. No. Nothing like that.” Lady Hastings emphatically shook her head. She answered cynically, “When I saw him last, he was assuredly the worse for drink, but otherwise robust. It is actually on Philip's account that I have come. Might I entrust a letter to you? It is of particular import that he receives it.”

“But of course,” Sukey replied. Noting the countess's traveling clothes, she asked, “Are you going somewhere?”

Charlotte, Lady Hastings, answered in a distracted manner. “I am indeed! As soon as I have settled some important matters, I'm leaving… for the seaside. This letter was among my most pressing concerns.” She handed Sukey the sealed missive. “I am pleased you relieve me of the burden of seeking him out.”

Susannah knew that the estranged Earl and Countess of Hastings barely spoke to one another and only appeared together for the spring and autumn races. Their marriage, like many others in their class, had been forged by arrangement, or in their case perhaps better said by coercion. Neither would ever have entertained the union otherwise.

Philip had wed Charlotte solely for financial gain, and Charlotte, whose antipathy for her husband was only surpassed by that for her Machiavellian uncle, had conceded only to get out from under that guardian's thumb.

On their very wedding day, with his departure for the Flanders campaign imminent, Philip had delivered his young bride to Sukey's door, initially passing Charlotte off as his ward. While deeply shaken by his reappearance in her life after years of silence, Sukey experienced a pang of hope that in time old wounds might heal. As a favor to him, and with the secret hope of reconciliation, she had taken the girl under her wing and a fast friendship had formed between the two women.

Philip, however, continued to maintain a cool and distant reserve from her, hardened by bitterness and jealousy from the continued illusion she had sacrificed his love for a life of comfort as Weston's mistress.

When she finally learned Charlotte was in truth Philip's wife, her heart had wrenched at the painful irony: When Philip would have once had her, she would not be had; and then, when she would have fallen willingly and unconditionally into his arms, the arms held another—who didn't want
him
!

The turning point in the seeming
ménage à trois
had come following Philip's return from war and his unexpected ascent to the earldom of Hastings. Although he desired to fulfill his responsibilities and needed an heir to claim his full patrimony, Charlotte had remained intractable in her refusal to fulfill her conjugal duty. Desolate and disconsolate, Philip had sought succor from his former lover.

Although six years had passed, that fateful night was still vividly etched in her memory.

***

September 1745

10 Bedford Street, Westminster

Sukey hadn't known if it was late night or early morning when the terrified maid had awoken her from her bed.

“There be someone pounding on the kitchen door, ma'am.”

In irritation, Sukey had snatched on her dressing gown and grabbed the dagger she kept in the drawer of the bedside table. She had then accompanied the trembling maid downstairs. “Philip! What are you about at this hour? Are you inebriated?” she asked, rattled to recognize the source of the tumult.

“Foxed quite to the gills, actually, but you needn't fret. I have come by the servants' entrance. None should see me.”

“Mayhap not see you, but few have not heard your incessant hammering!”

Philip's voice was low and surprisingly sober. “I need you, Sukey. Let me in.”

I
need
you.
She'd only hesitated a moment before opening the door.

Leading him to the salon, she'd patiently watched his progression as he broodingly paced, waiting for him to express whatever he was so loath to put into words.

“It appears I am to become the Earl of Hastings,” he stated emptily. “Though I never have wished it. The earl and Edmund are both dead, and the title is now mine by default. I suppose I should be elated, jubilant even, but instead I have this void… this emptiness.”

With a pained look, he thumped his chest. “Why do I feel this way, Sukey, when I have achieved an earldom and presumably have the world at my feet?”

It was not a rhetorical question. He had come seeking succor to a pain he'd never before acknowledged. Her own heart lurched at the angst he had been trying to bury for the past decade.

“Philip, my love,” she began softly, the endearment slipping thoughtlessly over her tongue, “you have yet to truly know yourself. Though you claimed no love for your family, you feel this way because you never had the love and acceptance that should have been your due. And now, any possibility has died with them.”

He stood at the window, staring silently into the blackness, digesting her words. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse with emotion. “Why did
you
refuse me?”

The question came so unexpectedly she had no breath to respond. She was glad he still faced away, for her expression in that moment would have given away every secret of her heart.

“You dismissed me out of hand,” he said. “I vowed to completely eradicate you from my mind, but here I am drawn back again—like the proverbial moth to the flame.”

“Like the moth to the flame?” She laughed bitterly. “You don't trouble yourself with even a pretension of sensibility for my feelings in dredging up the past.”

“No, I have no particular sensitivity for your feelings… if you indeed have any.”

“You really want to know why I refused you? Six years ago, I was a woman of nine-and-twenty and you had yet to grow fully into manhood. You were living by your wits and estranged from your family. On top of that, I was your first real lover and knew I would not be your last. Moreover, I was deeply in debt. I would have done neither of us a favor by accepting your proposal. But even after I drove you away, I have never loved another. The greater jest is that now you have become exactly the man I once envisaged, you are callous and indifferent to me.”

He turned to face her with burning eyes. “You believe me callous and indifferent, Sukey?”

“When you have rebuffed me at every turn, and even brought a young woman to my home who is legally your wife? You do not consider these actions cruel and callous?”

“You have hardly languished for want of me.”

She had initially prickled at the barb. “No, Philip. I have no respect for martyrs… though I have never loved but you.” Her look of entreaty reached far deeper inside, endeavoring with all her heart to answer his need.

He stared at her a long moment, his incredulous expression revealing that her confession, so long in coming, had touched a raw, vulnerable place, appeasing some of his bitterness and hurt. When he came to her at last, he engulfed her in a crushing embrace that selfishly demanded all she could give, and for the first time in their relationship she had given all without reservation.

***

Sukey studied Charlotte with mixed emotions. Out of love and respect for the younger woman, Sukey had endeavored to maintain the utmost discretion in her liaison with Philip, even forgoing his escort in any public setting lest scandal be spoken against Charlotte. This, in part, assuaged her guilt and was the condition upon which she had agreed to become his mistress, yet by consequence their friendship had ended. There was still so much she wanted to say, but it had been years since she and Charlotte had actually spoken; six years in fact since she had become Philip's mistress.

While she fully understood the source of Charlotte's hostility toward Philip, she nevertheless wished Charlotte could let go of the past and forgive the wrongs that could never be righted but only pardoned.

“I have known Philip intimately for a very long time, Charlotte. He's a complicated man, comprised of many shades of gray, and not always what he seems. I wish you could see he is not half the villain you think him.”

“On that account, you and I will forever differ. Philip has been a fiend of the worst kind. He knowingly destroyed the man I loved, and in so doing crushed any chance I might have for happiness.”

“But people change, dearest. You don't know how wretched and miserable he was after all that transpired. If given the chance, he would undoubtedly act differently.”

“But he is still responsible. Time does not change that, don't you see? He was the one to rob us of any chance when we were so close. So very, very close…” Her voice dropped off as if lost in the reverie.

“Then you would allow one incident of poor judgment to define a man for life?”

“It was more than one incident, Sukey. He showed himself a betrayer of trust, a self-promoting opportunist, and a scoundrel of the vilest kind.”

“Be fair, Charlotte. He has tried to make amends. How many husbands would have allowed you the freedom to go your own way as he has?”

“He acts out of guilt, as rightly he should!”

“Mayhap that's part of it, but he has never demanded of you what every husband has a right to claim from his wife. Instead, he has held you with an open hand and protected you with his name. Despite your animosity, he has not only provided for you but has even given you the means to pursue your dreams.”

Charlotte had the good grace to look away.

She'd knowingly given him every justification to divorce her, even going out of her way to provoke and needle, yet he had failed to do so. Even when Philip had unexpectedly gained the title and estates and needed an heir to claim his full patrimony, she'd remained intractable in her refusal to allow him into her bed. Certain he would then put her aside as most any other man would have done, she was confounded when he did not.

Whether out of guilt, pride, or a misplaced sense of honor, Philip had let her go her own way, but Charlotte remained staunch in her condemnation.

“Allowing me the run of the racing stud has been to
his
advantage. He would never have permitted it otherwise.”

“I don't believe that's completely true. Nor deep down do you truly believe it either. Yes, you have achieved success with the Hastings stud by the sweat of your brow, but horse racing is a man's domain. How far do you think you would have gotten without
his
name and
his
credibility attached to the stud?”

“Philip always has and always will think only of Philip.”

“That's not true!” Sukey cried. “I have known him to be self-sacrificing. There is so much more to him than what you care to see.”

“My dear, dear Sukey, I fear your eyes are completely blind to his defective character.”

“Mayhap you are right and I am a besotted fool, but I love him despite his flaws, or mayhap because of them, and even more desperately for the man he so earnestly
wants
to
be
. If you would only soften your heart just a little, the two of you might find peace. It wrenches my heart that you have it within your power to give him what I can't.”

“I'm very sorry for that, Sukey. You are too good for him, you know.”

After a silent moment, she offered up an enigmatic smile. “I promise to forgive Philip Drake when my lost love returns from the dead.”

Sukey sighed with a fatal gesture. “Then there's naught more to say. As to your missive, I expect his return soon and will be sure he receives it directly.”

“Thank you, Sukey.” Charlotte paused. “Though I would wish your affections placed with another, with a better man, I'm glad for Philip that he has you.”

They clasped hands for a brief moment, exchanged a look of wistful regret, and Lady Hastings departed.