His eyes were closed, but he heard the brief silence as Edward paused, before laying his coat aside and fetching a fresh shirt. “You don’t sound as if you enjoyed yourself.”
“I didn’t.” The strength he took from Lune’s confidence had vanished like the morning dew after he left her presence. He’d sought inspiration in brandy, and not found it.
A cool glass pressed into his hand. Galen sniffed, eyes still closed. Water, carrying a dose of Dr. Taunton’s Fortifying Drops. He drank the mixture down, sighed, and addressed himself to the washbasin, which Edward had just filled. It had the salutary effect of waking him, though the chill splash made his headache worse.
“He had his electrical treatment last night,” Edward warned, helping Galen into another shirt. “But it doesn’t seem to have taken well. It’s been a devil of a morning already.”
To that, there seemed no suitable response other than a groan.
But delaying would not help anything except the progress of his hangover, and so a short while later, with fresh clothes and wig alike to give him a semblance of dignity, Galen descended the stairs to his father’s study, to beard the lion in his book-lined den.
Charles St. Clair had none of the appearance of a lion, being fat and gouty, with a sombre black bagwig and a coat of brick red. He was in his most comfortable chair when Galen entered, with one shoeless foot propped up in front of him—a sure sign that his leg pained him. At the sound of the door, he did not look up from the ledger balanced on his other knee, but made Galen wait in silence for several long minutes, before finally clapping the ledger shut and fixing his son with a gimlet eye.
“When you are married,” St. Clair said, biting off each word, “then you may keep the hours you please, and your wife will suffer the consequences—but while you still live under my roof, boy, you will behave like a civilised man. I won’t have you creeping in the servants’ entrance after cockcrow, after wasting your night in God knows what debauchery.”
There was nothing Galen could say to this. He could hardly tell his father it was a faerie court, not a brothel, that occupied his hours, and no other response had done much good. Galen had tried them all. So he simply waited, head bowed, for his father to move past the opening pleasantries and into the reason for this summons.
St. Clair snorted in disgust. “Can’t even speak up for yourself, just stand there like a spineless worm. I pity the woman saddled with you: she’ll find herself with a wife, not a husband.”
Marriage. Unease churned the medicine and lingering spirits in Galen’s stomach. He should have guessed this might be his father’s purpose. They scarcely talked, save on a small number of unwelcome topics. “I should not want to make myself a burden on any woman,” he ventured to say, “until I was sure I could be worthy of her.”
“Too bad for her, whoever she is.” St. Clair creaked his way to his feet, grunting as his stockinged toes touched the floor, and went to his desk, where he dropped the ledger with a thud. “You will find yourself a wife, boy, and you will do it soon.”
Galen flinched. That was even blunter than usual. “Sir—I cannot simply go through London, weighing women for their dowries, and make my offer when I find a purse heavy enough.”
“Why not? The St. Clair name is a good one, even if its finances are somewhat more tattered. London throngs with rich men eager to marry their daughters into a better family. Your youth will hardly signify—some might consider it a selling point.” St. Clair snorted again. “I dare say you can even find a pretty one, if you look hard enough.”
The words came out before he could stop them. “And affection?”
His father didn’t say anything; the silence was enough. Less than it could have been, in fact; the last time Galen had said anything of the sort, he’d been clouted over the ear for it. But he was not foolish enough to mistake the silence for any kind of softening on his father’s part.
“I know,” Galen whispered, staring at his shoes. “Affection doesn’t enter into it; what matters is money.” Cynthia was nearly twenty, and needed a dowry to attract a worthwhile husband; and behind her waited Daphne and Irene, with the same need. The burden fell to Galen, the eldest, and their only brother, to repair the family’s finances.
Bitterness stung him. Yes, it’s my responsibility to repair them—as it was Father’s to destroy them.
That, at least, he managed to keep behind his teeth. The thought of Lune saved him from speaking: if he angered his father badly enough, he might be confined to Leicester Fields, and then he would be no use to the fae at all. But that was the source of his pain: how could he shackle himself to a wife—how could he shackle a young woman to him—when his heart was already given elsewhere?
Few men would see a problem with it. Men kept mistresses all the time, sometimes under the same roof as their wives; their name and their affection need not go to the same recipient. But Galen could not stomach the dishonesty, especially when his wife could never know of the second world he inhabited. And Lune… she would despise him for it.
It was hopeless, and Galen knew it. He could worship the faerie Queen until the sun grew cold, but he would never have her, neither as mistress nor wife. His mind could not even conceive of such an outcome. In which case, he must fill that void with thoughts of Cynthia, and Daphne, and Irene. However much he detested his father, he loved his sisters. If their futures depended on this sacrifice from him, then he must harden his resolve and do as his father bade.
St. Clair was awaiting his answer, with increasing disgust and impatience. Galen gritted his teeth, and prepared to embrace the black satisfaction of martyrdom.
But inspiration touched him as he opened his mouth. He’d come here with a purpose, one he almost forgot under his father’s assault—and now he had a means of addressing it. “If I am to do this, sir, for you and for my sisters—then I must ask a favour in return.”
A flush leapt up toward the edge of St. Clair’s wig. “You are in no position to make demands, boy.”
But he was; Galen could hardly be wed against his will. And he held a bargaining position now, that he hadn’t foreseen when he came home this morning. “I don’t ask much. Simply this: give me letters of introduction to your acquaintances in the Royal Society.”
Now it was the eyebrows leaping upward. “What possible business could you have with them?”
His surprise was understandable. Galen enjoyed learning rather more than the next young gentleman, but he’d never shown any interest in his father’s connection with the Royal Society. The truth was that the connection embarrassed him; Galen knew quite well that Charles St. Clair had bought himself a fellowship because he wanted the prestige and they wanted the money. This, of course, had been when the St. Clairs had money. But his father had never done much with the privilege, and neither had Galen. He said, “I cannot be certain of my business—not until I speak with men better able to advise me. But marriage, sir, is hardly the only way I can be of use to our family.”
“You think to make your fortune with some kind of speculative venture?”
Why not? After all, that’s how you destroyed yours. Galen again flung the thought of Lune between those words and his mouth, and lifted his hands with a faint smile, letting his father draw what conclusions he would.
St. Clair growled under his breath, then said, “I’ll consider it. They’re adjourned until November regardless. In the meantime, you can prove to me you’re serious about your duty to this family. Start hunting a wife.”