"Thomas de Crecy," Sir Hugo muttered heavily, turning away. "Good, honest, cheerful, unfailing Tommy. My fellow officer in the 4th. 'Twas him arranged the minister and all for us to wed."
"Aye, I remember," Alan said with a snort and a hiccup. "But it was a false justice married you. I guess he didn't know you needed real clergy. Just a sham to get her into your bed!"
"No need of that, Alan," Sir Hugo replied, grinning. "Elisabeth had the shortest pair of heels of any girl I'd ever seen. We'd already been bedded. And I want you to know this, laddy. I loved her so dearly I was totally besotted. Money be damned, I really did want her to be my wife! Ah, but Tommy de Crecy knew what he was doing. Came over to Holland with us, brought my last installment of Army pay. Stayed with us in the same town, to see us through until Elisabeth's family came 'round and accepted the marriage. Do you see what he had in mind?"
"No, frankly," Alan replied, blowing his nose.
"Well, there we were, rapidly running out of money, 'cause your grandfather Dudley Lewrie was tighter with a shilling than a Maltese pimp, and he'd never admit the match. But there was always good old Tommy. Tommy, with his little loans. Tommy with his lord's purse. Tommy with his kind-hearted generosity!" Sir Hugo turned somber, and just a trifle angry, even after all these years as he related this. Or, as Alan suspected, he was a consummate actor and was putting on a sublime theatric.
"You mean he was the one caught in bed with her?" Alan asked, dubious still.
"He'd wanted her all along, aye," Sir Hugo grumbled, and bent over the tray table to pour them another stiff refill of brandy. His face was older, heavier, lined; the skin mottled by years of too much drink, too much tropic sun in the last few. The fine shock of light brown hair was receded, and there were liver spots on the exposed scalp. And, Alan noticed as hepoured the spirit, so were the backs of his hands. Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby was no longer the fashionable buck of St James' Place, White's, Almack's. He was a slack old man, or near enough to it not to matter, gone ropey and croupey.
"He was waiting for the moment when Elisabeth was at her weakest, I suppose," Sir Hugo maundered on. "When we both realized the enormity of what we'd done, and that things were most definitely not going to turn aright. Knighthood or not, she was married to a penniless captain of foot, currently unemployed. Trading down from good lodgings to the cheapest we could find, and still wondering where the next meal was coming from. I'm sure she wished she could repent and go back to her family. And she always was an impulsive girl. What I loved about her most, really. What better moment for good old Captain The Honourable Thomas de Crecy to inform her that the whole thing was a sham I'd dreamed up to get hold of her family's money, and don't ye know… he'd 'just learned of it' from another officer in our regiment, and he simply had to rescue her from me!"
"But…" Alan started to say, then shut his trap. He'd never thought of his father as anything but inhuman. Never allowed that he could be hurt, or feel pain (especially since he'd been so good at handing pain out to others so liberally). This brutal bastard should be incapable of sorrow, shouldn't he, he asked himself?
"Elisabeth was carrying you by then, making the whole thing worse. And Tommy swore he'd always loved her more than life, couldn't stand to see her in my brutal, callous clutches. All the Sturm und Drang so popular in women's novels these days, all that Gothick fright and flummery! Well, don't ye know, she spooned it up like cream. The brainless little baggage!" Sir Hugo related, sinking down onto his pile of pillows and stretching out on his side. "Probably told her he'd do right by her and the child. Maybe he really meant to; I'll never know. But he came back from Holland without her, after a few more months. After she began to show, and he couldn't trot her out to anything elegant."
"Hold on, though," Alan objected. "You still ended up stealing her jewels and abandoning her, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did," Sir Hugo nodded with not a twinge of shame. " 'Twas the only way I knew how to get back at her after I caught them. Well, I didn't exactly catch them bareback riding."
"Like I was with Belinda when you arranged to 'catch' me."
"Hmm, no, nothing that flagrant," Sir Hugo snickered. "She was in her bedgown. Untied, mind, and nary a sight of stockings, stays or corset to be found. Tommy'd dressed so fast he'd buttoned his waist-coat to his breeches flap! Oh, 'twas a devil of a row we had. After I'd horse-whipped him down the stairs, she lit into me. Mind you also, this was the first I knew that we really weren't married! So all I could do was rant and swear Tommy was lying, but she wasn't having a bit of it. And d'you know, lad? But termagant as she was at that moment, I had a sudden premonition of just how ghastly life was going to be with her from that moment on. No trusting her with other men 'thout a leash on. Tears, sulks and screaming fits for the rest of our natural lives. Ah, but suddenly it struck me! If we're not married… if Tommy diddled the both of us, then I was free as larks! All I could think of was 'Thank bloody Christ this is over with,' and hit the road that night. Singing with relief, as I remember."
"But you took her last money!"
"She had Tommy's money," Sir Hugo sneered, then rose up on his elbow to look Alan square in the face. "God knows I loved her more than anything or anyone else since, Alan. But I really did need the money devilish bad! And with Tommy lusting after her, he'd replace what I'd taken, and be damned to both of them-they deserved each other when you come right down to it."
"Jesus, you really don't have any shame!" Alan snapped, getting righteous again.
"Too damn poor to have any shame. You want to see shameless, you should have been in my shoes with Agnes Cockspur."
"Belinda and Gerald's mother," Alan supplied.
"Fetching enough in the beginning, 'fore she turned into this drab pudding." Sir Hugo sighed. "Chicken-chested, thick as a farrier sergeant. Rather wrestled a publican than put the leg over her. Like climbing into bliss on the belly of a bear. And her two children were rotten from the start. Still, she was absolutely stiff with 'chink,' and there I was in Bath, trying to parley what little I had left into something to live on. Had to resign my commission, don't ye know! An officer in the King's Own, Knight of the Garter or not, can't abscond with young heiresses. Not unless one's successful, mind, then they make you colonel of the regiment and dine you in once a year. I made three thousand pounds selling up my commission, but it was going fast. No, I may be a bit harsh on poor Agnes. Drab she may have been, dull as ditch-water and graceful as a three legged dray-horse, but she was a kindly stick. Meant well. And then she died having our child, and the child died, too. And Elisabeth had died having you. And I got to brooding on what had happened to you."
"That was after you and your solicitor, Mister Pilchard, had forged that letter of permanent coverture over Agnes Cock-spur's estate," Alan accused.
"Aye, soon after that. Talented bugger, that Pilchard. What else was I to do? With Agnes in her grave, her even more ghastly sisters'd have gotten the estate and the money, and I'd be out on my bare arse again, stuck with two brats I'd never have wanted if they came with the crown of Prussia attached."
"So you heard I was still alive," Alan pressed. "And you were, as you put it… brooding on me."
"The only real child I ever had, Alan. I found you and took you in because I swore I'd never marry again," Sir Hugo told him. "Of course, I was just disreputable enough that the idea of me marrying into a really good family couldn't be mentioned in polite Society. Pretty much the same thing, really."
"But you didn't act like I was your only son."
"Like I said, I had to pretend to be caring for Agnes' brood. For Society. To keep the sisters shut up. After all, if I didn't have them to care for, a court would find it easier to take them away and award them to the sisters, and the money'd go with 'em. What did you want beyond what any other lad of your station got? My parents saw me at tea, perhaps at supper, once in the evening just before the governess tucked me in, and after that, it was a good public school somewhere far enough away so they wouldn't be bothered, except when term ended."