“Take him, Morton,” his father said. “Take him now!”
The one safe road was not another lap of the room. Alan vaulted a table and dove back into the bed, rolling to his feet by the vicar.
“If you would only listen to me, sir…” he begged.
Belinda’s feet flew into action, pummeling him around the groin and up against the quavering old churchman. “You … you … Absalom!” the vicar finally managed to say, just before hitting him inexpertly in the chin with a lean and birdlike fist. It was enough, however, to put stars in his vision and brought with it the odd urge to sneeze. As the others rounded the bed to lay hands on him, he sank to the floor once more, feeling the thump of the vicar’s foot slamming his ribs.
“Here, that’s not quite … cricket,” he protested.
As he was jerked to his feet and hustled out of the room, he got a chance to lay eyes on Belinda once more, and she was staring at him with a curious smile on her lips and a crinkle to her eyes, the sort of smile he had seen her deliver to a particularly tasty stuffed goose at remove, after she had had her fill and was quite satisfied.
Damme, what’s this all about, Alan wondered groggily, still smarting from the kick in the ribs from the otherwise saintly seeming reverend. With his arms full of clothing, he was hustled upstairs in Morton’s steely grasp.
* * *
“I must beg your forgiveness for striking him, Sir Hugo,” the vicar said, gratefully accepting a brandy in the first-floor study. “I’ve not raised a fist in anger since I was twelve, but the utter audacity and cock-a-whoop gall of him quite overcame me.”
“I understand totally,” Sir Hugo said without humor. “Perhaps if I had allowed my temper to break on him more often when he was young, we would not be engaged as we are tonight.”
“You did not strap him as a child?” the vicar asked.
“Very rarely. He’s a thoroughly spoiled young man,” Sir Hugo said, pouring himself a glass. “You are new to the parish, so I must explain. In my youth, before I settled down from serving the King as a soldier, I was more forward than most with the young ladies. His mother was beautiful, my first love, a proper girl from a good family.”
The vicar made agreeable cooing noises, which Sir Hugo ignored.
“Before I went overseas, she and I consummated our love for each other, and then I lost touch with her, my letters returned or never answered. I was heartbroken,” Sir Hugo muttered, looking only stern, but not in the least heartbroken. “By the time I had returned, and married someone else, I discovered that she had borne me a son. She had been turned out by her own family, and had died, little better than a prostitute, and that boy a pitiful parish waif. I could not refuse to own up to my sin, could I, Father?”
“Well…”
“To atone for all, I took him in, you see.”
“A heavy burden brought about by the lust of the flesh, sir,” the vicar said, now on familiar ground. “But a common one, I am sad to say. In these evil times in which we suffer before our admission to the higher reward…”
“Yes,” Sir Hugo said. “As I was saying, I took him in, fed him, clothed him, sent him to the best schools, and never could find the sternness in my heart necessary for his proper upbringing, because of my guilt and shame of abandoning her, even though she was too proud to tell me. My second wife died, leaving me the sole parent of three poor babes. Even then, I could not raise a hand to him, not after ruining his poor mother, for being the one who caused her untimely death.”
“Er, which mother are we talking of?” the vicar dithered.
“His mother … Father!” Sir Hugo snapped. “Alan was the very image of her when he was a boy. How could I strike him? How could I deny him anything his heart desired?” He sank his face into his hands.
“You poor fellow,” the vicar said, patting him on the back.
“God most assuredly is aware you tried, Sir Hugo,” the vicar went on. “For we have all sinned not only by commission but by omission as well, and come short of the glory of God. Any small act of contrition and amends is—”
“He is a rakehell,” Sir Hugo said, shooting to his feet and going for the brandy decanter, away from the vicar’s petting.
“Indeed.”
“A gambler, a Corinthian, a brothel dandy and the bane of any pretty maid in London,” Sir Hugo went on with some heat. “He fought a duel, so please you, for his alleged honor, brought comment on this family by his shocking conduct, wasted my money to clothe him in that ridiculous Macaroni fashion … he was expelled from Harrow, sir.”
“Merciful God,” the vicar gasped at this last revelation.
“Something about emulating the Gunpowder Plot and the Governor’s privy. I do not see him mending his way in future, either.”
“God forgives all, Sir Hugo. Even the most practiced sinner,” the vicar reminded him with a beatific smile, and a brandy glass that was dry as dust on the bottom.
“Even the attempted rape of his own sister? The rest I could live down, but this! Belinda will be ruined! What good man would have her, even with her dowry and prospects? How shall I face the world as the father of a boy doomed to be hanged like one of the filthy Mob?” Sir Hugo filled the vicar’s glass and then threw himself into a face-down sulk behind his desk. He waited for an answer but heard only the sound of sloshing and a moan of contentment from the vicar. “I mean to say, how may I retain the good name of Willoughby?” he prompted.
“Ah, yes, the poor young lady,” the vicar finally said, not without a gleam coming to his watery eyes.
“Yes?” Sir Hugo prompted, trying not to seem impatient.
“Transport him. Or send him to the country,” the vicar decided.
“But the courts involved…”
“Ah, yes, well…” The vicar shrugged and made free with the decanter on his own.
“I shall, of course, disinherit him,” Sir Hugo announced. “I’ll not have him spend another moment under this roof as one of mine. Then it shall be up to him to succeed or fail under his own name.”
“He is not known by Willoughby?”
“Lewrie, his mother’s maiden name, sir.”
“Let me see … some form of punishment, or banishment, that will not reflect on your own kith and kin, remove him from the scene and make a man of him,” the vicar said. “I have it!”
“Yes?”
“I know a captain in the Royal Navy, Sir Hugo. With this dreadful little rebellion going on in the American colonies, one more young volunteer for service would not be looked on amiss.” The vicar fairly beamed.
“And ship him out as a seaman?” Sir Hugo grinned in return.
“Heavens, Sir Hugo, be merciful at the last, I beg you. To be a midshipman is punishment enough, but to be pent with the common rabble, an educated young man raised as a gentleman … besides, there would be unfavorable comment if he stood out from his surroundings too well.”
“I suppose so,” Sir Hugo said unhappily. “So I shall have to buy him his kit. And his commission as well, I suppose.”
“Not at all, Sir Hugo,” the vicar assured him. “Well, he must have his kit, but a commission in even a poor regiment is four times the cost of a willing captain. I am sure my friend Captain Bevan can find your son a commander desperately in need of hands and midshipmen. Like much else in our times, the zeal of the populace for naval service is akin to the lack of zeal for the true sense of Christ’s teachings.”