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Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
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delicacies for the noon meal.
A year ago, when he had opened his club in this fashionable neighborhood, it had seemed that he could go no higher. He’d owned other gaming establishments in his time, and though he had done remarkably well from them, those had been in the provinces.
In London, he discovered, gaming houses flourished in spite of the laws against them, and the authorities turned a blind eye to what was going forward under their very noses. They could hardly do otherwise when the chief offenders were gentlemen in the upper echelons of both government and court circles. So long as one was circumspect, no questions were asked. For this reason, his gaming house was officially known as a gentleman’s club.
He still felt as he had always felt since he had left his schooldays behind. He did not belong; he was a foreigner in a strange land; he had nothing in common with the people he met and mixed with. When a patron once paidhis gaming debts with a plantation in the distant Carolinas, a new dream had captured his imagination. He wasn’t looking for security or riches. He was looking for something worthwhile to give his life to. And just as soon as he had dealt with Sir Robert Ward, he would shake the dust of England from his feet and begin a new life in the New World.
That restlessness was upon him again. He strode to a large oak wardrobe, pulled out his riding gear, and began to dress.
It was one of his usual rides, and Saladin, his roan, would have known the route without direction. On a rise overlooking the hamlet of Chelsea, Julian dismounted. On one side, there were boats drawn up on the mud flats, and stands of plane trees and beeches shaded the foreshore. On the other side were the blackened ruins of Kirkland Hall. It was here that his mother had been born, here that his parents had met and fallen in love.
After mounting up, he descended the hill at a canter, then slowed to a walk as he approached the ruins. The gardens were a wilderness, and the once stately house, seat of generations of the earls of Kirkland, was now home to a flock of crows. They rose as one at his approach and croaked furiously before finding perches in the nearby avenue of oaks.
This was where it had all started, the night Lady Harriet Egremont had eloped with her brother’s tutor, but there was far, far more to the story than Julian had been told by his parents. What they had not told him was that same night, Lord Hugo and his friend, Sir Robert Ward, who were both Jacobite fugitives, both hiding in the house, were betrayed to the authorities and government troops had swooped down on them. Lord Hugo was shot dead in the melee; the old earl was taken into custody. His destination would be the Tower. Only Sir Robertescaped. The last thing the soldiers did was put their torches to the Hall, burning it to the ground.
It was only in the last year that Julian had been able to piece the story together, only in the last year that he had discovered that Sir Robert Ward was the nameless, faceless monster who had stalked his father in revenge for what had happened that night. There had been some sort of proof, in the form of a letter, that William Renney was the informer, and when Sir Robert returned to England after the Jacobites received amnesty, he had made it his life’s work to discredit William Renney and bring him to ruin.
Not for one moment did Julian accept that his father had been an informer. He knew him too well. Both his father and mother had passed on a set of precepts that had become the plumb line by which he measured his life. He might not be able to live up to those precepts, but he knew what they were. William Renney had lived his principles. He could never have committed so base an act.
Sir Robert Ward had set himself up as judge and jury and the verdict had been to bring William Renney to ruin and despair. And he had succeeded. But not well enough. Renney had left behind a legacy—a son with a debt to
A year ago, when he had opened his club in this fashionable neighborhood, it had seemed that he could go no higher. He’d owned other gaming establishments in his time, and though he had done remarkably well from them, those had been in the provinces.
In London, he discovered, gaming houses flourished in spite of the laws against them, and the authorities turned a blind eye to what was going forward under their very noses. They could hardly do otherwise when the chief offenders were gentlemen in the upper echelons of both government and court circles. So long as one was circumspect, no questions were asked. For this reason, his gaming house was officially known as a gentleman’s club.
He still felt as he had always felt since he had left his schooldays behind. He did not belong; he was a foreigner in a strange land; he had nothing in common with the people he met and mixed with. When a patron once paidhis gaming debts with a plantation in the distant Carolinas, a new dream had captured his imagination. He wasn’t looking for security or riches. He was looking for something worthwhile to give his life to. And just as soon as he had dealt with Sir Robert Ward, he would shake the dust of England from his feet and begin a new life in the New World.
That restlessness was upon him again. He strode to a large oak wardrobe, pulled out his riding gear, and began to dress.
It was one of his usual rides, and Saladin, his roan, would have known the route without direction. On a rise overlooking the hamlet of Chelsea, Julian dismounted. On one side, there were boats drawn up on the mud flats, and stands of plane trees and beeches shaded the foreshore. On the other side were the blackened ruins of Kirkland Hall. It was here that his mother had been born, here that his parents had met and fallen in love.
After mounting up, he descended the hill at a canter, then slowed to a walk as he approached the ruins. The gardens were a wilderness, and the once stately house, seat of generations of the earls of Kirkland, was now home to a flock of crows. They rose as one at his approach and croaked furiously before finding perches in the nearby avenue of oaks.
This was where it had all started, the night Lady Harriet Egremont had eloped with her brother’s tutor, but there was far, far more to the story than Julian had been told by his parents. What they had not told him was that same night, Lord Hugo and his friend, Sir Robert Ward, who were both Jacobite fugitives, both hiding in the house, were betrayed to the authorities and government troops had swooped down on them. Lord Hugo was shot dead in the melee; the old earl was taken into custody. His destination would be the Tower. Only Sir Robertescaped. The last thing the soldiers did was put their torches to the Hall, burning it to the ground.
It was only in the last year that Julian had been able to piece the story together, only in the last year that he had discovered that Sir Robert Ward was the nameless, faceless monster who had stalked his father in revenge for what had happened that night. There had been some sort of proof, in the form of a letter, that William Renney was the informer, and when Sir Robert returned to England after the Jacobites received amnesty, he had made it his life’s work to discredit William Renney and bring him to ruin.
Not for one moment did Julian accept that his father had been an informer. He knew him too well. Both his father and mother had passed on a set of precepts that had become the plumb line by which he measured his life. He might not be able to live up to those precepts, but he knew what they were. William Renney had lived his principles. He could never have committed so base an act.
Sir Robert Ward had set himself up as judge and jury and the verdict had been to bring William Renney to ruin and despair. And he had succeeded. But not well enough. Renney had left behind a legacy—a son with a debt to
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