won’t allow the risk of scandal which you court as recklessly as you do your young men.” She hissed the last part of it with a malice that few saw in her save for those closest.
“And what will you do if I refuse?”
She smiled coldly. “My dear boy, it is not in your power to do so. I have the ear of the trustees. At the merest snap of my fingers, I could see your lifestyle curtailed to the point of penury. If you wish to continue receiving the generous annuity that has been provided for you, you will do as you are bid. Find a woman, get yourself married and stop courting scandal by indulging your… unnatural urges.”
Averston said nothing. He simply stared at the woman before him with disgust. “You know nothing of what you speak.”
“I know that if word gets out about your proclivities, we will be ruined!”
“Hardly that,” he said. “I certainly wouldn’t be the first gentleman in society whose romantic interests raised eyebrows!”
“You think I care about raised eyebrows?” Her voice was a low hiss, a sure sign of just how furious she was. “I have devoted my life to the cultivation of a kind of power few will ever have. I am not fearful of society because I am society! I determine who gets the cut. I determine who has success. Who is deemed eligible or ineligible! But that power is predicated on the fact that, save for your late uncle, we are above reproach! I will not see it jeopardized so you can cavort with some pretty young man!”
He rose to his feet, pacing with anger. “And if it was more than that? If it was more than simply cavorting? What if I loved him?”
She laughed. “Do you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They both knew the truth.
A cool smile curved her lips, brimming with triumph. “Of course not. Whatever flaws and perversions you may possess, you are still very much an Alford, Gerald. Your uncle was the outlier. He truly did love that worthless trollop. But you… you’re like the rest of us. Such a tender emotion will never take root in your dark heart.”
“I hate you,” he said.
“I know you do,” she replied evenly. “But you do respect me and you do fear me. That is preferable to being loved. Now, mark me, Gerald, I have not done all that I have and courted a seat at the devil’s right hand in order that you might throw it all away! Do your duty and find solace in it,” she said in parting and sailed from the room once more.
How he despised her, he thought. What rankled more was that, in this instance, she was right. People were beginning to talk. Whispers had begun regarding his bachelor status. He thought of Charles Burney. Handsome, eager in the way only the young and not yet jaded can be, he’d been drawn to the man instantly. It wasn’t just that he was handsome and affable. Burney appeared to be a man who was quite capable of love, of a depth of feeling that he himself lacked. From the moment they’d first been introduced in his club the week before, he’d wanted to know him better. But as with everyone else in his life, he tempered any outward display of emotion or even excitement. To let anyone know that he had feelings for a person or a thing was to give his grandmother a weapon. She had enough of those, already.
He should write to the young man and cancel their assignation. He knew that he should. Yet, even as he reached for the quill on his desk, he hesitated. What could it hurt, he reasoned, to indulge their mutual attraction just the once?
Chapter Eight
“I didn’t like that man the day before yesterday,” William said.
“I didn’t like him either,” Charlotte seconded, crossing her little arms over her chest in a fair approximation of her brother’s rebellious stance.
Callie sighed. “It isn’t nice to say such things. We do not know anything about Mr. Burney and he may be a perfectly fine gentleman. We should not rush to judgment.” She hadn’t disliked him. But she didn’t trust him. It wasn’t that he’d done anything wrong, exactly. It was more that he’d seemed to be false. He laughed too loud and tried too hard and in general. It was uncomfortable to be in the presence of a person who was so obviously not comfortable with themselves.
“I don’t care