The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,24
they left one of the Corwyn, Claiborne and Sons warehouses, took a deep breath. Then he coughed. “The countryside always makes my lungs soft,” he complained when he’d regained his breath. “I am surprised you can stand the city air after six months on the ocean.”
Nick inhaled. London, and particularly this quarter of London, was an unholy potpourri of unwashed bodies, manures of both horse and human variety, coal fires, and cooking pots. The stench was almost a physical attack.
“The ocean is more pleasant, I’ll grant you that,” he said. “But by the fourth month aboard, when the foodstuffs are maggoty and there is only salt water for bathing, London seems wholesome by comparison.”
“For all that I’m jealous of what you and Rupert have seen abroad, I consider myself fortunate to have been the brother who stayed behind,” Marcus said. “There are advantages to a stolid life in the cleaner areas of the capital.”
Nick hailed his batman, who had lounged near the street watching the passing traffic. They waited near the curb as Trower fetched their driver. Their newest warehouse, only recently completed, was a temple to modern industry, with an imposing marble façade designed to impress buyers who came to purchase their imports. But its purpose was given away by its lack of street-facing windows. With the value of the indigo and spices stored in that warehouse, it had been made as impregnable as any fortress.
For all the abuse the higher classes heaped upon the trade, Nick thought there was nothing more exciting than seeking out new products and making risky deals, whether in the far-off reaches of the empire or in the trading rooms of the City. “Your London life never sounded stolid in your letters,” he said to Marcus.
“Utterly stolid, I assure you. Wouldn’t want our grandfather to think I was shirking my duties.”
Nick laughed. Their maternal grandfather had remained very much in command of most of the London operations until his death a year and a half earlier, but Marcus was no idle gentleman. “You had the old man in your pocket from your first steps. And he was hardly a Puritan. I doubt you’d be half so debauched without his influence.”
“It is a shame you weren’t more often in London to partake of Grandfather’s generosity as a youth. The fair ladies at Madame Patrice’s were worth any number of hours spent counting tea chests.”
Nick had gone to Eton, as his father had before him. But unlike his father, who had been perfectly aristocratic until he fell in love with the wrong girl, Nick was mocked from the start for his ties to the trade. It might not have been so bad — there were other, lower born boys who took the brunt of the bullying — but Nick and his cousin Charles, who was two years older and already the Marquess of Folkestone, hated each other on sight. And even the youngest boys knew to side with a marquess over a merchant’s son.
Nick had refused to back down and hadn’t left despite their years-long conflict, but his parents hadn’t made the same mistake with Marcus and Rupert. Where Nick had grimly survived Eton, his brothers had stayed in London, learning the trade from their father and grandfather. Little wonder they were inveterate rakes. Nick sometimes felt like a brooding monk by comparison.
He shrugged. “I’ve had my share of pleasure without needing Grandfather to be my procurer.”
Marcus snorted. “Grandfather never had to procure for me, brother.” Then he cast Nick a sidelong glance. “If you want me to point you toward some prime houses, though…”
“No need,” Nick said.
There was a finality in his voice that would have warned off lesser men. But he and his brothers had been raised as equals. The Folkestone title had seemed destined to stay in Charles’s line, and primogeniture did not apply to their shared inheritance from their grandfather. Marcus wouldn’t yield to him just because Nick now outranked him.
“Please don’t say you went through with your revenge last night,” Marcus said.
They had avoided talk of Ellie for five hours — longer than Nick had expected Marcus to refrain from the subject. “She’s not my mistress yet,” Nick said, sharing a truth that, at midnight, would be a lie.
Their carriage pulled up and Trower jumped down to open the door for them while the driver held the horses. Marcus waited until they were seated and the carriage was in motion before saying, “Your lack of compassion with her surprises me.”