Page 3 of The Best Marquess

He blinked. “Yes?”

“You were gazing across Hanover Square,” his mother replied, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you still hold a candle for that girl. How many years is it now? Ten?”

“Sixteen, this summer,” Finn said with great dignity. “And rain, hail, or shine, we continue our year-round patronage of Gunter’s. Eating ices is how we met, after all.”

Indeed, he would never forget that day. As a reward for mastering sums, his tutor had taken him to the busy tea shop in Berkeley Square. He’d been so excited when the waiter brought a glass dish heaped with lemon ice over to where they waited with the horses, that he’d promptly dropped it. Mortified at his clumsiness and the waste of a delicious ice, he’d been on the verge of tears. Then a hand tugged his, and he’d looked down to see a small blond moppet with overlarge spectacles perched on her nose and a gap-toothed grin, holding up a nearly-full dish. “Don’t fret, master sir lord grace,” she’d said. “I am Lady Pippa Nash and you may share mine.”

Faster than the time it took to bow and introduce himself as the Viscount Knighton, he’d fallen in love. And in sixteen years that love had only grown stronger and more hopeless.

“Such tender sensibilities fall on barren ground with that bluestocking,” warned Evangeline. “Save yourself a broken heart and befriend Prinny, Devonshire, and the Carlton House set instead.”

He suppressed a wince. “The duke is amiable enough, but I cannot stand the others.”

“Quite beside the point. They are the men who rule society, who hold true power. You must strive to become part of the inner circle, not remain on the outside with all those ladies you dally with. Pinehurst is forever hearing complaints that you corrupted a wife or sister. It is quite beneath a Knighton.”

Quite beneath a Knighton.

Finn had heard those infuriating words so often they should be the family crest. But he knew all about the complaints; his father had lectured him over each and every one.

And they were all lies.

Despite what London believed, he was nothing more than a chum to the ladies. Conversation. Support. A dance partner for a wallflower or to provide rescue from an unwanted suitor. However, for their own reasons some had claimed a passionate affair, and now his peers were certain he fucked every woman he spoke to. Even Pippa believed he’d bedded half of London, calling those who flocked to him Finn’s Regiment, and that stung the most. He was a virgin, damn it!

Aside from the unwarranted rake reputation, the men’s hypocrisy infuriated him. All who complained regularly indulged in affairs; they just didn’t want their women to have the same freedom. Hell, back in the day, his father had strived to bed all the actresses in London, only turning puritan when one fell pregnant and birthed a daughter. Although the marquess had never acknowledged her, Finn had recently found his half-sister Abigail and offered her and her infant daughter Nerissa lodgings at the Golden Square townhouse. Abby agreed, on the provisos she earn her keep helping with Bliss and their blood tie remain unknown, for she loathed Lord Pinehurst.

Finn well understood that particular sentiment. But as long as he remained under this roof, he enjoyed both close proximity to Pippa, and the generous allowance that funded Bliss. While it grated his last nerve to be so beholden, the fortune held in trust for him would only be released on his twenty-fifth birthday; earlier if he married; or heaven forfend, if his father died and he inherited the marquessate.

“Better hurry, Mother,” he said at last. “Don’t want to be late for the theater. Your friend will worry.”

Evangeline blushed. “Er, yes. Have a pleasant time at the musicale. But do speak to your father first.”

After her departure, Finn brushed his too-long brown hair, smoothed his black jacket and fawn trousers, then straightened his cravat before walking to his father’s bedchamber. The less things for him to explode about, the faster the audience.

He knocked on the door. “Father? It’s Knighton.”

No point saying Finlay; his father only referred to him by title.

After a muffled bout of coughing, a voice croaked, “Enter.”

Unease coiled in his stomach, but when Finn opened the door and saw his sweaty, ashen-faced father in a heavy robe shivering in front of the roaring fire, he almost yelped in horror.

The man looked ill. Very ill.

“I’ll send for a physician,” he blurted.

Lord Pinehurst glared at him from the armchair, even as he pulled his robe tighter. “Don’t be a milksop. It’s just a mild fever. Pour me a brandy.”

Unwilling to argue, Finn did so. “Here.”

“Ah. That’s better. All a man needs when mildly under the weather, a decent drink.”

“You wished to see me?”

His father took another gulp of brandy. Eventually, he replied, “London is falling to rack and ruin. Pleasure clubs. Women making money and decisions. But the latest insult to decency? A business called Bliss selling dildos. Criminals and liars. What is the world coming to?”

“Er…”

“Silence. I never thought my own son would betray me.”