Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 43

There was a heavy mist that night that brought with it the crisp scent of outlying, newly plowed fields and the distant briny hint of the North Sea. Finding his father gone from his Grosvenor Square home, Sebastian walked the boisterous length of St. James’s, a purposeful and solitary figure. The street rang with the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the laughter of gentlemen lurching along the footpath in evening dress or calling to one another from passing curricles. He visited first one gentleman’s club, then the next, until he came upon the Earl of Hendon in the reading room of White’s, a book open on one knee, a glass of brandy on the table at his elbow.

Sebastian paused in the doorway. His father sat with his head bowed, his attention all for the volume before him. Hendon had no patience for the likes of Plato or Plautus, Euripides or Virgil. But he had great respect for the works of the Roman statesmen, from Cicero and Pliny the Elder to Julius Caesar himself, and he often spent his evenings thus, reading. In the gentle pool of golden light cast by the oil lamp beside him, he looked much like the father of Sebastian’s childhood, in the years before his brothers’ deaths and his mother’s disappearance.

Remembering those days now, Sebastian felt a pain building in his chest and sought to ease it with a sigh. The relationship between the Earl of Hendon and his last surviving son had never been a comfortable one. But through it all—through the anger and hurt and confusion—Sebastian’s love for his father had endured.

And so it was with a heavy weight of sorrow and no small measure of apprehension that Sebastian crossed the carpet to his father’s side. “Come walk with me. There’s something we must discuss.”

Glancing up, Hendon met his son’s eyes for one long moment, then slipped a marker in his book and stood. “I’ll get my cloak and walking stick.”

Side by side, they walked lamp-lit pavements gleaming with damp, a heavy silence between them. At last Sebastian said, “I wanted to tell you in person that I’ve sent a notice to the Morning Post.”

Hendon’s gaze swiveled toward him, and Sebastian knew by the narrowing of his father’s eyes and the sudden slackness of his jaw that Hendon understood what Sebastian was about to say.

The Earl’s voice was an explosion of sound that startled a dappled gray between the shafts of a passing hackney. “Good God. Don’t tell me you’ve actually done it.”

“Not yet. Monday evening at seven, by special license. I don’t expect your blessing. But I would wish for your acceptance.”

“My acceptance?” Hendon’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Never.”

Sebastian set his jaw. “Nevertheless, it will happen whether you accept it or not. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“I swear to God, I’ll disinherit you. All you’ll get from me is what is not within my power to withhold from you. The title and the entailed estates.”

“I expected as much.”

“Did you, by God?”

Sebastian studied his father’s dark, contorted face. “And would you respect me, I wonder, if I allowed such a consideration to dissuade me?”

Hendon’s fist tightened around his walking stick. Then, to Sebastian’s surprise, the Earl’s jowly features softened for one brief instant. It was as if the fury momentarily ebbed, allowing a glimpse of the hurt and disappointment that fed it.

“Sebastian,” said his father, disconcerting him, for it was rare that Hendon called him by his given name rather than his title. “For God’s sake, think this through.”

“You think I have not? This is what I have wanted for years. As well you know.”

Hendon’s features hardened. “I’ll never regret what I did seven years ago.”

Sebastian met his father’s fierce gaze. “You did what you thought was right. I understand that now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean it was right. You were wrong about Kat—as she showed when she rejected the money you offered her.”

“Was I wrong about her? Then why the devil has she agreed to this? Doesn’t she understand what this marriage will do to you? For God’s sake, Devlin! Consider the consequences. You’ll be an outcast from everything familiar to you. Turned away from your clubs. Shunned by your friends. And for what? The love of a woman? Do you think your love so strong that it can survive the realization that you’ve allowed it to destroy your life?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian tightly.

Hendon made an angry swiping gesture through the air with one gloved hand. “You think yourself the first man to love a woman who was forbidden him? I know what you’re going through, Devlin. You think you’ll never get over it. But you will. You will.”

Sebastian stared at his father. “You? What woman did you love?”

“Never mind that,” said Hendon gruffly, as if he regretted having said so much. “It was long ago.”

They were on Grosvenor Street now. Sebastian paused at the base of the steps leading up to Hendon House. “Obviously not so long ago that you have forgotten it.”

Hendon gripped the railing beside him. “If you insist on going through with this, I swear to God, I’ll never darken your doorway again.”

Sebastian drew a deep breath that did nothing to ease the ache in his chest. “At seven o’clock Monday night, I will make Kat Boleyn my wife. If it causes an estrangement between us, I am sorry for that. Good night, Father.”