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It was quite paradoxical.

She became a courtesan when was but a girl. Her very life depended upon not falling pregnant. In doing so, she had made use of pennyroyal and other ghastly substances to protect against it. Such means were not infallible. Courtesans often had children tucked away in other counties (one or two kept them in back rooms). Over the years, Juliette had managed to elude that complication. There was only one affair that tempted her to throw purgatives—and thus caution—to the side. She had dared hope that a child might come from it, but it was not to be. The gentleman came to her far too seldom. After that, she had kept to men less virile—and alluring.

Those lost years could not be retrieved and she shed no tears for them. Once again she took stock of her situation.

Although her figure was as voluptuous as ever, she knew her fertile years were in decline. Had she married more wisely, all would not be lost. Regrettably, her husband had particular sexual predilections. By virtue of this disposition, she had to resort to measures to sate him that were not conducive to conception.

It should have come to no surprise to her. Henry Howgrave was not only a bastard by birth; he was also one in practise.

Chapter 12

Fictional Freddy

Sir Henry Howgrave saw himself as ripe with promise. His ambition knew no constraints. He meant to become the Prime Minister of England and would let no distraction alter that goal. Driven by the lust for power and cowed by the fear of failure, this Hero of Waterloo pursued his place in history with an astounding sense of purpose. Each day, he met with constituents, plied the wealthy citizens of his county for support, and dictated his memoirs.

Each night, he beat his wife like a cottage rug.

———

Juliette Clisson had been a rapturous selection as his betrothed. And, as it happened, she was a damn fine political partner. He had understood the cleverness in wagging around a beautiful wife (men inherently admire a man with a handsome woman beside him). No one would have guessed such a delicate blossom would have thrust herself unto the masses as she had. The people, of course, were delighted. When she began the kissing business, the filthy rabble was near frenzied with admiration. He liked to believe that he would have won the election soundly without her. But she certainly gained him some productive attention from the mephitic press.

As for employing the whip, Howgrave was not a compleat savage. He was not one of these ham-fisted country oafs who thrashed his wife and beat his dogs. His preference had a higher purpose. He lashed his wife’s bare buttocks only as a means to satisfy his carnal urges. There was nothing wrong with the practise. It was one of kings. Why, the Prince Regent was said to be a great whip in his day.

Flagellation was hardly a method singular to him and the King. Indeed, there was an entire guild of flagellants in London. They gathered in darkened chambers and engaged in all manner of debauchery. Such voyeuristic exploits were beneath Sir Howgrave. He saw himself as a gentleman of the highest order (despite all indications to the contrary).

He had first accustomed himself to the sting of a whip between gut-hauling military engagements across the water. He had becalmed himself through the agency of an agreeable camp-follower (who accommodated him between her laundry duties). When he married, he chose his wife with his particular proclivities in mind. It would not do for him to wed some virginal maiden. The first time a strap was produced she might have run home to her mother (or besoiled herself—he had known that to bechance an unwitting chit). No indeed, he selected a woman not only for her beauty, but her sophistication. He must have a wife who would not be taken unawares by such habits—a woman of the demimonde.

Although he had selected her for her urbanity, Howgrave held out hope that she would be able to gratify his passion in the customary fashion. Initially, she did. Regrettably, the many burdens of his office (infested as it was with ungrateful rioters and cunning compatriots) had coalesced into a teeming mass of agitation, depriving him of the ability to obtain amatory consolation unless aroused in some perverse fashion. Hence, it had been necessary for Lady Howgrave to employ evermore elaborate manoeuvrings and manipulations to bring him to achievement. Only when she did not succeed in those ministrations was he forced to take the whip to her. He did not take delight in it. He was left with no other choice.

He must have a child—a son to carry on the family name (such as it was).

However, he vowed not do as his father had done. He would not take a child from some low mistress. His son would not bear the disgrace of bastardy. He would be suckled at the breast of a proper wet-nurse not consigned to the scullery with the likes of Bess Dumpstitch.

Dear Bess was his mother and a lowly maid in the service of Howgrave Manor. He was called Frederick, but was not allowed to take his father’s surname. The master of the manor had a wife and, as mistress of the manor, she looked upon his bastard son with disapproval. Hence, poor Bess received no compensation for giving birth to the master’s child. It was enough that she was allowed to keep her position (and was happy that she was not struck from the house due to her disgrace).

Until he was ten, Freddy slept in the same bed as his mother at night and helped in the kitchen by day. He had to sit outside upon the steps to partake his meals and was beaten for every dish he dropped. Called Fictional Freddy by the other servants, he grew up altogether baffled as to why he had to suffer the envy of others for a position that netted him absolutely nothing.

No education—letters or numbers—had been squandered upon him until the day he was sent off to school. His classmates abused him mercilessly. This came to pass as much for his lack of learning as his dirty fingernails. He received no quarter from the schoolmaster either. If given an incorrect answer, he laid the rod across every boy’s knuckles. (Hence, Freddy’s were perpetually swollen.) Two hours a day were dedicated in prayer and introspection. Each week, they bared their buttocks to accept a switching just on general principle.

If Freddy was not a particularly astute student, he was a magnificent learner. He hastily uncovered the most important lessons the school had to offer—and he did not have to attend a single class to learn them. By undertaking distasteful chores, befriending stupid boys with wealthy families, and falling prostrate with reverence in the presence of the most despised schoolmasters, he ingratiated himself to those who mattered. One did not have to be good; just have the appearance of it.

Upon his final year he had grown fat but not tall, yet his adiposity was no longer the target of unkind pranks. For the first time in his life, he felt approval. He arrived at school a shunned dunce and would leave a clever young man, having gained an extraordinary education in finagling, connivance, and collusion.

Just when all seemed right with his world, word came of his mother’s death. Freddy did not sally forth to Howgrave Manor to watch her being tossed into the cold, dark patch of dirt set aside for the servants’ graveyard. He remained at school and was believed to be bereft. He was not. His pitiable mother and the inhospitable place he had called home was nothing to him but a reminder that he was ignored by his rightful father.

After taking his degree, Freddy Dumpstitch was anxious to escape to London. There he could put his many new skills to work. His visit to Howgrave Manor was perfunctory, born of the faint hope that his success in school might earn him some sort of financial consideration. It was a fortuitous decision.

Unbeknownst to Freddy, he had been cast in a drama not of his making—but one in which he was quite happy to have a part.

As it happened, the Howgrave estate was to be entailed to the male line. Due to past misdeeds, Freddy’s father had been removed from the line of succession. If a male progeny was not produced ere the eldest Howgrave died, Howgrave Manor would go to a cousin in Aberdeen. Mr. and Mrs. Howgrave would then be tossed out on their tuffet. Freddy had been sent off to school as a precautionary measure. He had been held in escrow—a spare heir—should plump (and seemingly fertile) Mrs. Howgrave not produce a legitimate one. It eventually fell apparent that her womb was as inhospitable as her heart.

Post-haste, the matter of a child born of his housekeeper was suddenly not the indignity that it had once seemed. Mrs. Howgrave still despised Freddy, but she liked her situation well enough to overlook the personification of her husband’s adultery. Freddy, being the sole natural son of the Master of Howgrave Manor was suddenly in a most happy position. He owned an adoring father, a boatload of servants, and with little fanfare, an admirable new surname (Dumpstitch not being a particularly melodious appellation to adorn his future campaign signs). No longer was he the bastard child of a scullery maid. He was a gentleman.

Young Henry Howgrave was presented thusly to society.

Regrettably, to society he was still the Son of the Left Hand.

He wanted more—much more.

Refusing to be turned away, young Howgrave polished his manners and attended every party, f
ê
te, and bull-bating to which he was admitted. Having been slighted all his life, his rise was not with undue humility. (Granted, his ascent was not with any more sense of entitlement than other young bucks in the county.) He refused to be satisfied with what society deemed within his grasp. A modest country estate and marriage to the daughter of a hapless squire would not suit him.

His ambition was keen, so much so that he overstepped all sensible boundaries. Making a bid for the hand of Miss Darcy was societal (and very nearly literal) auto-da-fé. With what Freddy saw as unnecessary peremptoriness, Darcy rebuffed his overtures to Georgiana. Freddy was humiliated, causing him to believe that Miss Darcy may have fifty thousand, but she was a mouse. He sniffed derisively, vowing to find a wife worthy of his ambitions.

Deep within his breast, however, Freddy was cut, not just publicly, but to the core. His dislike of Darcy was not because of his haughtiness and station. It was for the same reason the schoolmaster administered the whippings—on general principal.

It was just as well, Henry told himself then and ever after. When opportunity struck, he took advantage of the war. It was a gamble that paid off magnificently through a knighthood and wild acclaim. When he did finally marry, he secured the most desirable woman in England.

Yes, one day the Prime Ministership would be his.

He vowed that his son would not have to bear squalid surroundings and the sniggering degradation of his lessers.

Fictional Freddy was no more.

Chapter 13

At Your Service

Lord Humphrey Orloff was quite a man of town.

He had foul breath, inelegant habits, and a protruding tooth. He had also obtained a fortune (and an indelicate disease) whilst settling his father’s affairs in the West Indies. Now a widower with a wandering eye, he enjoyed entertaining in his house in Pall Mall. It was an exquisite place, one he had inherited upon his wife’s death. Despite the persistent rumours that his wife died in consequence of his faithlessness, he was still considered a man worth knowing by those who held sway over such judgements.

As a young man, Orloff was known to cut quite a swell in the iniquitous pathways of nocturnal trampers and brothel tourists. It was no surprise that when his bad blood left his doodads a tad ineffectual, he became enthralled by the backroom antics of Parliamentary politics. The Napoleonic wars had kept a tumultuous hold upon gentlemen for a decade. Those least likely to see battle were always the most eagre debaters. Forgather three men in a room and fill their glasses, they would argue over the battle strategy for days.

Orloff delighted in inviting the opinion of the working class. They had odd thoughts about taxes and levies. One must be kept abreast of common notions regardless of its absurdity. Whilst having measurements taken for a new pair of boots however, he asked his boot-maker, “Edmund, what say you of Wellington—good man or fool?”

Edmund O’Reilly kept his head down, clearly disinclined to debate him.