Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(87)

He nodded. “Honestly, most of the time I paid no attention. I was a boy. Their political intrigues and business affairs didn’t interest me. But one day, when I was fourteen, I brought a tray up to a private meeting room, and I heard a group of noblemen celebrating their scheme to fix a horse race. They were in collusion with the jockeys and several gaming lords. A certain horse was set to win over the favorite, at very long odds, and these men would rake in a fortune.”

“That sounds terribly unethical, if not illegal.”

“Probably both, but I didn’t care. I just wanted my cut.” A wry smile touched his lips. “I knew my mother kept money stashed beneath a loose board in the garret. I went and pried up the board. I found two pounds, three shillings. I took it all, stuffed the coins in a purse, and hurried off to place a wager on the race. The odds were twelve to one. Can you imagine? That meant I’d win five-and-twenty pounds. More than my mother earned in a year. Poor as we lived, I saw this as our chance to taste luxury. For myself, I wanted shoes that fit. At that age, I was growing an inch a month, it seemed, and my shoes forever pinched my feet. So it was shoes for me, and a warmer cloak for my mother. Then something pretty. Perhaps some combs for her hair.” Moisture gathered in the rims of his eyelids. “I planned to surprise her.”

“And what happened?”

“Stupidity happened. Greed happened. There I was, on my way to place this bet. I had two pounds, three. And I thought to myself … why not try for two pounds, four? Before we found Anna’s coffeehouse, I used to beg pennies in the street. I have this ability to reproduce voices, you know?”

She nodded.

“It was how I learned to speak,” he explained. “Since my mother could not. I would listen carefully to well-spoken men and mimic what I heard. Once I hear a voice, I never forget it. As a boy, I would go down on the Strand with the West Indian minstrels, and imitate overblown, pompous men as they passed. People would laugh and toss me a coin or two.” He paused, finding his place in the tale.

“But that day something went wrong?”

“Everything went right, for a while. I’d amassed a bit of a crowd and a smattering of coins in my hat. Then I became too cocksure, and I picked the wrong target for my mimicry. He was a lord, with a bloody enormous manservant who appeared out of nowhere. When he challenged me, I tried to joke my way out of it. He only took more offense. He told his man to take me in custody, said they’d show me down to the Fleet and bring charges of mendicancy.”

“Charges of begging?”

He nodded. “It’s unlawful. But here is where my stupidity reached its pinnacle. I pulled out my purse, shook the coins into my hand. Said, ‘Look here, I have two pounds, three. Why the devil would I be begging?’”

Lily’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. “Oh, no. You didn’t.”

“Oh, yes. I was that foolish. I’ll never forget the smug jubilation on that man’s face when I proudly whipped out those coins. Of course his reply was that I must have stolen it, and unless I handed the purse over to him, he would bring me up on charges of thievery.”

“But you didn’t steal it!”

“I know that. But what judge would believe a smart-mouthed guttersnipe over a lord? This whole world is arranged to value the word of a man like him over that of a man like me. Even with the truth on my side, I had no chance.” A vein pulsed angrily on his temple. “I was a fool, but not ignorant. I knew stealing anything over a pound was a hanging offense.”

“So what did you do?”

“The only thing I could.” He shrugged with defeat and obvious frustration. “I gave up the purse and let him charge me with mendicancy. My sentence was a month in Bridewell. I couldn’t even send word. And during that month, my mother took ill again. Perhaps a doctor could have helped her, but I’d left her with no money …”

He broke off. Lily impatiently dabbed her tears with her sleeve. Julian’s eyes were moist and rimmed with red, but he refused to wipe them or even blink. As if ignoring the tears might make them go away. After a prolonged, stoic struggle on the brink of his lashes, one drop shook loose and plummeted to the counterpane.

Lily longed to embrace him, but she could tell he wasn’t finished speaking.

“I will never know,” he said at length, “what my mother thought of me when she died. I’d argued with her earlier that week. Over everything and nothing, much as we’d argued many times before. Just as any young man argues with his mother when he chafes against the leading strings. I was sorry for it. It was one reason I hoped to surprise her with a gift. But then I vanished, by all appearances having made off with her savings. I tried to get word to her, by sending a message with a boy released from jail the week after I arrived. But who knows if he relayed it, or even if he did, whether she was able to understand.”

He inhaled deeply. When he continued, his manner was listless, resigned. “I have to live with it now. Knowing she may have gone to her grave believing I’d left her alone. That I didn’t care.”

There was no stopping the tears now. Not his, not hers.

“Perhaps …” He stopped to swipe angrily at his eyes. When he continued, his signs were rich with pathos, tugging at her heart. “Perhaps the money could have saved her. Perhaps she would have battled harder against her illness, if she’d known the truth. What if she succumbed because she felt I’d abandoned her?”