Nine

The Prodigal Son

Philip rose well before his habitual noontide with a purpose he refused to dwell upon too closely. He set about his toilette with unusual care. For lack of a manservant, he washed and shaved himself. He then donned his best white lawn shirt whose former magnificence had since dimmed, adding the mark of gentility, cascades of French lace at his throat and cuffs that spilled over his hands to reveal only the tips of his fingers.

With as much tenderness as the best valet, he dressed in his claret-colored silk breeches and brushed the nap of his velvet coat, pausing with a frown at the visible wear in the fabric, the fray of the silver lacing, and the thinning of the elbows. One would hardly note his shabby finery in the darkened gaming rooms he frequented, but surely his less-than-prosperous state of affairs would be remarkable under bright streaks of morning sun.

He shrugged with resignation. If invited by his lordship to sit, he would simply choose a place away from any window. Philip paused at his reflection in the tarnished looking glass, wondering if he should have powdered his hair, and although it was morning, he took a generous fortifying swig from a flask he then secreted in his pocket.

The sudden summons from the earl after a four-year silence had him more shaken than he cared to admit. Exiting his lodgings, Philip hailed a passing sedan chair to convey him via Oxford Street to King’s Square.

***

Arriving at what was, in the last century, one of the most fashionable addresses in London, Philip alighted from the sedan chair and paid the two bearers. Surveying the locale, he noted little change during his extended absence. At the center still stood the two distinct landmarks, a half-timbered hut for the gardener of the meticulously manicured square and a statue of Charles II, carved by Danish sculptor Caius Cibber.

The square itself was originally named after the Duke of Monmouth, one of the monarch’s many bastard sons, who had resided there until his rebellion against his uncle, James II. After Monmouth’s subsequent execution, the address thereafter became known as simply King’s Square.

The statue also was claimed by many to have actually been of Monmouth rather than of King Charles, and, confessing a certain admiration for the bastard son who would attempt to usurp the crown, Philip had always fancied the notion that it was. Feeling in many ways a kindred spirit to the king’s ill-fated bastard, Philip swept a playful obeisance to the statue.

Having now stalled long enough to marshal his will for the much-dreaded interview, Philip strode purposefully up to the door of Hastings House.

***

Grayson, the faithful retainer, answered the door. “Master Philip, what a delight to see you home.”

Philip noted, with a degree of pleasure, the almost-smile that registered on the butler’s stolid face. “I don’t know that I ever called this place home,” he said upon entering. His gaze swept the twenty-foot ceiling, Italian marble floors, and luxurious appointments, as if retrieving the entire layout from a distant memory. “Indeed, I’m not sure I was ever here but twice in my life.”

“It was meant figuratively,” Grayson explained. “Home is the bosom of the family from which you have been absent for far too long.”

Philip grinned. “Is that a scold, Grayson?”

The butler gave a dignified sniff. “Suffice to say, you have been missed.”

“Thank you. It means much, but I still wouldn’t have come at all were it not for his lordship’s summons. Do you have any idea what he wants?”

“I would have little notion. The earl does not confide in his servants.”

“True enough.” The Earl of Hastings was a man who held his cards closely and kept his own confidence at all costs. Two separate charges of treason, even though acquitted, might do that to a man, Philip decided cynically.

“He wishes to see you in his private chambers.”

“Gout attack?”

“It’s one of his longest episodes, I’m afraid. He refuses to follow the physician’s recommendations.”

“What a surprise that is. He’ll no doubt be in a damnable humor.”

Grayson offered only a tight-lipped smile in reply.

With the exception of their two sets of echoing footfalls, they continued in a protracted silence through the long corridor to the earl’s private apartments. The foreboding starkness penetrated into Philip’s very bones.

Philip was bleakly reminded of his last encounter with the earl. He’d been sixteen years old and certainly no wilder than most of his cohorts at Harrow, but less prone to feigned contrition. He’d also failed to govern his tongue, for which he’d suffered many a lashing at the master’s hand, and finally expulsion.

He’d been falsely accused of leading the other boys astray, when in truth he’d learned gaming from the very schoolmates who’d peached him, once he began to clean out their pockets. After the requisite caning, he’d been expelled in disgrace with no opportunity to defend himself. When he’d faced Lord Hastings, who would believe the worst of him in any case, Philip had maintained an obdurate silence under his interrogation, resulting in a reopening of the stripes on his backside that had only begun to heal.

For a young man of sixteen to be publicly whipped by a servant, at his father’s command, it was more humiliation than Philip could bear. Rather than facing the daily opprobrium of a father who despised him, Philip had obstinately struck out on his own, determined more than ever to live down to his father’s expectations.

This, to his anguish and regret, had also broken his mother’s heart. In the first six months, he’d written her only one letter to inform her he was well, and shortly thereafter she was gone, consumed by the wasting disease.

The guilt had nearly been his undoing. He’d taken to heavy drink and low company shortly after that, and might well have lost his life on three occasions. The experience had taught him the three rules he would come to live by: trust no one, as every man is a cheat; always follow one’s instincts when in doubt; and lastly, depend upon no one, as ultimately every man will fend for himself over and above any other. These three cardinal rules had guided him well enough until now.

Grayson preceded him into the earl’s chamber to announce his arrival. Philip followed more tentatively than he had hoped he would when he’d envisioned the interview, but this long-accustomed regard of mixed awe and loathing was difficult to overcome.

Lord Hastings, garbed in a Turkish-style banyan and cap, reposed in an overstuffed chair with his bestockinged and visibly swollen right foot resting atop a mound of pillows on a gout stool.

Although Philip had expected no warm familial sentiments from his estranged father, the earl wasted no breath even on the most mundane pleasantries. “Don’t skulk,” snapped the earl. “Come and let us have a look at you.”

With a half shrug, Philip ventured forward and forced his bow of obeisance.

“You’ve the look of your mother,” the earl accused. After a prolonged scrutiny, he raised his index finger vertically and made a loop in the air.

Philip’s brows pulled together.

“Turn around,” the earl demanded.

Philip performed a slow revolution with arms akimbo to the earl’s appraising nod. “You’ve grown tall in stature. That’s to a man’s advantage. I daresay you surpass Edmund.”

“Four plus years are bound to have wrought many changes,” Philip remarked with insouciance.

“Yet your insolence persists.”

Philip met the intimidating stare without faltering. Eager to hasten the interview and end the unpleasantness with all dispatch, he said, “I’m at a loss why you’ve sent for me after all this time.”

“Willoughby informs me that you’re soon to come of age.”

“In scarce more than a fortnight.” Philip consoled himself that a mere seventeen days separated him from the respectable competence that would allow him to plot some viable and rewarding course for his future.

“It is high time you accept your responsibilities.”

“My responsibilities? And what might those entail?” As if ignorant of the diatribe that would inevitably ensue, he had intentionally baited the earl.

“You know damned well what is expected! You’ve run amok, disgracing your family nigh long enough. It’s time you come to heel.”

An eminently revealing turn of phrase, as if he, like some well-trained hound, would suddenly accept his father’s dominion at the snap of his fingers.

“Just what would you suggest?” Philip continued his affected air of artlessness.

“I suggest nothing. I demand your deference to duty.”

“Ah, back to that, are we? Just what is duty to a wastrel, my lord?” Philip spoke the last with a sardonic curl of his lip and sprawled lazily in a chair, intentionally fueling the earl’s simmering temper.

“Then let me make my expectations of my youngest son absolutely clear. Upon attaining your majority, you will immediately cease this dissolute lifestyle and prepare to assume a seat in the House of Commons.”

“I will do what?” Philip affected astonishment.

“There will be a general election in a twelvemonth in which several Sussex MPs, in Bramber, East Grinstead, and Seaford, will become vulnerable for replacement.”

“Bramber has representation? The village can’t have but thirty residents.”

“Nevertheless, the borough has two representative MPs and twenty registered voters.”

“Then it’s nothing more than a rotten borough that rests in the pocket of the major landholder.”

“Which would be me.” Lord Hastings’s lips curved into a shameless smirk.

“But Edmund already serves your interests in the Lower House—why would you want me?”

“Winds of change are blowing. Walpole’s losing his grip on the ministry and his power is steadily slipping. With this shift, our time of vindication may be coming at long last.”

“Vindication or usurpation?” Philip asked. “I have no taste for politics, my lord, and even less stomach for Jacobite intrigues.”

“You would refuse an offer of position and future influence to continue in your reprehensible, shiftless, and ignominious existence?”

“You would deem treachery and intrigue a nobler calling?”

The earl’s face went rubicund and his eyes bulged. “I’ll cut you off without a groat, you ungrateful whelp.”

“That’s quite a threat when I’ve not drawn a bloody farthing from your hallowed coffers in over four years.”

“And you live hand to mouth for your obstinacy. Although in time you’d inevitably have come begging, I’m disinclined to further humor your conduct.”

“You thought I’d come groveling?” Philip laughed. “You are hardly in a position to know my state of affairs.”

“I have my sources when information is needed. I know exactly your state of affairs, you insolent whoreson!” The earl attempted to rise and cursed in pain.

Refusing to be cowed, Philip stepped closer to the earl, speaking lowly but clearly. “You seem to have forgotten the matter of a certain trust, my lord.”

“It is out of your grasp until you attain your majority.”

“Precisely.”

Silence reigned while realization dawned. “It is but a pittance that won’t last you a six-month. I’m prepared to offer you a substantial quarterly stipend.”

“A bribe to toe the line?”

“An inducement,” the earl said. “Two hundred fifty pounds per quarter.”

Philip blinked. One thousand pounds per annum. It was an enormous sum. His pride moved him to dismiss the offer, but his common sense gave him pause. “In return for what?”

“Your loyalty and support of Edmund’s advancement.”

“That toad-eating, detestable prig?”

Lord Hastings returned a black look. “He is your brother, and heir to this earldom.”

“Half brother,” Philip corrected. “And how precisely am I to pledge support to one whose own loyalties shift with the tide? Stuart Pretender one day and the Hanoverian-born Prince of Wales the next. Above all, Edmund would hedge his bets.”

“Your naïveté astounds me.”

“As I stated, politics does not suit my nature; thus I must regretfully decline your offer.”

“You what?”

“I decline, my lord.”

“You’ll come to regret this, Philip, and sooner rather than later!”

“Mayhap you’re right. Shall I call Grayson to bring you a restorative? You appear rather flushed.”

“You may go to the devil!”

“I may very well yet, but it’ll be in my own way, my lord.”