Page 20 of Love Lessons for a Lady
Werner looked quite ghastly, in truth.
“What, and have them bleed me or blow smoke up my bum like they do Father?” Werner curled his upper lip in contempt. “I’m convinced the lot of them don’t know what the devil they are doing.”
He might very well be right about that.
Wait. Uncle Conley is ill?
Not that the viscount would care that his only living son ailed. Conley had produced an heir, and it was Werner who would sire the next in the Woolbury line.
“Uncle is unwell?”
Werner rudely propped a scuffed booted foot atop the table, earning a glare from the tavern keeper behind the counter pouring ale and the barmaid wiping a nearby table.
“Oh, you wouldn’t know about Father’s decline in health, would you? You who has shunned our family these many years. Father is dying,” he said with as much emotion as a butler announcing dinner.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Werner lifted a shoulder. “Liver failure or something of that nature. ‘Brought on by excessive drink,’” he imitated in the droll tones of an arrogant physician. “He has mere weeks left, according to the vultures Grandfather hired to treat him.”
Sadness gripped Aston. He hadn’t known about Uncle Conley’s illness, and sympathy for the man he’d never known to be happy for a single day filled him.
“I’m truly sorry, Werner.”
His cousin shrugged again and took a swallow of ale. “It makes me next in line for the viscountcy. The way Father drank, I’m honestly surprised he lasted this long,” he said, no hint of affection for his sire coloring his words.
There was a great deal of truth to that statement.
Werner chuckled a drunken chortle that rattled his chest and ended in a hacking cough.
No, he was not well at all.
“Grandfather wants me married and siring heirs before the month is out. He’s worried about the entailment’s future. He’s selected a horse-faced, long meg for me. She has a decent dowry and a nice fat trust fund.” His eyes glittered greedily. “I ’spose she’ll do as well as any other. I’ll have to be good and foxed to bed the gel, though.”
Poor woman, whoever she was. She ought to be spared such a wretched fate.
“She squints and lisps.” Werner squeezed his eyes into exaggerated, mocking slits and spread his hands far apart. “And her bum is as wide as a brood cow’s.”
He opened one eye wide and winked. “Grandfather picked a pretty little filly for you, Saphira Finch-Hatten.”
Esmerelda Finch-Hatten’s sister?
Aston probed his memories. He was quite sure he’d never met her parents, either at Balderbrook’s Institution for Genteel Ladies or in society.
“I wouldn’t rush to say no too quickly,” Werner droned on. “She’s young and has a plump dowry. Not as well-bred or high in the instep as my Agatha, but a nice catch nonetheless. Naturally, as the heir, I must marry the higher-ranking woman. Agatha is the Duke of Warburton’s daughter, whereas Miss Finch-Hatten’s father is a mere baron.”
As if Aston cared a whit about that drivel.
“As the match between you and Miss Finch-Hatten has not been formally arranged, it’s not common knowledge.” Werner yawned then rubbed his nape.
“It shall not be arranged,” Aston snapped. He was done discussing a nonexistent betrothal.
Werner glanced nervously around the pub and, seemingly satisfied no one lurked about ready to demand immediate payment, relaxed a trifle. “I don’t suppose I’ll see you at my wedding? It’s in a fortnight. Unless father throws a spoke in the wheel by kicking up his toes before then.”
How could Werner speak so coldly and heartlessly about his father?
Aston had few memories of his parents, but they were warm and loving.
“And you cannot wait that long to pay your debts?” Aston asked, avoiding a commitment to attend. “Perhaps you can get an advance on your affianced’s dowry. Or at the very least tell your creditors you’ll have their funds shortly. Show them the news sheet announcement of your betrothal to hold them off if you must.”
