Part 7 – Lord Featherington Suffers Further Shocks

It's three days later and things are extremely tense at Featherington Manor. Despite his wife's ultimatum, Lord F has avoided any and all occasion to be alone with her. She has tried repeatedly to discuss 'the unpleasantness' (as she calls it) of his financial footing ever since she invaded his inner sanctum and rifled through his bogus house accounts. He refuses to justify her egregious accusations with the perfectly reasonable explanation that he is acting as an agent to the Office of the Foreign Ministry in a counterfeit currency spy operation. He has his pride. Besides, would she believe him?

Lord F shifts upon his divan and rustles his newspaper. Holmes had warned him not to reveal anything about this operation to anyone, particularly Lady F, for reasons of national security and personal safety, but Holmes had failed to mention the ramifications on a man's home-life! Lady F believes she is heading for the poor house with a useless lying weak-willed gambler of a wastrel husband who is relegating their daughters to dowerless spinsterhood. To her mind, everyone is going to starve to death in a ditch if he is allowed to continue on this path to penury and destitutional disaster.

He snorts with irritation, totally dissatisfied with things as they stand. His own WIFE! Lacking all trust in him. Thinking him a brainless simpleton. Didn't all their years together mean anything to her? No, they didn't. Oh, he can't wait until this Ministry operation is over and he can justify himself to her. She will see the error of her ways then! Yes, it will be a great pleasure to hear her pleas for forgiveness. He smiles and nods to himself, puffing his pipe to fullness of ember then, hearing a stroppy voice coming up the hallway, he steels himself.

Enter Portia, face red with outrage as she informs him that payment on certain very important bills are overdue and vital vestments cannot be had and what is he going to do about it?

He rolls his eyes. He has let the bills go unpaid this month to bolster the impression that he has fallen into the fickle arms of Chance and is ruining himself – he just hadn't thought Portia would notice. Then he rolls his eyes the other way. God, so what if the girls have to wear a dress twice! I wear my own raiment more than once and it's never killed me! He starts to say as much but she doesn't even do him the courtesy of letting him speak. She snatches the pipe right out of his mouth, very nearly cutting his lower lip, and informs him that if there cannot be new dresses then there cannot be tobacco!

As she steams out of the room in self-righteous indignation, Lord F looks after her with furious eyes. Only his in-bred sense of manners keeps him from leaping to his feet to regain his property. How DARE she touch my pipe! How DARE she speak to me in such a manner? After a moment, he gets his temper under control and snaps his paper open once more. Yes, when all this is over, Portia and I are most certainly going to have a discussion and she will not be best pleased! The nerve of the woman!

He lowers the paper suddenly as a stray thought shoots through his mind. Perhaps it's time I thought about taking up residence somewhere else, somewhere tranquil where I'm not attacked every time I turn around. Then I might return to a peaceful and orderly life once more. Then I might keep the company that suits me best. Attentive company, interesting company, company like say… Catia, for instance… she suits me… she suits me just fine! I wonder if she plays chess? Or…

He scoffs, stopping the thought, lays down his paper and stares off into the middle distance as visions of a Portia-less existence dance temptingly before him. Then he flicks the paper open once more and shakes his head. No, as long as the girls live under this roof, I must stay and do my best to prevent the worst of my wife's bad habits from tainting their minds. I have obligations and duties to them even if it does nothing for my own happiness.

He resumes reading his paper, trying to ignore the growing discontent in his heart. An image of dark eyes swims up again briefly and this time it takes quite a bit more effort to squash it.

Several weeks later

Lord F paces his bedroom in silk pajamas, robe, and slippers. He is freshly washed and combed and ready for bed but he has never felt more unready for Morpheus in all his life. He paces furiously, his mind in a whirl. This operation! This confounded operation to find the counterfeit plates and the printer who prints them! It is destroying my life!

He snorts as he paces to his back wall. First I had to act the inept gambler. THEN I had to act the fool, losing more and more money on more and more ridiculous wagers. Everyone is laughing at me. Oh, it had been restrained at first but now I am snubbed right on my own street! And those Bridgerton boys! It is insult added to injury for those feckless morons to think themselves superior to me.

He grimaces as he turns and paces to his open doorway. And Portia! Instead of trusting me and supporting me in my so-called 'time of troubles', she heaps coals upon my head. If I have to endure one more sniff from that nose of hers I shall truly run amok! Should I reveal part of the real reason I've taken to gambling? Can I at least tell her those home accounts she found are bogus? How much can I tell her without telling her everything? Even if I did, would she accept my word and trust me?

He shakes his head as turns and paces to his back wall. No, she's made herself very plain. I am less than the dust beneath her shoes and she likes it! She likes thinking she has the high moral ground. There's no telling what she's gossiped in town about this. She'd actually help my cause with her gossip but, oh, how it hurts to be so misconstrued. And if I tell her the truth and she scuppers Holmes' plan then she scuppers ME! The Admiralty entrusted me with this mission and I am by god going to…

It is when he turns towards his door again that he sees her. Portia stands out in the main hall, perfectly framed in his doorway, poised as if caught in the hunter's gunsights. She looks stricken, like a woman caught in a trap not of her own devising but made to suffer nonetheless. His heart suddenly kicks mightily and he lifts a hand to forestall her condemnation. He can't take any more of it. He is going to sit her down and explain enough of the situation to set her mind at ease and then she will stop looking at him like he's a pariah, like he's a failure, like he isn't the man she thought he was, like he isn't any kind of man at all.

Yes, he's going to take her into his confidence and then things will go back to the way they were; boring, stultifying, with no meaningful conversation to speak of and certainly without any compassion or affection, but Life would carry on and she…

She shuts the doors in his face.

He stands, stunned into incredulous silence, his hand still out as if surprised to be left hanging. He slowly brings his spurned hand back to his side and turns away from the denigrating doors, his eyes swifting about the room as if seeing it for the first time. It's just a room, a rather nice room but a room with a marooned man in it, a man marooned just as surely as if he were shipwrecked on a desert island in uncharted tropical waters in the middle of nowhere with no escape and no hope of rescue.

Baron Featherington sits disjointedly onto his bedside and simply cannot think how to undo this parody, this farce, this sham that his marriage has become. This is no longer just about the counterfeit mission. This is about his mission in life, his happiness, his security, his reason to be. He looks around once more, sees the finery, sees the luxury, sees the whole petty pointless pomp and circumstance… and hates it more than he ever has before. He can't stand to look at it! He can't stand to even stand in it! He can't… he can't…

With an oath he leaps to his feet and strips off his bed clothes. He's slipping down the servant's staircase within minutes. He stops only briefly to don his great coat then he's out the side-door and gone into the darkness like he never existed at all.

END – part 7