( This one's shorter, I promise next one will be more exciting ;) )
Normally he didn't immediately go to Burke's Peerage to look up the name of a woman whom he had just danced with, but today was an exception. He had kissed his mother goodnight and shaken his father's hand before hurrying downstairs in his pajamas and dressing gown to the library and curling up on the couch with the thick tome. Loxley, Loxley, Loxley—he froze when he found that page and paled.Lord Alexander Loxley, Marquess and Lady Mae Loxley, Marchioness. He knew he'd heard the title thrown around before—in the newspapers, having to do with that store that opened in London, Selfridge's.
He had danced with a married woman.
Normally, in any other context, he would think it to be completely innocent—he had indulged a slightly older woman ( though really, she didn't look old to him by any sense of the word ) in a dance, but she was clearly flirting with him, and he had been flirting back. And what would have happened if he had actually gone to her home for tea?!
"What are you doing up?"
Evelyn jumped and closed the book as the light in the corner flickered on, his gray-haired father shuffling into to the room. "Oh..uh, um, couldn't sleep."
His father nodded and went to his desk. "Brandy? Always helps." he offered.
"Just a sip." Evelyn answered, replacing the book and sitting back down. "Thank you." He smiled when his father handed him the glass and clicked it against his before taking a sip.
"So." His father took a swig of his own drink and set it down on the coffee table, clasping his hands together and fixing his green eyes upon his son's blue ones. "Have you given any thought to what you'd like to do?"
"As a matter of fact, I have. I was thinking about the Foreign Office. I'd like to go to India."
"India? After just getting back from Oxford? You know how much your mother's missed having you around—you're going to break her heart all over again?" The comment was only half serious, but it made its impact, and Evelyn froze in thought.
"So you're saying I shouldn't try for it?"
"No…but give it a bit of time. If you'd like to make yourself useful, son, you might consider the bank."
"The bank?"
"There's nothing wrong with working at a bank. It was the first thing I did after Cambridge." His father stated with a shrug, which shocked Evelyn even more.
"But you studied Classics?"
"And they taught me everything I needed to know on the job. Do you remember what happened to the Edmontons?" The question seemed random at first to Evelyn, until it clicked. The Edmontons had owned an estate in Cheshire until last year, when it had gotten too expensive to run and they had sold it. Now they lived permanently in London.
"Yes…they ran out of money—"
"They squandered their money. And that won't be us. That will never be us. Do you understand? We were industrialists, Evelyn, that's how we started out. Then along the line the King saw fit to grant us a barony, and then a viscountcy—and maybe you or your son will be an earl someday, but the bottom line is, each of us is only as good as his wits. And when we have nothing else left, it's our wits that we can rely on. And if those wits are accustomed to finance, then that's all the better. However 'middle class' that may sound." The Viscount finished with a smile and clapped him on the back.
"I understand, Dad. I'd be willing to try it, if they'd take me." It wasn't exactly what he had had in mind, but he could use what he had learned about the law, and he would be picking up new skills about proper management along the way.
"Then it's settled. I'll phone Mr. Hillman in the morning, see if he would be willing to take you on. And by 'if', I mean 'when', since old Hillman and I go way back."
He had wanted to do something, and this certainly beat making idle chatter with debutantes that had no particular interest in his dreams, or married women that had an inappropriate interest in him and his dreams. Even if it had been the most fulfilling conversation of the night…and he couldn't forget about those twin sapphires that managed to root him to the spot from the moment he had seen her—
"Well, I'd best leave you to your books. Good night, son."
"Night, Dad." He smiled at the older man briefly and settled back into the couch, grabbing Barchester Towers from its place on the shelf and beginning to read, hoping to stave off any thoughts of Lady Mae Loxley from permeating his dreams.