CHAPTER ONE - Friday 30th March 1815

The ton was all a buzz. Everywhere Xander looked, people talked about the end of the war with France.

God, he was sick of it.

When the army captured Napoleon, he had thought that would be the end of it. But alas, the insane Frenchman had managed to escape and had taken France once again.

Xander was tired of it all. He didn't want to hear the stories, the gossip, the revered heroes who lived to tell their blasted tales of survival. He felt the familiar swell of emotion in his chest—guilt, shame, anger, and jealousy.

Alexander Gabriel Ashford, eleventh Marquess of Aylesbury, was heir to the most prestigious Dukedom in England, and as such, his father had thoroughly forbidden him to join the war effort.

The arguments with his father at the beginning of the war had strained their relationship that still lingered today. It occasionally flared, mainly since his brother was serving in the Navy.

It left him at home feeling as useful as a sack of potatoes.

Three sons!

His father had three blasted sons, an heir, a spare and a third to seal the deal, and still, it was him that had to remain. Samuel, his youngest sibling, could have gone off and fought.

It would have been a worthy career for the third son to buy a commission and fight for King and country. Yet, he had chosen to remain in England and disgrace the family with his drunken debauchery.

Xander pondered at its unfairness again, feeling like a sulky child. His father argued that he had been raised to take over the ducal estates. The one with the knowledge, and admittedly, the sense and business mind to ensure the lands, tenants and staff all remained well cared for years to come.

He sighed, looking down at his dancing slippers. Pointless things, seeing how he never danced. Not anymore anyway. There was a time he'd loved to dance, smile, and have fun, but that was a long time ago.

He had lost the conversation thread during the last few minutes, so there was little point in feigning interest now. So he continued his self-indulged thoughts for a while longer.

His father was right, of course. Both his brothers, for all he loved them, were not suited to the task of becoming the next duke. While growing up, he was well aware that he was to accept such a weighty responsibility one day; he'd been taught everything about all the estates.

He had little pleasures in life. There had been one season when he thought his life had changed for the better. One season, when he was fresh out of Oxford, notions of a happy life with the woman he loved filled his daydreams.

He pulled away from those particular thoughts. He was already too maudlin to allow those dark emotions to rise to the surface. Things hadn't worked out as planned since then, and he had thrown himself into learning his destined role of Marquess and all that dukedom had in its entail.

Ten years later, he had already taken over the running of the ducal estates. Not that his father cared. Although only five and fifty, his mother, still looking ten, possibly even fifteen years younger, wanted to have her husband for many years to come. Retirement, she had declared, was an idea quickly gaining popularity in the United States, so her friend wrote her. The idea was that the elderly should be taken care of and not expected to work until their last breath.

Goodness, what next? His father was turning sixty-three this year and could last another twenty as he was as fit as his sons were. His father still rode out every morning with his wife and fenced most afternoons. But what did it matter? It meant little to him since he hadn't enjoyed the pleasures other young men did.

Oh, he took pleasures in the arms of women. He was no saint, but the drinking, gambling and whoring about his friends participated in weren't to his tastes.

Of course, they teased him, and he knew it was good-natured, but he had to admit it hurt a little. He didn't want to be seen as a bore, but neither could he escape who he was. He was the serious man they ridiculed, but he couldn't change that any more than he could change the colour of his eyes.

He had had mistresses over the years. It wasn't hard, seeing as women tended to fall over him.

Tall and handsome were two words always associated with all the Ashford men. His title saw to that alone, but he wasn't blind to the way women looked at him. It had ensured he was guaranteed a widow or two vying for his company.

Titled and wealthy were two words usually added by the mothers who sought him for their daughters' hand.

It dawned on him that he had been staring, unseeingly down at his slippers. He lifted his gaze, intending to end this pointless barrage of self-pitying thoughts. He had been wool-gathering for too long now. He was on the cusp of being seen as impolite or, worse, too lofty for the present company when in fact, he was just blue devilled more often than not these days.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement of white and red. Turning his head slightly, he caught the sight of a woman with the most incredible colour of red hair.

Her white gown was more straightforward than most of the other debutantes but had pretty little flowers embroidered around the puffed sleeves and hem in a thread the same colour as her hair. The matching ribbon tied just below her bust encouraged every man in the room to ogle the full breasts threatening to overflow from the low neckline.

His instinct told him she was out of place here in his father's ballroom, and he wondered at her being stood without a chaperone.

Xander forced himself to concentrate on the conversation at hand. Edmund Seymour looked to be paying as much mind to the flow of conversation as he had.

"I beg your forgiveness; I was wool-gathering. What did you ask?" Edmund asked this to their small gathering at large since he had no idea who had addressed him.

As Xander hadn't been following the conversation either, he looked quizzically around the small group of gentlemen gathered on the edge of the ballroom.

Benjamin Drummond, the Earl of Carlisle, laughed. "I know you are getting on in years, Seymour, but surely you have not reached the stage where you cannot follow a conversation?"

Edmunds' face flushed in annoyance.

Xander knew he had fought hard to gain a decent foothold in good society and hated doing anything that would bring himself unwarranted attention. The man in question stretched his neck, tilting his head.

Xander thought he looked like he would like nothing better to pull at his cravat, if not remove it altogether.

The mere thought amused him, for Edmund never displayed anything other than excellent, proper decorum in both dress and behaviour. "Come now, Seymour, you are among friends. Pray, tell us, where lies the best investment for the foreseeable future?"

Edmund gave Benji a disgruntled look and cleared his throat, "This is not the sort of conversation one has at a ball, Carlisle."

Xander tilted his head slightly and noticed that the redhead no longer stood to his left. He noticed Edmund also looked back to where the red-haired young lady had stood, and Xander thought he seemed somewhat disappointed to realise she was gone.

"Since we are only gentlemen here, I shall partake," he grumbled.

Whilst scanning the crowds, Edmund continued in a somewhat distracted manner. "It depends on your moral standing. As of last week, the Corn Law will ensure wheat stays at a high price for the foreseeable future. A sound investment if you can ignore that it will mean starvation for those who cannot afford it. I will not partake in such investments. I do not wish to profit off the backs of emaciated children," his face showing his disgust of those who could turn a blind eye to the hunger that would sweep across the land.

He turned slightly, looking across the ballroom to the dancers. Xander wondered if he was looking for the red-haired woman who had disappeared. "So, what would you suggest investing in?" asked another gentleman standing in their circle.

Edmund Seymour looked around the small gathering with hesitancy. He was the grandson to the late earl and nephew to the current one, but his mother had been ostracised from good society when she married his father. They gave her the cut direct for not only marrying below her station by marrying a man who earned his money in trade but who was an American as well.

Edmund worked hard to keep the family name as clean as possible. He avoided anything that would cause a scandal, toppling them into shame and alienating his family from all good society.

Xander wondered if Edmund would voice his opinions. He knew that some members of the ton did not agree with how the world was changing. Industrialisation was making fast and vast changes: some good, some bad.

He glanced at the few men who lingered around him and hoped none of them was the sort to sneer at Edmund's ideas. As for himself, Xander knew many peer members who had to sell all they owned due to bad investments or gambling debts.

Or both!

He had observed too many cits buying up Mayfair homes and country estates that had been in families for hundreds of years. He took advice from Edmund as he was the most business-minded of all his acquaintances, and invested where his family would make money, trade or otherwise. It was considered wrong for a member of the beau monde to dirty their hands in trade, but it was damnably better than living in penury.

"Steam," Edmund muttered, breaking through Xander's thoughts once more. Being a man of average height, Edmund was now on his tiptoes, looking over the hordes of people crowding the room, waiting for the next dance to start.

Xander observed the quizzical looks sent in Edmund's direction from some gentlemen. "How does one invest in steam, precisely?" said his friend Benji, the Earl of Carlisle, with a smirk, always teasing. He knew damn well what Edmund meant, having already invested several thousand on Edmund's advice.

Edmund shot him a stern look, "Well, one does not invest in steam itself, obviously, but in the machine that uses it to work. Steam engines will soon replace the likes of water wheels in mills. It will vastly increase productivity. It is also of interest to know that a steam engine for locomotion is being designed to be used on rails much like those by mines for transporting coal. Trevithick's design is quite a marvel. Imagine a dozen carriages worth of goods and people transported up and down the country at consistent speeds over fifteen miles per hour. Twice the speed we can travel in a carriage. Naturally, steam locomotion is a longer investment. These things take time, but coal would be a good investment in the short term since those machines that exist or will come about shortly need coal to burn to create the steam. The price may not rise, but at the very least, the volume of use will ensure more is sold."

This last part got their attention, and some broke off to mumble among themselves. Xander watched as Edmund's gaze scanned the crowd again.

Lord, this chit had taken his interest.

She was pretty, he supposed, but Edmund rarely even danced with young ladies at these events as he only attended them to chaperone his younger sisters.

Much like Xander, Edmund never drank nor gambled. He did keep a mistress and had been her protector for six years now. Some even wondered if he loved her, as it was unusual for one to keep a mistress that long without getting bored and having your eye turned by another.

"Those are sound investments to make, I dare say!" said one of the older gentlemen in their company to Xander.

"By all that is holy, please tell me that my boring big brother has not become so excruciatingly tedious as to talk of investments at a ball! Go and dance, man!"

Xander turned to see his youngest sibling, Samuel, and his sidekick Rees Roper, Viscount Hereford, approaching him.

Naturally, his brother's blasé tone grated on his nerves. "Actually, it was Seymour who was discussing business at the other's request. As you know, he would normally be loathsome to do so."

Xander noted the drink in Sam's hand and the slight drunken sway to his walk and slurring of his words. He had to refrain from rolling his eyes actively. He hoped his parents had not seen the inebriated state of their youngest son. It was already the cause of much embarrassment for them.

Xander sighed, trying to release the tension and not react to Sam's taunting. He allowed his gaze to drift over the crowds of what was only the beginning of a London Season.

He was bored.

So very bored.

Lately, he had begun to feel like he was lacking something. Almost like life and all within it was bland. A restlessness sat heavily on him, making him itch to do something so out of character. To shock people, to shock his heart into beating again. He didn't know when it had stopped, but now he had noticed, he couldn't shift the desire to kick start it again.

☙

Sam looked over at his brother, noting he was standing with Benji and Edmund. He had been a point of interest for him these last few weeks.

Seymour's father was American and still had business and connections over there. Sam was tasked with investigating the Seymour's by his superior.

Sam was a spy for the foreign office, undertaking missions to infiltrate and investigate people and operations both home and abroad.

The Americans had caused issues for the Royal Navy by trading with France.

Sam's other brother, Josiah, acted as a commodore for the last four years. They shared information and tracked down many American ships and some of the men on land that orchestrated the dealings when they could.

Lately, however, the ships had an uncanny ability to escape, and Sam had the feeling that there was someone on the inside that was selling information.

He suspected the Seymour's of buying such information and that they were behind some of the ships coming from America and making their way to France. If he could find out from them who they got said information from, he would know who it was on the inside. War profiteering was a nasty business indeed.

He crossed over to the few men, all the time remembering to sway a little, slur his words a little, maybe throw in a hiccup or two in for good measure. Of course, he was a master of behaving pie-eyed now. Having perfected the act over the last decade, he was notorious throughout the ton as a wastrel.

He was the one all mothers warned their daughters to stay clear of. He brushed aside the guilt from behaving this way, especially at his parents' ball.

Sam knew his mother hated it, and she wanted so badly for them to get married and start filling their nurseries. She often commented that his reputation might just be beyond repair if he didn't get his act together and stop his profligate and rakehell ways. He wondered if mama was correct as a young lady was pulled out of his path by her frowning chaperone as he staggered on by.

It wasn't even like he was interested. What use would a virginal debutante be? Maybe as a wife, someone who he had time to teach, time to get to know one another, perhaps. But for fulfilling one's baser needs, it was much easier to be with a widow who knows what they want. The virtuous daughters of the ton were safe for the time being.

He smirked at his brother, "By all that is holy, please tell me my boring big brother has not become so excruciatingly tedious as talking about investments at a ball! Go and dance, man!" The last said with a flourishing sweep of his hand.

"Actually, it was Seymour who was discussing business at the other's request, and you know he would normally be loathsome to do so." Xander sounded so uptight and stuffy.

Good God, Xander was dull! How had he ended up like this when the three of them had the same parents? Sam figured he would never understand Xander and why he was so dour-faced and serious all the time.

Joss and Sam had easy-going personalities and were generally well-received, albeit not from some mothers. Still, he always got invited to the parties. He knew not to shame himself to the point of no return. He needed to be able to attend these events after all.

Sam turned his head, shocked as a pretty petite redhead popped out from behind his brother and scurried away from them. He swayed a little and smiled. "Where the hell did she come from?" he asked as he leaned around to look behind his eldest brother. "Do you have a trap door in your silk breeches, Xander?"

Sam's teasing got the chuckles he knew it would. He was looked back at his brothers' face, expecting to see the scowl that lived upon it more often than not these days. His brother, however, was watching Edmund with an amused smirk upturning his lips.

Interesting!

"Excuse me, gentlemen. I have something I must attend to," Edmund said and marched off in the same direction as the redhead. Noting the surprise pass over Benji's face, his brother shook his head, still smiling.

Damn it. Sam needed to get some information out of Seymour tonight. Perhaps Seymour knew he was being watched. Indeed, he didn't suspect Sam and Rees of spying on him, even though they were. But why else would he walk away as soon as Sam had arrived?