The Seduction of Lady X by Julia London Read Free Book Online

never met.
    Among his earliest memories, vague as they were, he could remember one of his mother’s so-called friends, a smiling gentleman in a wig and with long lacy cuffs giving him sweetmeats before ascending up the stairs to his mother’s boudoir. That same gentleman had taken a liking to him and had seen to it that Harrison had a tutor. Harrison’s tutor, Mr. Ridley, had been a lover of books, and had passed that love to Harrison. Harrison considered his books his companions while his mother was otherwise engaged and he was left to rear himself.
    He directed Mr. Fish to a leather winged-back chair at the hearth, where a fire glowed. Water from Mr. Fish’s muddied boots and trousers pooled on the fine Aubusson rug Harrison had inherited from his mother’s house.
    Mr. Fish noticed it, too. “I do beg your pardon,” he said. “It is quite a deluge, and Everdon Court is rather far removed from the main roads.”
    It was indeed. A grand estate sitting on a thousand acres of deep woods and tilled fields took a bit of effort to reach. “Think nothing of it,” Harrison said, and sat across from Mr. Fish, crossing one leg casually over the other. Rue bustled in with a towel, which she handed to Mr. Fish with a curtsy.
    “Pardon, what else was I to do, sir?” she asked Harrison.
    “Fetch Mrs. Lampley.”
    “Ah,” she said, as if the sun had just shone through the window, and hurried out again.
    “Much obliged,” Mr. Fish said, and proceeded to wipe the rain from his face and shoulders and hands. “Can’t recall a rain quite like this.”
    “What’s this about Ashwood?” Harrison asked impatiently.
    Mr. Fish folded the towel neatly in his lap. “It is rather extraordinary,” he said. “My advice is that you should brace yourself, Mr. Tolly, for there is reason to believe that the late Earl of Ashwood may have been some relation to you.”
    Harrison couldn’t help but smile at the careful description. “If that is your way of stating that I may have been his by-blow, I shall spare you any theatrics and confirm that it is true, Mr. Fish.”
    Mr. Fish’s eyes nearly leapt out of his head with surprise.
    Harrison never spoke of it, and he did not like to be reminded of it. “If you have come all this way to tell me something that is quite well known to me, you have wasted your time. I was not personally acquainted with the man who sired me, but I am well aware of who he was.”
    “Splendid,” Mr. Fish said, undeterred. “We discovered your lineage in the parish records in a London church. However, that is not the reason for my call, Mr. Tolly.”
    “There cannot possibly be more.” Harrison knew all there was to know of his father, of his long-standing relationship with his mother. Much to his chagrin, there had been few secrets between him and his mother.
    “It would seem,” Mr. Fish said, as he stretched his hands toward the fire, “that you may be his only true heir.”
    Still, Harrison shrugged. “I am still his bastard son. I fail to see the significance of your call.”
    “In this highly unusual case, being his one true heir would make you the heir to Ashwood.”
    Harrison laughed at that.
    Mr. Fish glanced up at him. “I would not have come all this way if I did not believe it were true, Mr. Tolly.”
    Harrison would have told him he’d come all this way for nothing, but Mrs. Lampley’s young son appeared with the tea service. Harrison met him at the door and took it from him, then returned to the hearth and placed the fine silver service—also his mother’s—on a small table. “Did you come from London, Mr. Fish?” he asked congenially as he poured them tea.
    “I have come directly from Ashwood at the behest of the countess. Except that she is not the countess any longer. The late earl and his wife adopted Miss Lily Boudine, and until very recently, it was believed that she was the sole surviving and rightful heir. However, now that we have discovered your existence, she can no