A boy like you, better than my Stinson? I couldn’t countenance it.
Swallowing hard, he shrugged off the old anger and rush of unworthiness. His mother had been born a free woman of mixed heritage. His father, a duke’s spare, had loved and married her and, when she died in childbirth, brought his infant son back to England to be raised in his family home. When Courtland was barely a few months old, his father had remarried—most likely to secure him a replacement mother—but it became apparent by the time he was five that his new stepmother didn’t care to raise another woman’s child.
Who his own mother had been didn’t signify…until it did.
Until Courtland was deemed a hindrance to the new marchioness’s ambition.
And once his father died, she’d made it her mission to get rid of Courtland. It was obvious she wanted the dukedom for her own son, born shortly after him, though Courtland couldn’t imagine how she intended to accomplish that, short of murder. Primogeniture was a devil of a thing.
She resented that he was heir as the firstborn male and despised him for it.
Her son too.
At home, his younger half brother had made life intolerable, and when they were away at Harrow, life had become unbearable. He’d fought and was bloodied every day by his so-called peers, including Stinson, whom Courtland suspected was behind a lot of the hostility and certainly relished his older brother’s torture. He’d defended himself. Who wouldn’t? Eventually, they’d kicked him out at sixteen, citing rebelliousness and belligerence.
The marchioness—by way of Stinson—had offered him passage anywhere he wanted and enough money to live on and support a small retinue. He was young, but he did not return to London or to the ancestral seat in Kettering. He’d boarded a train to Europe instead. He’d then apprenticed to a Spanish railway industrialist and paid his own way to finish his education at the Central University of Madrid.
Blessed with a keen mind, he invested heavily in shipping and trade, and he eventually migrated to the West Indies to see if he could locate any of his maternal family. When he had arrived, it’d been a shock to his system. A wonderful life-changing shock—one he’d sensed in the air he’d breathed into his lungs and felt to the marrow of his bones. This was home.
The British gentry had welcomed him with open arms, but they’d always been swayed by pretty faces and prettier fortunes. The islanders had taken longer, but he’d been determined to earn their trust. And he had. Now, Courtland belonged here. He’d built his fortune and reinvested in local infrastructure. The Starlight was his kingdom, and here, he reigned.
This bold, cocksure boy who was testing his patience needed to know his place.
“I never lose,” he told the smug Mr. Hunt.
“Everyone loses sometimes,” the lad shot back. “Get used to it.”
Courtland smirked. “Not me.”
“‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’”
An unexpected chuckle burst out of him. “Let me guess, you forgot to mention you’re the seventh son of a vicar?”
From beneath the wild sprigs of auburn curls poking askew from beneath the boy’s hat, sharp eyes the color of polished pennies narrowed on him. They shone with intelligence and suspicion. Good, the brat wasn’t foolish. “Something like that. I’ll just collect my winnings and be off, then.”
Hunt stood and pulled his coat tight, his fingers darting up to the inside of his waistcoat. Courtland noted the garment was well stitched, though the edges along the coat cuffs had seen some wear. It seemed like normal wear and tear for such fabric, but Courtland suddenly felt sure there might be a card hidden in one of those sleeves. “Wait,” he commanded in a deadly soft voice.
The young man froze. Courtland could care less about the money, but the principle mattered. His gaze glanced to the crowd standing a few feet away and those seated at the table. If he didn’t act and Hunt had indeed cheated, it would encourage others, and that, he could not permit.
He nodded to one of the men behind him and the porter stepped up to the boy, grabbing him by his arms. Hunt tried to pull away without success. “Unhand me at once, sir!”
“Remove your coat,” Courtland ordered.
“What? No!” The boy’s coppery eyes rounded with panic. “What kind of establishment is this? I’ll have you know I will seek out the owner of the Starlight and have you thrown bodily from this hotel. How dare you, sir? You cannot do this.”
“You’re in luck, puppy. I’m the owner so feel free to state your grievance at any time. Now, remove that coat.”
“This is an outrage,” the boy insisted, his thin shoulders trembling with indignation.
His mouth opened and closed, a rivulet of sweat trickling from his temple to the hairless apple of his cheek. He was a baby. Courtland wouldn’t put him at more than seventeen, if that. The thin brown mustache over his lip seemed out of place on his face, and it also seemed to be traveling of its own accord and curling away at the corner. The more the youth struggled, the more it shifted. Courtland’s gaze narrowed on the brown stubble along the lad’s sloping downy jaw where sweat mixed in with the chin hairs.
What in the hell? Was that ink?
“Remove your coat or Rawley here will do it for you. Or break your arms if you don’t cease struggling.”
His man of affairs and second cousin, Rawley was a large local with a razor-sharp wit, a quick brain that outmatched many, and enough brawn to deter the most hardened of troublemakers. Courtland had hired him years before, and now, he trusted him with his life.
“No, wait,” Hunt pleaded. “Please.”
Someone in the crowd jeered. “If you have nothing to hide, take it off.”
In the next moment, Rawley yanked the coat off the boy’s shoulders, buttons popping. A high-pitched yelp tore from the boy as the plain waistcoat went next, leaving him standing there in a linen shirt, hastily knotted cravat, and trousers. His narrow frame shook, shoulders hunching forward, arms crossed over his middle.
“Please, cease this,” he begged in a plaintive whisper. “You don’t understand.”
Courtland hesitated at the hushed desperation in the boy’s voice. It wasn’t in him to publicly shame someone this young who might have made a mistake and could learn a valuable lesson, and besides, he liked the boy’s spirit. However, before he could order Rawley to take him to his private office, his burly factotum, Fawkes, shoved through the crowd. He was closely followed by a perspiring, balding, well-heeled man.
“What is it, Fawkes?”
“Mr. Chase. An urgent messenger has arrived.” The man was fairly bursting with news, and a dribble of unease slid down Courtland’s spine. “From London. From—”