Free Fortune's Son by Emery Lee Page A

you’re doing?” she hissed, as he forcibly lifted her from the chair.
    â€œProtecting you from yourself.”
    She glared. “Perhaps I only require protection from you!”
    Philip replied with a low, ironic chuckle, “That may prove truer than you know.”
    ***
    She was infuriated when Philip had curtailed her play by manhandling her at the gaming tables, and outraged when he bundled her unceremoniously into a hackney, but with the light of day came the remorseful acknowledgement that he had indeed protected her from her own uncontrolled impulses. Had he not intervened, she might well have continued losing.
    As it stood, she’d departed Belsize House with seventy-five pounds in her pocket, half again what she had brought with her, but unfortunately not enough. At least it was sufficient to pay her servants’ back wages, and more important, the evening had proven that her plan was not as outlandish as Jane had implied.
    If she could win twenty-five pounds in a single night with minimal tutelage, how much more might she gain if Philip were to take her truly under his wing?
    Although he had preached a very pretty sermon about the evils of the tables, she remained undeterred. On the contrary, she was more convinced that she could soon come about, if he would only cooperate. The wrinkle, to her growing consternation, was that Philip was not so easily led.

Nine
The Prodigal Son
    Philip rose well before his habitual noontide with a purpose he refused to dwell upon too closely. He set about his toilette with unusual care. For lack of a manservant, he washed and shaved himself. He then donned his best white lawn shirt whose former magnificence had since dimmed, adding the mark of gentility, cascades of French lace at his throat and cuffs that spilled over his hands to reveal only the tips of his fingers.
    With as much tenderness as the best valet, he dressed in his claret-colored silk breeches and brushed the nap of his velvet coat, pausing with a frown at the visible wear in the fabric, the fray of the silver lacing, and the thinning of the elbows. One would hardly note his shabby finery in the darkened gaming rooms he frequented, but surely his less-than-prosperous state of affairs would be remarkable under bright streaks of morning sun.
    He shrugged with resignation. If invited by his lordship to sit, he would simply choose a place away from any window. Philip paused at his reflection in the tarnished looking glass, wondering if he should have powdered his hair, and although it was morning, he took a generous fortifying swig from a flask he then secreted in his pocket.
    The sudden summons from the earl after a four-year silence had him more shaken than he cared to admit. Exiting his lodgings, Philip hailed a passing sedan chair to convey him via Oxford Street to King’s Square.
    ***
    Arriving at what was, in the last century, one of the most fashionable addresses in London, Philip alighted from the sedan chair and paid the two bearers. Surveying the locale, he noted little change during his extended absence. At the center still stood the two distinct landmarks, a half-timbered hut for the gardener of the meticulously manicured square and a statue of Charles II, carved by Danish sculptor Caius Cibber.
    The square itself was originally named after the Duke of Monmouth, one of the monarch’s many bastard sons, who had resided there until his rebellion against his uncle, James II. After Monmouth’s subsequent execution, the address thereafter became known as simply King’s Square.
    The statue also was claimed by many to have actually been of Monmouth rather than of King Charles, and, confessing a certain admiration for the bastard son who would attempt to usurp the crown, Philip had always fancied the notion that it was. Feeling in many ways a kindred spirit to the king’s ill-fated bastard, Philip swept a playful obeisance to the statue.
    Having now stalled long enough to marshal