The day was when he would bound out of bed, eager to get to the House of Lords and tackle the enormous complexities of moving large groups of men to do exactly what he wished them to. These days he felt as if he staggered to the carriage.
His fainting episode last autumn didn’t help.
He tried not to think about it too much; what man wants to contemplate his own mortality? But imperceptibly it crept into his thoughts and dreams so that it poisoned his every moment. The morning it happened he hadn’t slept more than a few hours for two days. He was running on energy and will power, laying the groundwork for Pitt’s takeover of Parliament.
And now Pitt was almost there. He was a good, solid man. Fox would have to retreat to his country house, St. Anne’s Hill, and live with that courtesan he took with him everywhere. Pitt would usher in a new era without corruption, without scandal…
Except for the scandals attached to Jemma, of course.
He ended up sitting on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. The truth of it was that he wasn’t the Prime Minister and never would be. He was an attendant lord. A necessary one. An impassioned man at his best—except he hadn’t been at his best since last October.
The House of Lords had been in session. He was standing, talking of the madness of acceding to Fox’s demands. Before him rose serried ranks of white wigs, beneath them the little faces with their mouths moving as they chattered to their neighbors, listening to him, listening to them…as was the custom. And yet he soldiered on, making his points for the fourth or the fifth time, because he’d discovered that no one seemed to hear him the first, and sometimes even the fifth time.
And then it felt as if those little moving faces under the white wigs were disappearing, leaving rows and rows of wigs. He blinked and kept going, but the wigs were getting bigger and then there were no faces at all. And then, thankfully, it all went away.
He was grateful. He didn’t care to be lecturing to nothing more than empty rows of wigs.
Some six months had passed since that morning. The House went into recess and came out again. He showed no further signs of keeling over, though Pitt viewed him, he thought, with a certain veiled anxiety.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about all the empty wigs, and the tiny chattering mouths under them. The fact that his father died at thirty-four didn’t help. That gave him only one year, measured against his father’s life.
His valet bustled into the room. “There’s quite a commotion below, Your Grace,” he said. Elijah was quite aware that without Vickery’s reports he wouldn’t have the faintest idea what went in his own household, although before his wife returned from Paris, these reports were brief descriptions of Cook’s lumbago, or the second footman’s propensity for pocketing silver.
“Teddy?”
Vickery laughed. “No, the devil himself is already out of the house. His lordship hired the nursemaid sent by the Registry Office this morning, and she’s taken him to the park. I’ve my doubts of her tenure, as do we all. She’s a prim one. And Master Teddy is fairly focused on”—he lowered his voice—“bodily processes, if you don’t mind the comment, Your Grace.”
Elijah snorted. “So what’s the fuss about, if not Teddy? Are we having another ball?”
“Lady Roberta’s father sent a message saying he’ll arrive this afternoon. Him as they call the Mad Marquess. It’s luncheon with Mr. Pitt and the King today, isn’t it, Your Grace? And a meeting before that. And then in the afternoon…”
“Committee for abolishment of the liberties. Then the Serene Company of Cloth Workers at their hall in Mincing Lane.”
Vickery was a snob. “Why must you meet them?” he demanded. “Waste of your time, and they ought to make do with someone lower.”