The Revenge of Lord Eberlin Read Online Free PDF

and her bottom lip would quiver. Good.
    At the Grousefeather, Tobin nursed his pint along, saying little as Sibley talked about his lofty ambitions. A full-bosomed serving girl caught Tobin’s eye; she smiled at him and walked by their table with an exaggerated swing of her wide hips. Tobin supposed she’d had her fair share of gentlemen abovestairs; however, he would not be among them. He’d give Hadley Green nothing untoward to say of him. They would see that they could not destroy the Scotts, that he’d come back stronger than ever.
    When Sibley turned his attention to two gentlemen who had overheard his bragging, Tobin left the tavern. He was untying his horse’s lead when he happened to see Mr. and Mrs. Morton. They saw him, too—then turned the other way and pretended they had not.
    Tobin yanked the rein free.
    He’d dined at their home, for God’s sake. Once word had circulated that Count Eberlin was at Tiber Park, the invitations had begun to flow. It had seemed thateveryone had wanted to get a look at him, to put themselves in his circle of acquaintances, and the Mortons—an influential family—had been among the first. He’d accepted their invitation, for he remembered they’d been in Hadley Green at the time of his father’s demise.
    Tobin hadn’t known that his father had been all but forgotten until he’d arrived at the Mortons’ home in a brand-new barouche coach just delivered from London, expecting to see a house that, in his memory, was quite grand. He’d been disappointed to find it much smaller than that. He’d been shown into the house by a hired butler and invited to sit on furnishings he’d found quite pedestrian.
    He remained standing.
    The company was likewise pedestrian. There were no sea captains, no mercenaries, no wealthy traders. Just country folk who believed their pastoral lives were somehow interesting.
    At some point during the main course, a guest had asked Tobin about his title. He’d said that it was a Danish title. The look on the guest’s face—Freestone or Firestone, something like that—had been quite puzzled. “I suppose it is inherited from your mother?”
    Tobin had chuckled. “If I had inherited even a few farthings, I doubt I would have risked running the naval blockade. No, sir, I bought the title and the estate from a displaced Danish count. That is the only manner in which Tobin Scott could ever possess a title.” He’d chuckled again and drunk his wine.
    The room had grown so quiet that he’d heard someone’s belly rumble. There was quite a lot of nervous shifting and looking about. Mr. Morton had peered closely at him. “Might I inquire, my lord . . . who was your father?”
    “Joseph Scott, the wood-carver,” Tobin had said casually, as if it was common knowledge, as if they ought to have known—which, to his thinking, they should have.
    Tobin didn’t know precisely what he’d expected, but as he looked around the dinner table, he was a bit nonplussed. Could they not see how he’d persevered? Did they not hold at least a bit of respect for his having pulled himself up and out of the abyss?
    Apparently not. The dinner had grown increasingly uncomfortable. The people around him had made stilted conversation. He’d understood then that not one of them understood that he was, in fact, the oldest son of that condemned wood-carver.
    Tobin had found that rather curious. He had a personal portrait of his father, done when his father had been a young man, and he thought that the resemblance between them was quite marked. Had the residents of Hadley Green completely forgotten Joseph Scott? Was he nothing but a footnote in the history of this village, the man who had carved a magnificent staircase at Ashwood that had cost him his life?
    Tobin did not seek to hide his identity. If anyone cared to look, they’d find his given name was on anylegal document having to do with Tiber Park. If anyone had asked him if he was, in fact, the son of Joseph Scott,