Toast of the Season

❖ Chapter 1 ❖

❖ Lord Edmund Westworth ❖

I notice the sour faces around the gaming table as I slide another pile of money to myself from the middle. My opponents' faces show annoyance that I'm having another run of luck at cards. I am sure the bored expression on my own face is unnerving to them as well. I suspect they would much rather I be more emotionally vested in winning their pocket money. 

White's Gentlemen's Club is the most exclusive club in London and thereby, all of England. But it no longer holds the allurements for me that it did in my youth. 

I smirk at my own thoughts. I am six and twenty years old but in my mind I bid goodbye to my youth two years ago when I became the Earl of Beaumont. Since then, I have become preoccupied with my responsibilities. My friends would hardly recognize me as the boy that was so carefree and wild in my childhood. I have become serious and responsible beyond my years. My closest friends have noticed what a recluse I've become. I'm sure the rest would have difficulty believing that I would so much rather be at Beaumont Manor up to my elbows in the running of my estate than wasting time at anything in stuffy London.

But I am a dutiful son and my mother has requested I be here for the start of the London season. She still has hope that, as her oldest, I will find a suitable match and start on making grandbabies for her. A task I am in no way ready to even think on. I will stay here in London a few days then find some excuse to return quickly to Beaumont. As long as nothing comes up to sour my plan I will be home before the end of the week.

I feel a hand roughly shaking my shoulder as a welcome voice interrupts my melancholy thoughts, "Edmund, can you ever let someone else win?! I'm honestly surprised anyone plays with you anymore."

I stand to give William Saville a hearty handshake. "Good to see you Will. It has been months, how is your family?" I introduce my best friend to the card players he doesn't know.

"They are good, everyone is well. You've not answered my question, how do you entice them to lose to you over and over?" He points to the gentlemen across the table.

William and I have been friends since boarding school, we also attended University together. He has always had an easy going, happy nature and there isn't a better friend in the world. "There is more truth in your question than you suspect. Half the money I'm winning is from my own coffers. They refused to play otherwise."

William laughs as we sit down. But his countenance changes, "I may regret this but I'm on a mission from my mother to beg for a favor." 

My eyebrows raise. Lady Saville isn't in the habit of asking for favors, she is usually more able to fulfill them. I apologize to my poker partners for the interruption. Two of them bid goodbye, glad to get out of the losing game. Our friend, Fredrick Atbury, a pale thin dark haired man a few years older than me and an older portly gentleman named Mr. Davis both stay. I turn back to William, "I'm intrigued, go on then."

William looks regretful as he plunges in, "I told her this was ridiculous but in the end it was easier to ask you than to try to go against my mother." We give each other a knowing look, Lady Saville can be a force to be reckoned with. "My youngest sister, Anne, is having her debut season and my mother would like you to dance with her at Almack's tonight."

My face drops. Not this again. "Please tell me you are jesting." The look on William's face tells me he is not. I find myself frowning, "But isn't Anne the one in pigtails? Usually carrying a doll or puppy?"

William throws his head back in laughter, "That was years ago, she is sixteen now. Personally, I think she is too young to have a season, but she and my mother are set on it. And as you know, my father goes along with whatever she decides."