PROLUGUE :
In the shadows of his lodging near white hall, over- looking St.james's park, Jack Fairchild raised his head. Behind his closed eyelids, light blinded him. It was the normal painful light of a realization that came too late. he tried to swallow, but couldn't, his head slumped backwards. it was over .
Life as he'd known it would never be the same. Like a desperate man clinging to the familiar days as it slips away, he reached out and combed the sleek, dark red mahogany Chippendale table where he'd dined privately with so many beautiful women. The sanity feel of the expensive wood on his fingertips, and the soft squeak of the skin on polish, soothed him. He sighed and his eyes fluttered open.
He consciously tried to memorize every lovely details the green striped silk wallpaper, the warm flow of dozens of candles in the tinkling crystal chandelier overhead, the smell of fresh flowers on the sideboard, the rich, almost gaudy red Oriental dinner set imported by the east India company, always plentifully dressed with fashionable delicacies Russian caviar, Portuguese hams, Laplander reindeer tongue, lobster patties. Of course,he'd taken it all for granted. what a fool he'd been !
Never again would he be admitted to the all-important and prestigious Almack's, he thought as he listened to the rumble of carriage wheels over the damp cobblestones below. Indeed, if he did not act soon enough, he would instead be listening to the uneasy breathing of those who spent restless nights in the debtors prison, desperately hoping a reprieve that would come, for Jack thoroughly in dun territory. Overnight John Calhoun Fairchild, heir apparent to Barons Tutley, had become improvised.
The late summer breeze fluttered around his perspiring temples, chilling his overheated skin, and knocked the dread letter to the floor. He did not retrieve it. He knew it by heart. He'd read it over and over again since it's arrival this morning. When letter had come, announcing the real possibility that he might be imprisoned for his father's debt, Of course since he practically left the debt for him and died peacefully,Jack's house of cards had crumbled. He didn't even have enough money to try to gamble his way out of this one. Last night, he'd lost his last hand at White's.
That left him with only one way out.
He reached for the duelling pistol his father had used to blow a hole in his head. With sweat streaming down his brow, he picked up the weapon, hating it, but needing more than anything in the world to end his sorrow this way. His hand was trembling, and he could hardly still it long enough to finish the task. He had just raised the pistol in the air when the door flew open behind his immediately.
"No, Mr. Fairchild, you cannot do it !" cried out his secretary. The portly Mr. Clayton Harding ran to his side and gripped Jack's wrist, jerking his employer's hand toward the ceiling. "I won't let you ! The situation isn't that bad!".
" Let go, Harding,'' Jack said with sang froid, regarding him with as much as an idiot to think he could kill himself just like that, Though that was what he wanted to do just now.
"No, sir, I won't let you take your own life, at least not until I retire , I still need my paycheck !"
"Take my own life ?" Jack blurted out a disbelieving laugh. " I had no such intention, I assure you. Now let go of my arm before it goes numb. Really, Harding, you have the most dramatic sense of perception.if I wanted to kill myself I'd lie down in front a carriage in Hyde Park and save my creditors the price of a bullet."