The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle

carry on with my dinner.”
    “Yes, well, that was before you refused to go to the funeral.”
    “Planning to starve me out, eh?” he said, winking. “It won’t work, Mother.”
    She set both hands flat on the table, and leaned into him. “Aleric, stop it,” she said. “Stop joking and eating and drinking and talking about your whores, and just listen! It is time you and your father reconciled. He is very sorry, you know. He always had been. He never meant—well, all those things he said. That’s why I’ve come. I need you to reconcile. Please.”
    Aleric gave her a sidling glance. “After you rag me about Father, is this going to turn into one of those lectures about finding a wife and doing my duty, isn’t it?”
    His mother threw her hands up in exasperation. “Heavens, no!” she answered. “As much as I love you, I wouldn’t wish you on any female I know. Besides, I have not the heart to part you from your opera dancers and your actresses. I daresay you’ve one—perhaps one of each—upstairs lounging in your bathtub, even as we speak.”
    “There is no woman in this house.”
    His mother’s eyes narrowed knowingly. “Ah,” she said. “Left you again, has she?”
    Aleric scowled. “Yes. Again. Try to contain your delight.”
    His mother sighed, long and deep. “Aleric, my dear,” she began. “Find another. Find two or three. I no longer care. But you’ve stewed in your grief and anger long enough. We cannot all go on as we are. I need you and your father to at least try to get along. Please. I’m begging.”
    Devellyn was quiet for a long moment. He had no wish to see his mother unhappy. It wasn’t as if he chose to torment her. “Why must we do this again, Mother?”
    He noticed this time that her hand trembled a little as she finally sat back down. She let her head fall forward onto the heels of her hands, and when she spoke, she addressed the tablecloth. “Aleric,” she said quietly. “Aleric, it is his heart.”
    Suddenly, the room felt unsteady beneath Devellyn’s chair. “His…heart?”
    His mother looked at him with simple sorrow in her eyes. “Oh, Aleric,” she whispered. “He has not long.”
    “How long?”
    She shrugged lamely. “A few months?” she suggested. “A year, or perhaps two if he rests. If he suffers no stress. If —”
    “If I swallow my pride and beg forgiveness?” Devellyn interjected. “Is that it? Well, it won’t work, Mother. I did that for all of six months. It did not help. His only son is dead, remember? We are beyond this now.”
    His mother’s face was one of anguish. “You are going to be the next duke, my dear,” she whispered. Think how it looks.”
    It was Aleric’s turn to shove back his chair and rise. “Good God, Mother!” He threw his hands in the air. “Do you imagine for one instant I care how things look? I’ve hardly lived a life of respectability and circumspection, now, have I?”
    “Indeed not,” she agreed. “And I wonder whom you most wish to punish by it, yourself, or your father.”
    His expression bitter, Devellyn shook his head. “Don’t be melodramatic,” he said. “I was never a saint, and neither was Greg.”
    His mother leapt from her chair again and crossed the room to lay her hand on his arm. “Listen to me, Aleric,” she said. “All young men sow wild oats. And then, why, they turn their lives around! You and Gregory were just mischievous.”
    “You have been reading too many novels, Mother,” he said quietly. “And I am no longer a young man. Does Father know you’re here?”
    Her expression softened. “A good marriage has no secrets, Aleric.”
    “What did he say?”
    She swallowed hard and shook her head. “Nothing. But he did not forbid me.”
    Aleric gave her a sour grin. “No, no, he would not dare!”
    Somewhere in the house, a clock struck the hour. His mother rose onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I should go,” she said. “I’ll be at Aunt Admeta’s until Wednesday,